Arizona has joined Nevada in its legal battle against the Trump administration’s proposed cuts to their shares of the shrinking Colorado River. The move comes after the interior department announced restrictions this summer that could slash the water supplied to lower basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – over the next two years depending on the river’s condition. The river’s major reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, have plummeted to historically low levels, due to overuse and a changing climate.
The states sharing the waterway were at an impasse with the upper basin states arguing that their downstream counterparts were responsible for the reservoir’s water shortages and should thus face the largest cuts. The federal government’s intervention came after the states missed several deadlines for a consensus. The fear looming over the state of the river is that if reservoir levels plunged far enough, the waterway would effectively not be able to flow downstream, a so-called deadpool.
The upper basin states – Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico – were spared from the water cuts, an exemption that has drawn sharp rebuke from the leaders of the lower basin states. Tom Buschatzke, the director of Arizona’s water department, said “intervention in the Nevada lawsuit is necessary at this time for Arizona to protect its legal rights to Colorado River water while preserving a path forward to achieving a collaborative outcome with California and Nevada to protect the Colorado River system”. An interior department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the joint litigation.
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