Six Western states that rely on water from the Colorado River have agreed on a model to dramatically cut water use in the basin.
A fisherman throws a cast net along shore of Lake Mead at the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Friday, Jan. 27, 2023, near Boulder City, Nev. Six western states that rely on water from the Colorado River have agreed on a plan to dramatically cut their use. California, the state with the largest allocation of water from the river, is the holdout.
States missed a mid-August deadline to heed the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's call to propose ways to conserve 2 million to 4 million acre feet of water. They regrouped to reach consensus by the end of January to fold into a larger proposal Reclamation has in the works. The modeling would result in about 2 million acre-feet of cuts in the Lower Basin, with smaller reductions in the Upper Basin. Mexico and California are factored into the equations, but neither signed on to Monday's letter.
California released a proposal last October to cut 400,000 acre feet. An acre foot is enough water to supply two to three U.S. households for a year. Nothing will happen immediately with the consensus reached among the six states. However, not reaching a consensus carried the risk of having the federal government alone determine how to eventually impose cuts.The debates over how to cut water use by roughly one-third have beenThe Upper Basin states of Wyoming, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah have said the Lower Basin states — Arizona, California and Nevada — must do the heavy lifting.
Monday's proposal included accounting for the water lost to evaporation and leaky infrastructure as the river flows through the region's dams and waterways. Federal officials estimate more than 10% of the river's flow evaporates, leaks or spills, yet Arizona, California, Nevada and MexicoThe six states argued that Lower Basin states should share those losses — essentially subtracting those amounts from their allocations — once the elevation at Lake Mead sinks below 1,145 feet .
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