Western states get new cuts in water from depleted Colorado River

Arizona and Nevada residents won’t face bans on watering their lawns or washing their cars despite more Colorado River water shortages.

But U.S. officials announced Tuesday there will be less water available next year for them from the river that serves 40 million people in the West and Mexico and a farm industry worth billions of dollars. Observers warn that a reckoning is still coming for the growing region because the water crisis is expected to generate future cuts.

The river supplies seven states plus Mexico but its flow has dropped drastically over time because of water overuse by farming and growing populations, hotter temperatures, evaporation and less melting snow in the spring to replenish the river.

And for years, the seven states that receive the river’s water have diverted more water from it than what was replenished by nature.

The federal government started cutting some states’ supplies this year to maintain water levels in the river and its key reservoirs. New water cuts will build on those reductions — which all but eliminated some central Arizona farmers’ supply of Colorado River water and to a much lesser extent, reduced Nevada and Mexico’s share.

Lake Mead and Lake Powell — the two largest Colorado River reservoirs — are about a quarter full, threatening water supplies and the generation of hydroelectric power that provides electricity to millions of people.

Along the reservoirs’ edges, “bathtub rings” of minerals outline where the high water line once stood, highlighting the challenges the West faces as a ‘megadrought’ tightens it grip on the region.

Under a 2019 drought contingency plan, Arizona, Nevada, California and Mexico agreed to give up shares of their water to maintain water levels at Lake Mead. This year’s cuts are part of that plan — and as a result, state officials knew they were coming.

California has been spared because it has more senior water rights than Arizona and Nevada. That means it doesn’t have to give up its water first, according to the hierarchy that guides water law in the American West.

Mexico will get about 93% of its total supply. The water is used in cities and farming communities in northwestern Mexico, which is also enduring a severe drought.



A bathtub ring of light minerals shows the high water line of Lake Mead near Hoover Dam at the Lake Mead National Recreation Area near Boulder City, Nev., on June 26, 2022. Federal officials on Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2022, are expected to announce water cuts that would further reduce how much Colorado River water some users in the seven U.S. states reliant on the river and Mexico receive. (AP Photo/John Locher)