California, Arizona and Nevada propose water-saving plan for Colorado River

The states of California, Arizona and Nevada have proposed voluntary water-saving measures for the next three years aimed at buying time while negotiations remain deadlocked over the future of shrinking reservoirs filled by the Colorado River.

The Colorado River provides water to some 40 million people in the American west. But the two massive reservoirs filled by the river, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, both stand at historically low levels, after consistent overdrawing coupled with reduced snowpack and warming from climate change.

The seven states with legal rights to water from the Colorado River have so far failed to agree on how to spread the pain of lost access to the dwindling resource.

The lower basin states’ plan would save 3.2m acre-feet of water with the help of voluntary cutbacks through 2028. The plan also envisions saving an additional 700,000 acre-feet of water through conservation measures and infrastructure improvement, along with the creation of a conservation pool to ensure that the federal government meets its trust obligations to tribes in Arizona.

“With this proposal, the Lower Basin is putting forth real action to stabilize water supply along the Colorado River,” JB Hamby, the chair of California’s Colorado River Board, wrote in a statement. “We’re putting forward additional measurable water contributions for the system. Without that, the system will continue to decline.”

The proposed plan still requires approval from the states’ water agencies and the Arizona legislature, as well as cooperation from the federal government. The states said the plan was “structured as a unified package” that should be implemented or rejected in full, rather than piecemeal.

The seven states with legal rights to water from the Colorado River remain stuck at an impasse over how to divvy up drastic cuts to water usage.

The northern basin states of New Mexico, Utah, Colorado and Wyoming have tried to push most of the burden onto the southern basin states, arguing that they draw the most water from the country’s two largest impoundments at Lake Mead and Lake Powell. The southern basin states have countered that all states should shoulder some of the responsibility.

Pressure on water from the Colorado River is expected to grow after several western states saw record-breaking heat this winter. As of 1 April, snowpack in the upper Colorado River basin stood at 23% of the historical median, according to the New York Times.

In addition to the seven states that have legal rights to Colorado River water, dozens of tribes also have water rights, though many of those rights remain unquantified and difficult to access.