The Colorado River is stretched thin after more than two decades of drought, a historically dry winter and stalled negotiations about how to share its water in the future. Now, three of the states that use it have a plan to keep the river working, at least in the short term.
After more than a year of deadlock in talks between the seven states that share its water, the Lower Basin states of Arizona, California and Nevada have proposed major cutbacks to their take on the river. Those cuts, along with other tweaks to the management of major reservoirs across the West, would last through 2028, buying time for states to get back to the negotiating table and work on a longer-term plan.
The plan is not formal yet, and would need sign-off from the federal government before going into effect. You can read the full, detailed plan here.
So what are the details of the proposal, and what happens next? KJZZ spoke with experts around the region to break it down.
Who would lose water?
The three Lower Basin states would cut back on water use through 2028. These new cuts would add on to earlier proposed reductions. State leaders say total cuts would add up to more than 3.2 million acre-feet of water through 2028.
An acre-foot is the amount of water needed to put a football field under one foot of water. KJZZ spoke to multiple experts who said 1 acre-foot is roughly enough water to supply three households for a year.
Under the new plan, Arizona would cut back by 760,000 acre-feet per year, California by 440,000 acre-feet per year, and Nevada by 50,000 acre-feet per year.
Though water officials did not say exactly which cities and farm districts would lose water under the proposal, Tom Buschatzke, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, shared some details in a call with reporters.
He said the cutbacks would be distributed under the state’s existing priority system, with the majority of cuts coming from the Central Arizona Project. The CAP is a 336-mile-long canal system that brings Colorado River water to the Phoenix and Tucson areas.
The Gila River Indian Community holds the biggest volume of CAP water that may be subject to cutbacks, and some reductions will also come for cities around the Valley.
In general, the cuts outlined by the new proposal are seen as somewhat of a win for Phoenix-area cities. An earlier federal plan would have imposed massive cuts on some CAP water users, and Arizona officials blasted the plan in their feedback to the federal government.
The new three-state proposal would still result in cuts to CAP water users, but they would be less harsh.
“It's the difference between devastating, impossible to manage cuts that would have real impacts on some of those communities’ residents, to something that's manageable,” said Patrick Dent, CAP’s assistant general manager of water policy.
Paying for the cuts
Since 2022, federal money has played a big part in cutting back on demand for Colorado River water. The Biden Administration's Inflation Reduction Act set aside $4 billion for Colorado River work. Big chunks of that money were used to pay farmers to pause irrigation on their crops. Some of the money helped pay for conservation programs in cities. The saved water was often left in major reservoirs to prevent them from dropping too low.
The Trump administration paused that spending in early 2025, and the role of federal spending in Colorado River cutbacks has been murky ever since.
Now, some federal spending may be coming back.
Buschatzke said a federal official recently revealed that roughly $1 billion of federal money for the Colorado River may still be available. Federal water managers recently confirmed to state leaders that a plan to spend $454 million of it was approved by the Office of Management and Budget.
“That was a giant leap forward in the Lower Basin discussions,” Buschatzke said. “Kind of a giant leap forward in having this proposal come together.”
Buschatzke said $354 million would go to the Lower Basin states, and the remaining $100 million would help fuel conservation work in the Upper Basin states of Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico. He added that the federal government was looking for a cost share and the details of spending plans were “very much a work in progress.”
John Berggren, a water policy expert with the nonprofit Western Resource Advocates, said the details of the spending will be important to the Colorado River’s future.
“I certainly hope [water cutbacks] wouldn't just be what we've seen in the past, which is just temporarily paying farmers to use less water,” Berggren said. “I would hope that we could see that federal funding for long-term investments that actually reduce use over the long term, and provide some more resilience in the system, rather than just one-off payments to farmers.”
A coalition of nearly 40 businesses and trade groups around Arizona, Colorado and Utah sent a letter to federal water officials urging them to “prioritize the timely obligation and deployment of existing federal drought mitigation funding,” writing that federal investment was key to keeping the Colorado River functioning normally for the economies that depend on it.
What do the other states think?
The new Lower Basin proposal is entering the fray at a very contentious time for Colorado River policy.
It was only put together because, despite months of negotiations, the seven states that use the river could not all agree on one plan for sharing water.
This marks the second time in recent years that Arizona, California and Nevada have put forth a plan with some mandatory cutbacks. The Upper Basin states of Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico have not agreed to mandatory cutbacks. The new Lower Basin proposal specifically calls out that hang-up.
“The impediment to a seven-state deal has been the Upper Division States’ refusal to commit to water use reductions to protect the system,” it reads.
Those upstream states are pushing back on the new plan.
Chuck Cullom is the executive director of the Upper Colorado River Commission, which brings together negotiators from all four Upper Basin states. In an interview with KJZZ, he took issue with a few parts of the new proposal. He said the plan called for water releases from upstream reservoirs in a way that would “exacerbate potential conflict” between the two basins. Cullom also said the plan does not go far enough to protect the nation’s two largest reservoirs.
“The analysis thus far suggests that the Lower Basin proposal for the operation of Lake Powell is insufficient and continues a crisis cycle, both for Lake Powell and for Lake Mead,” Cullom said.
What happens next?
The Lower Basin proposal is just a suggestion. The federal Bureau of Reclamation has the final say in how its reservoirs and dams are operated. Typically, it listens to the states for guidance on how to do that. However, in the absence of an agreement between all seven states, it’s unclear how federal officials will proceed.
This plan appears designed to align closely with the federal government’s needs. Arizona’s Buschatzke said Lower Basin states had “quite a few discussions” with their federal counterparts while the plan was being crafted.
The plan’s authors were very explicit in their writing — it should either be adopted entirely or not at all.
“[The proposal] is structured as a unified package,” they wrote. “Its components are not independent and should not be evaluated or modified in isolation.”
Technically, there is still time for all seven states to craft a new agreement. Buschatzke said he is “pretty skeptical” that such a deal is still possible, given that federal officials are targeting mid-July for a “record of decision” that would formalize water management plans going forward.
“We're too far apart and the time is too short,” he said.
If the Lower Basin plan is implemented, it would buy time for more negotiations.
While years of discussions have not produced a seven-state agreement so far, the next round of talks may be different because state leaders are considering bringing in a mediator.
The Upper Basin states suggested doing so in April, and their Lower Basin counterparts appear open to the idea. Becky Mitchell, Colorado’s top water negotiator, said it could help the states bridge their divides.
“I really would like to see the swords laid down,” Mitchell told KJZZ in April. “Particularly the threats of litigation. That creates a scenario where it's really hard to be creative.”
Water officials around the region have not shared many details about what kind of person or people would serve as a mediator, but Buschatzke gave reporters something of a wish list.
“I think somebody with legal expertise, or at least a strong legal understanding,” he said. “In a perfect world, you also get somebody who has broad knowledge of the history of the Law of the River and how operations have worked over the years, and you get somebody with a strong technical background as well. I don't know if you'll find that in one person.”
While the new proposal turns down some of the heat around a potential court battle over the Colorado River, it does not eliminate it entirely. Buschatzke said Arizona could still get involved in a lawsuit against Upper Basin states if they fail to deliver a certain amount of water downstream.
“I'm not saying that we're going to take legal action,” he said. “I'm not saying we're not. We'll assess it, we'll assess the impact, and we'll assess our legal options and the timing of when we might invoke our legal rights.”
