This story was initially printed by ProPublica.

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John Brooks Hamby was 9 years previous the final time a gaggle of Western states renegotiated how they share the dwindling Colorado River. When the high-stakes talks concluded two years later, in 2007, with a spherical of painful cuts, he hadn’t reached highschool.

But this June an viewers of water coverage specialists listened with rapt consideration as Hamby, now 27, recited classes from these deliberations.

Hamby, California’s boyish-looking consultant on points regarding the river, sat shoulder-to-shoulder with the opposite states’ highly effective water managers, lots of whom have a long time of expertise, an virtually uncomfortable sight given their newest brawl over the beleaguered Colorado River. The group had gathered in a mock courtroom on the College of Colorado Legislation Faculty to debate water legislation and to area questions on their negotiations over shortages which have prompted some cities to limit development and farmers to fallow fields.

The moderator requested whether or not states would permit Native American tribes within the basin, who’ve typically been denied the water they have been assured by treaties and courtroom rulings, to have an equal say in these selections, referencing a query posed earlier by the governor of the Gila River Indian Neighborhood, a tribe in Arizona. Hamby jumped to supply a noncommittal reply about involving tribes in “efficient conversations” earlier than pivoting to a dialogue of how, throughout the 2007 negotiations, smaller working teams had allowed the states and different water customers to successfully iron out potential impasses.

The one different state delegate to reply endorsed Hamby’s reply, an indication of how rapidly he has risen to the highest of the river’s ranks. Hamby — who goes by J.B. — is the youngest of the Colorado River’s “water buffaloes,” because the water managers who set coverage are identified.

Whereas his counterparts from the opposite basin states — Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — labored their means by way of water companies or weathered the shifting politics of assorted governors, Hamby’s ascent was swift. In a three-year span, he rose from a current Stanford College graduate, with a resume that touted little past a historical past diploma and internships with Uber and a senator, to vice chairman of the Imperial Irrigation District board and chair of the Colorado River Board of California. The previous submit gave him sway over the one largest person of Colorado River water, and the latter made him California’s interstate negotiator for points affecting the river basin.

Mixed, these roles place Hamby as arguably probably the most highly effective particular person concerned in talks on the way forward for the Colorado River, a waterway that’s relied upon by an estimated 35 million folks and helps about $1.4 trillion value of commerce.

Additionally they place him on the heart of the river’s most consequential second since midcentury, when Arizona and California went to the Supreme Court docket to battle over the quantity of water they have been allotted. Now the river’s customers should comply with dramatic cuts, because the river has been diminished by local weather change and drought. It’s a activity that calls for Hamby each shield California’s long-standing water rights and lead all seven basin states to collaborate on a decision, despite the fact that they’ll all have to present floor.

Hamby holds the trump card. The Legislation of the River — the compacts, legal guidelines and courtroom rulings that govern how the river is allotted — displays a time when water use was inspired to convey settlers west. And courtroom selections have favored customers with senior precedence rights, that means those that have been first to plant stakes alongside the river, file claims in county recorders’ workplaces and show their claims by taking water earlier than federal and state water legal guidelines have been codified. These with such rights are legally entitled to obtain their share of the river earlier than the subsequent particular person or company in line receives any. The Imperial Irrigation District holds among the basin’s oldest rights, relationship again to 1901.

Hamby defends this method, which permits the Imperial Valley — dwelling to solely half of a % of the river’s customers, Hamby included — to manage a few quarter of the river’s circulate. That’s greater than 10 occasions southern Nevada’s allocation and greater than your entire state of Arizona receives. A current ProPublica and Desert Solar evaluation discovered that 20 valley farming households use about 387 billion gallons of low cost water yearly, most of it to develop cattle feed, and one household makes use of extra water than your entire Las Vegas metropolitan space.

Even so, Hamby can solely go up to now in dictating the phrases of basinwide cuts. Strictly adhering to the century-old establishment could be catastrophic, as it will proceed a long time of overuse and will minimize off the provision to thousands and thousands of individuals in lower-priority cities and reservations. But when Hamby concedes an excessive amount of to the opposite states, he dangers costing California by upending the historic agreements that put the Golden State on the entrance of the road.

As an IID director, he should shield the precedence system most well-liked by farmers who use a lot of the river and worry the cities eyeing their share. As California’s negotiator, he additionally represents cities like Los Angeles and San Diego in addition to oft-overlooked tribes.

“Water is energy. Water is management. So why would anybody wish to give that up, to present it away to someone else?” mentioned Kyle Roerink, a Nevada environmentalist who runs the Nice Basin Water Community and has joined unlikely coalitions with Hamby preventing the area’s seemingly countless city development.

If the basin states can’t discover settlement, then the Legislation of the River reigns supreme, Hamby instructed ProPublica and The Desert Solar earlier this yr. “That’s the legislation, which everyone agreed to.” California is able to compromise on cuts, he added, “however we have to see one thing come from the opposite states.”

An origin story

Hamby grew up among the many scorching Imperial Valley farms and picked up the area’s “us towards the world” mentality that prospers alongside alfalfa, livestock and leafy greens. In California, desires solely go so far as water permits, and the valley’s farmers stay in fixed worry that cities are lusting after the water that sustains the native financial system.

Within the Imperial Valley, locals’ bona fides relaxation on what number of generations again their household arrived on this hardscrabble desert. Hamby’s great-grandfather “got here right here with $10 in his pocket on the again of a freight practice from Massive Spring, Texas,” as Hamby tells it, and labored as a ditch digger earlier than beginning a beekeeping enterprise. His household has remained within the agriculture business.

Hamby’s father has held varied gigs, from serving to develop a farm in China (to the dismay of some Imperial Valley growers) to his present enterprise rising seeds. And his mom labored on water points from a distinct angle, serving as a county environmental well being specialist, together with specializing in the air pollution that flowed by way of the valley through the New River.

If his household had a profitable farm to move on, Hamby, who was energetic in 4-H as a youngster, mentioned he would’ve embraced that profession path. “There’s been repeated battle, and desires can be constructed up and dashed and damaged,” Hamby mentioned of his household historical past. As an alternative, he regarded for different methods to form the valley.

Regardless of his agrarian upbringing, he had an origin story to launch him into conservative politics, if solely he needed that path.

In 2014, Hamby was to present a speech at his commencement because the salutatorian of his Brawley Union Excessive Faculty class. However he had chosen to write down an handle about his Christian religion, to which faculty directors objected, he mentioned, forcing {the teenager} to rewrite it a number of occasions.

On the ceremony, he stepped to the lectern, the new desert wind jostling his tassel and waving a line of American flags at his again. “Congratulations, class of 2014,” Hamby concluded, his phrases echoing over the sound system. “Thanks, and should the God of the Bible bless you, every one in all you, every single day of the remainder of your life.”

The group cheered. Proper-wing shops together with Fox Information featured tales of a scholar standing as much as what they noticed as censors, dubbing him a “red-blooded, Structure-loving American.” He was interviewed on nationwide tv about his stand for Christian spiritual liberty.

However one thing stored pulling Hamby towards battles grounded much less in identification politics and extra within the each day. Precisely how he got here to mix water and politics wasn’t totally clear to him as he sat in a Mexican restaurant within the Imperial Valley city of El Centro earlier this yr.

Requested if the battle over his commencement speech was the start of his story in politics, he pushed again. “Lives are very difficult and lengthy,” he provided.

Discovering a trigger

Even when he noticed himself turning into a farmer, political ambition has propelled Hamby his total life.

His mom instructed a neighborhood reporter that he had needed to be mayor at 5 years previous. At 17, he earned a three-week posting as a web page for Sen. Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat. In school, he interned for Sen. Ben Sasse, a Nebraska Republican. In 2019, he was appointed by the county board of supervisors to a area people advisory council.

Hamby, who mentioned he’s registered to vote and not using a celebration choice, repeatedly sought out larger causes.

Whereas in school, Hamby was concerned with political teams, together with, amongst others, the Stanford School Republicans and an anti-abortion group. As he waded into the college’s archives, it turned clearer the place he needed to focus his ambitions.

Hamby voraciously learn in regards to the West’s battles over water, marveling on the papers of Northcutt Ely, a storied water legal professional who argued the Supreme Court docket case Arizona v. California on the latter’s behalf, and Ray Lyman Wilbur, a former secretary of the inside who oversaw building of the Hoover Dam.

Requested how he felt residing within the archives whereas a few of his school compatriots partied, Hamby quipped, “Nicely, you might solely be within the archives within the daytime. There have been different alternatives within the nighttime, which I didn’t exploit.”

Roerink, the environmentalist, in contrast Hamby to the historic figures he studied who fought to guard the system that has assured California’s water. “Northcutt Ely and J.B. are saying a number of the identical issues, that improvement elsewhere finally impacts the rights of California,” he mentioned.

In a Fb submit celebrating his commencement from Stanford, Hamby included an image of himself smiling, diploma in hand, alongside a quote from John Wesley Powell, the one-armed explorer who led the primary U.S.-sponsored expedition down the Colorado River and tried to assist form early American coverage alongside the waterway, arguing that there wasn’t sufficient water to help mass Western growth.

“We are actually prepared to begin on our means down the Nice Unknown,” Hamby quoted from Powell’s musings on the river. “Our boats, tied to a standard stake, are chafing one another, as they’re tossed by the fretful river.”

4 months later, Hamby introduced his candidacy for the Imperial Irrigation District’s board of administrators.

Southern California’s massive purple Brexit bus

In an ad for the 2020 race, Hamby stares into the digicam and shakes his fist. “Imperial Valley’s water belongs to all of us, and it belongs right here,” he says. Massive cities are attempting to take the valley’s water and different water managers will permit that through “backroom political offers,” Hamby says within the video. However he would shield the dear useful resource if elected.

Hamby’s message struck a chord.

He had studied current profitable political actions: populist Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s election, the Labour Social gathering’s landslide 1997 win in Nice Britain and the conservative pro-Brexit marketing campaign in 2016.

He was significantly impressed by the infamous massive purple bus that toured the UK, spreading the message that the nation was spending big sums to prop up the European Union — a persuasive argument that was a lie. He additionally took be aware of environmentalists utilizing a large cellular bucket to protest an try to maneuver water from rural Nevada to Las Vegas. Hamby rented a flatbed, mounted an enormous pipe on the again and had it pushed across the Imperial Valley. The insinuation: That is how San Diego will purchase and siphon off your water.

“Individuals instantly bought it, particularly once you had a 30-, 40-foot pipe marauding across the space,” Hamby mentioned.

He vowed to carry a public referendum earlier than any extra Colorado River water was moved out of the valley. Hamby later led the cost to safe $250 million in federal funds if the irrigation district briefly minimize its use of river water, regardless of an outcry from farmers and environmental teams who solely had 24 hours to evaluate the plan earlier than the board voted on it. No referendum has been held.

Requested if he had damaged his marketing campaign promise, Hamby mentioned that he’s working to enshrine public enter in district coverage and that “we’re not shifting water to another locations. We’re sustaining it within the system to have the ability to shield our sole supply and provide.”

He additionally made stylistic adjustments as he entered the political area. He began going by J.B. as a result of it sounds extra “iconic,” he instructed a podcaster, and since potential voters have been getting confused by the identify Brooks, he instructed ProPublica and The Desert Solar. And he refined his look. He’s clean-shaven and sports activities a excessive and tight haircut. His wardrobe might be described as “company outing meets Western put on,” typically together with a turquoise bolo tie and the IID crest, which includes a crown adorning a defend, pinned to his lapel.

Throughout his marketing campaign, Hamby confronted questions on his inexperience and option to run in a district aside from the one the place he was raised. “JB continues to be a KID. JB wants a JOB. DON’T give him your VOTE. IID DIRECTOR shouldn’t be one’s first JOB out of school,” one constituent commented on-line, based on the Imperial Valley Press, a neighborhood newspaper that lined the race.

Nonetheless, Hamby was the highest vote-getter within the main, beating an incumbent who solid the deciding vote on a controversial 2003 settlement that transferred a portion of the valley’s water to cities to assist get California again inside its allotment. Most of the valley’s massive, rich farming households supported Hamby’s marketing campaign, which introduced in additional than $100,000, together with loans from his father’s firm.

Hamby garnered practically two-thirds of the final election vote. He had a mandate to defend the valley’s water rights.

Hamby’s time on the board bought off to a combative begin. Whereas ready to be seated, he confirmed up at board conferences, publicly calling on members to keep away from making vital selections till the brand new members have been seated. He and one other newly elected director skipped the district’s official swearing-in and held their very own because of a disagreement over who may attend amid COVID-19 restrictions.

When the outgoing board signed a sweeping venture labor settlement with Southern California unions days earlier than Hamby took workplace, he engineered a technique to tear it up by declaring that the movement to approve it was ambiguous and voting to nullify it. That transfer led to litigation, which was resolved when the district accepted a modified settlement.

Over time, as he confronted issues that may take collaboration to resolve, Hamby’s tone modified. The board, which has a historical past of dysfunction, confronted points starting from necessary water conservation that’s shrinking the Salton Sea — a terminal lake fed by irrigation runoff that’s now exposing communities to poisonous mud as water ranges fall and uncover the lakebed — to a robust farmer who has been battling in courtroom to interrupt the irrigation district’s management over water.

Lots of Hamby’s colleagues, together with fellow Director Javier Gonzalez, praised the younger director’s management. “He’s a tough employee,” Gonzalez mentioned. “He will get issues finished.”

The rewards of the job are much less monetary and extra the flexibility to pursue coverage targets. The irrigation district’s administrators make round $50,000 yearly. Hamby drives an getting older Toyota Prius and says he lives in a “bachelor residence.” However even along with his work ethic, there have been limits to how a lot Hamby may ship on his marketing campaign guarantees to maintain the district’s water within the Imperial Valley.

To do this, he wanted to be on the desk with the basin’s water buffaloes.

On the head of the desk

Energy within the Colorado River Basin lies largely with the seven states and their designated representatives now haggling over cuts to water allocations.

The Colorado River Board of California is the state’s consultant. Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed Hamby to the board a couple of months after he was sworn in on the irrigation district.

Lower than two years later, the chair, who acts because the state’s negotiator, unexpectedly introduced he wouldn’t search reelection.

The board is break up between representatives of rural water districts that largely serve farmers and concrete water districts serving Los Angeles, San Diego and different cities. A member of the San Diego County Water Authority board emerged because the cities’ candidate for chair, with Hamby because the choice of the agricultural irrigation districts. Neither candidate had sufficient votes to win, and a few of Hamby’s earlier brash remarks left an older water supervisor feeling uneasy about voting for him.

Glen Peterson, who was then the board’s consultant from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which serves 19 million folks, was contemplating supporting Hamby however “had issues” about his public statements. After a frank dialog between the 2 and a few maneuvering with different board members, the votes shifted.

“I feel he’s a beautiful child. And he’s actually sensible and, for his age, he’s extraordinarily mature,” Peterson mentioned. “I imply, this man most likely sat on the massive folks’s desk when he was a youngster.”

Hamby was elected the brand new chair, overseeing California’s negotiations with the remainder of the basin states.

“Historically, it’s been, ‘You maintain the position and you then die in it,’” Hamby defined. “IID’s had three folks maintain the place earlier than. The earlier three died within the position.” (The chair of the board now serves four-year phrases, however there is no such thing as a restrict on the variety of phrases.)

When requested what occurs subsequent on the river, the place he would’ve as soon as introduced rhetorical fireplace and brimstone, he now affords coded responses. “I must develop really consensus-based approaches to develop a brand new set of working pointers and requirements that everyone can agree on, as a result of there’s necessity,” he mentioned.

Charting the river’s future

With aggressive conservation efforts already underway in some elements of the Colorado River Basin, policymakers are realizing that ripping out lawns and putting in low-flow bogs in metropolitan areas gained’t be sufficient to avoid wasting the river. Agriculture makes use of an estimated three-quarters or extra of the river, that means any answer should embrace cuts to farmers’ allocations and a rethinking of the long-protected precedence system.

That places IID and California, with their senior water rights, at odds with the remainder of the basin.

In January 2023, going through a federal deadline to provide you with a plan to chop water use, the opposite six basin states launched a joint letter detailing their concept to preserve water. California, which doubtlessly confronted the heaviest cuts, was the one state to not signal onto the plan.

“Compromise actually wasn’t within the air on the time,” Hamby mentioned.

A day later, the Colorado River Board of California, with Hamby on the helm, rushed to launch its personal plan. The board flexed California’s water rights, arguing in an announcement that the opposite states’ proposal “conflicts with the present Legislation of the River” and undermines the precedence system.

Within the ensuing weeks, Hamby made it identified that the opposite states’ methodology for saving water, which put California at an obstacle, was untenable.

“That second regarded like the instance of him digging in his heels,” mentioned Elizabeth Koebele, an affiliate professor of political science on the College of Nevada, Reno who research the river’s governance. She added, “We did see the facility of California and the position that their authorized place performs on the river.”

However until Hamby have been keen to train the nuclear choice and take a look at the power of California’s authorized place in courtroom, he’d have to surrender one thing to guard water rights within the state.

He embraced diplomacy, writing thank-you notes to different states’ representatives and starting to dealer a brand new plan among the many Decrease Basin states: California, Arizona and Nevada. In it, they agreed to apportion short-term cuts — importantly, with out altering the precedence system or water accounting in the long term — till a brand new algorithm and agreements might be hammered out. That new plan is due by the tip of 2026.

“There’s nonetheless definitely an argument that he’s making that’s primarily based on defending as a lot Colorado River agricultural water as doable, however there’s this shift that’s taking place,” Koebele mentioned, including that Hamby and California appear to be embracing a “realization that merely arguing ‘Our water rights are senior’ just isn’t going to avoid wasting agriculture.”

Different water leaders, each in California and across the basin, have acknowledged Hamby’s diplomatic method. Even Arizona, which has historically been California’s staunchest rival on the river, took discover.

“J.B. has exhibited an actual progressive, collaborative spirit in our discussions,” Tom Buschatzke, the director of the Arizona Division of Water Assets and the state’s consultant, wrote in an e-mail. “He’s a really measured, calm one that is clearly very clever.”

Hamby acknowledged he’s advanced on the job from “a really keen younger 23-year-old” to somebody extra targeted on compromise as his place in river negotiations grew.

However a brief concord alongside the river isn’t a assure he’ll stay in good standing with voters within the Imperial Valley. Whilst he’s working with colleagues throughout the basin, Hamby nonetheless should cope with native politics and strike a stability between discovering settlement with the opposite basin states and defending the favorable establishment.

A number of the valley’s farmers have privately voiced dissatisfaction with Hamby and the district, and one former native politician mentioned he was requested to think about difficult Hamby in subsequent yr’s election.

Hamby additionally obtained a cryptic loss of life menace within the mail earlier this yr, through which the sender, allegedly annoyed with the dealing with of the Colorado River, instructed he be shot.

However he shrugged off that incident too as simply somebody sending him “a pleasant notecard.” All paths ahead on the river undergo Hamby, and there have been extra urgent water coverage questions — and potential options to the river’s woes — that he needed to debate as a substitute.

“I’ve been accused of being optimistic,” he mentioned.