Arizona, California and Nevada on Monday proposed a plan to significantly reduce their water use from the drought-stricken Colorado River over the next three years, a potential breakthrough in a year-long stalemate over how to deal with a rising problem that pitted Western states against one another.
The plan would conserve an additional 3 million acre-feet of water from the 1,450-mile river that provides water to 40 million people in seven U.S. states, parts of Mexico and more than two dozen Native American tribes.At least half that amount -- or 1.5 million acre-feet of water -- would have to be conserved by 2024, the plan said.
Govs. Gavin Newsom of California and Joe Lombardo of Nevada also praised the agreement, emphasizing the work of their individual states to get to Monday's plan. In recent years, the river's woes have forced the federal government to cut some water allocations, and to offer up billions of dollars to pay farmers and cities to pay farmers, cities and others to cut back. But those efforts weren't seen as enough by key water officials to prevent the system from collapsing.
Last summer, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation called for the seven Colorado River basin states to figure out how to cut their collective use of the river's water by about 2 to 4 million acre feet -- or roughly 15 per cent to 30 per cent of their annual use -- but states blew past that deadline and an agreement remained elusive for several more months.
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