Arizona joins Nevada in lawsuit over proposed federal cuts to Colorado River water
The US state of Arizona has joined Nevada's legal action against the Trump administration's proposed limits on Colorado River water. Governor Katie Hobbs says Washington refuses to hold upstream states accountable.
Arizona on Friday, 17 October, joined Nevada in a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's proposed cuts to the two states' shares of the Colorado River, a waterway in the American Southwest that continues to shrink. The case adds a legal dimension to a dispute over how the river's limited water should be divided.
Background
The US Department of the Interior announced restrictions this summer that, depending on the river's condition, could reduce water deliveries over the next two years to the lower basin states: Arizona, California and Nevada. The river's main reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, have fallen to historically low levels because of overuse and a changing climate.
The states that share the river could not agree. Upper basin states argued that their downstream counterparts were to blame for the reservoir shortages and should take the deepest cuts. The federal government stepped in after the states missed several deadlines for reaching a consensus. There is concern that if reservoir levels dropped far enough, the river could effectively stop flowing downstream, a situation known as a "deadpool".
The dispute
The upper basin states – Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico – were spared from the cuts. That exemption has drawn sharp criticism from lower basin leaders.
"We are drawing a line in the sand," Arizona governor Katie Hobbs said in a statement on Friday. She said she was taking the legal action alongside Nevada because the federal government refuses to hold the upper basin accountable for water deliveries owed to Arizona, and is threatening "draconian cuts" that go well beyond the Lower Basin Agreement, a two-year voluntary conservation pact among Arizona, California and Nevada.
Tom Buschatzke, director of Arizona's water department, said intervening in the Nevada lawsuit was necessary now to protect the state's legal rights to Colorado River water while keeping open a path to a collaborative outcome with California and Nevada.
An Interior Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the joint litigation.
