Arizona will join a Nevada lawsuit attempting to force the federal government to reverse its decision on managing cuts to Colorado River water supply allocations.
The current federal plan could potentially kill off the Central Arizona Project that supplies water to Central and Southern Arizona and reduce Arizona’s supply by more than 70%.
Arizona filed a motion to intervene in Nevada’s lawsuit on Oct. 16 in U.S. District Court. The motion contends that the decision to reduce Colorado River water supplies to the Lower Basin states of Arizona, Nevada and California, which could total up to three million acre-feet/year, violates existing law and would ruin the Arizona economy.
Nevada’s lawsuit challenges an August decision by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to make the cuts to the Lower Basin states if river supplies sufficiently deteriorate. The Bureau’s 10-year framework for river operations starts this month.
The Nevada lawsuit and the Arizona motion to intervene claim the Bureau’s decision is unfair because it requires the Lower Basin states to carry the entire burden of dealing with the river’s shrinking capacity. They also argue the economic impacts to the Las Vegas area and Central and Southern Arizona were not considered in developing the plan.
Arizona is arguing the decision violated the Colorado River Compact because it allows releases from Lake Powell to Lake Mead that are significantly smaller than the minimums set by a 2022 agreement approved by all seven states in the river basin. In addition to the three Lower Basin states, the Upper Basin states are Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.
Most Upper Basin users draw water directly off the river or its tributaries and do not have contracts in place for usage, which is why the Bureau says it was not able to include them in the allocation cuts.
Arizona also argues the three-million-acre-foot cuts would dry up the CAP, jeopardizing drinking water supplies in Phoenix and Tucson, and would also harm water supplies to other communities, including economically vital farming operations in Yuma.
The Bureau has not commented on Arizona’s joining the lawsuit.
Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs said in a statement the state will not accept the “forced federal plan that solves this crisis on the backs of our families, farms and businesses. We are drawing a line in the sand.”
The state has set aside a $9M fund to pay for Colorado River litigation.
A separate decision and agreement proposed by the Lower Basin states to cut their rights to river water by 1.25 million acre-feet a year in 2027 and 2028 is not part of the litigation. (Source: Arizona Daily Star)