After months of pressing Western states to come to their own agreement, the Trump administration told their leaders it\u2019s drawing up a 10-year plan for dealing with water shortages on the Colorado River.<\/p>\n
The river is a major water source for Southern California and much of the Southwest, but its largest reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, are severely depleted, and their levels continue to drop.<\/a><\/p>\n News of the federal government\u2019s preliminary plan surfaced Wednesday during a meeting<\/a> in Phoenix. Tom Buschatzke, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, said federal officials informed state water managers they are developing a \u201c10-year framework\u201d with specific rules requiring water reductions that would be reassessed every two years.<\/p>\n So far, negotiators for California, Arizona and Nevada have offered<\/a> to use roughly 1.6 million acre-feet less annually over the next two years. But Buschatzke said the Trump administration\u2019s plan would allow for mandatory cutbacks of up to 3 million acre-feet per year in the three states \u2014 as much as 40% of their combined allotments.<\/p>\n That\u2019s nearly as much as all the water that flowed from 19 million people\u2019s taps across Southern California last year.<\/p>\n Buschatzke called such large mandatory cuts a sobering possibility for Arizona.<\/p>\n The offer from California, Arizona and Nevada this month was a water-saving proposal<\/a> for the next two years. It would help the low levels of Lake Mead, the country\u2019s largest reservoir.<\/p>\n Buschatzke said the idea is that the proposal can govern water sharing for 2027 and 2028. After that, there would be new rounds of negotiations to readjust cuts every two years.<\/p>\n In recent months, representatives of seven states have deadlocked in negotiations<\/a> on how to cut water use, with the disagreements pitting three downstream states \u2014 California, Arizona and Nevada \u2014 against the upstream states of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico. The four upper states have called for a mediator to try to break the impasse.<\/p>\n California\u2019s lead negotiator welcomed the federal government\u2019s plan to intervene. <\/p>\n \u201cI think it is a smart approach,\u201d JB Hamby said, \u201cto both having longer-term planning and adapting to variable hydrology on a more regular basis.\u201d<\/p>\n He said this approach seems better than making assumptions to set long-term rules and \u201cbeing locked into them for decades.\u201d<\/p>\n The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California declined to comment on the federal proposal because it hasn\u2019t been made public.<\/p>\n The water was originally divided under a 1922 agreement called the Colorado River Compact, which overpromised what the river could provide. Since 2000, the Colorado has shrunk dramatically as climate change intensifies dry conditions<\/a> in the Rocky Mountains.<\/p>\n In the arcane language of federal environmental review, Peter Soeth, a spokesperson for the Bureau of Reclamation, said the agency has \u201cidentified preliminary elements of a preferred alternative\u201d in its review of options and has \u201cinitiated consultations\u201d with states, tribes and Mexico.<\/p>\n \u201cGiven the risk and uncertainty,\u201d Soeth said, the approach is \u201cdesigned to provide stability while allowing flexibility\u201d to incorporate any additional recommendations the states agree on.<\/p>\n