Escalation: U.S. Finalizes Deep Water Cuts to States

The U.S. government finalized a plan to slash Colorado River water supplies to California, Nevada and Arizona. The plan, signed by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, will cut the three lower-basin states’ allocations by about 21% in 2027 and 2028, a combined reduction of roughly 1.6 million acre-feet per year for those two years.

The 1.6 million acre-feet per year package is made up of 1.25 million acre-feet per year in mandatory cuts plus additional conservation to reach 3.2 million acre-feet of savings across the two-year period. Annual mandatory cuts could nearly double to about 3.0 million acre-feet per year after 2028 if needed to protect critical reservoir levels; Arizona and Nevada have warned such a jump would devastate their economies and Arizona has threatened litigation if those post-2028 cuts are folded into the new 10-year plan.

The four upper-basin states, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming, face no mandatory cuts under the plan. The Colorado River supplies water to one in ten Americans, irrigates land producing about 15% of U.S. food output and generates power for some 6 million people across seven states, and the two-year agreement follows three years of failed negotiations among the seven basin states.

AI-synthesized from multiple reported sources