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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration floated two ideas this week to reduce water usage from the dwindling Colorado River, which supplies 40 million people.

The 1,450-mile (2,334-kilometer) river is a lifeline for seven U.S. states, dozens of Native American tribes, and two states in Mexico. It irrigates nearly 5.5 million acres (about 2.2 million hectares) of farmland in the U.S. and Mexico and generates hydroelectric power used across the West.

In recent decades, drought, climate change and an imbalance between the river’s flows and how much water users are promised has forced federal officials to consider new steps.

Tuesday’s analysis from the Interior Department considers two ways to force cuts in the water supply for Arizona, Nevada and California: use the existing water priority system or the same percentage across the board. California and some tribes with senior rights to water benefit more under the first option. Arizona and Nevada, largely with junior rights, don’t feel as much pain under the second.

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Federal officials haven’t taken a stance.

WHAT PROMPTED THE ANALYSIS?

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, under the Interior Department, made a bombshell announcement last June as levels in the Colorado River’s key reservoirs dropped to historic lows. Federal officials said water use in the basin would have to be cut by 15% to 30%.

States scrambled to meet consensus, tensions rose and, ultimately, no deal was reached. But the challenges on the river persisted, and federal officials said they’d need to consider changing the operations at Hoover Dam that holds back Lake Mead and Glen Canyon Dam, which controls Lake Powell. The reservoirs on the Colorado River are the largest built in the U.S.

States regrouped and came up with competing ideas in January for reducing use. California proposed a plan separate from the other six states — Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming and Utah.

The proposals released Tuesday built on some of those ideas and rejected others.

HOW WOULD EACH PLAN AFFECT CALIFORNIA?

California is entitled to 4.4 million acre feet of water annually, more than any other single state in the Colorado River basin. California’s rights also are among the most secure.

Shares of water for California, Arizona, Nevada and Mexico come from Lake Mead.

Under current rules, California doesn’t lose any water until Lake Mead falls below 1,045 feet (318 meters) — about a foot lower than it is now. Even under the worst-case scenario, California would fare better than its neighbors in the Lower Basin.

The Biden administration has proposed two ways that Western states and tribes could reduce their use of the over-tapped Colorado River but has not declared a preference. Cuts get deeper as water levels at Lake Mead fall.

Maximum water cuts possible in 2024

in acre-feet

Option 1, requiring cuts based on an existing water rights priority system

Arizona

1,738,000

California

350,000

Nevada

83,000

Option 2, requiring cuts on a proportional basis

Arizona

1,087,000

California

927,000

Nevada

69,000

An acre-foot of water is roughly a year's supply for 2 to 3 U.S. households. Source: U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Reclamation

The priority-based proposal would benefit cities and farm districts in California like the Imperial Valley. It’s a vast farming region in the southeast part of the state that grows a significant amount of the nation’s winter vegetables. The valley would lose no additional water under this proposal based on its senior rights.

California is far worse off if cuts are spread more evenly. As Lake Mead dips lower, it would have to cut more water, eventually up to about one-fifth of its allocation.

Its farming regions would be hard-hit, likely meaning growers would leave some fields unplanted. Cities like Los Angeles and San Diego have other sources of water, but a loss of river water could spur conservation rules that limit activities like watering grass.

WHAT ABOUT ARIZONA?

Arizona is in a tough spot regardless of what proposal moves forward because much of its water has a junior status in the priority system.

The state’s water users are entitled to 2.8 million acre feet of Colorado River water annually. Native American tribes along the Colorado River and farmers near Yuma in southwestern Arizona hold priority over cities.

The Central Arizona Project, which manages a canal system that delivers water to metropolitan Phoenix and Tucson, oversees roughly 1.6 million of those acre feet. It already has absorbed two rounds of mandatory cuts and would be hard-hit under the priority-based proposal.

If the cuts are spread based on the priority system, Arizona would be at risk of losing nearly two-thirds of its total river water in 2024. Under the proportional system that requires California to contribute more, Arizona would lose about one-third.

Under both options, some Arizona water users could have their allocations cut to zero if Lake Mead falls low enough to risk hydropower production.

It’s not clear exactly how either plan would affect farmers and cities. The Colorado River isn’t the only source of water for Arizona’s most populous areas. Many have been banking water underground for years.

WHAT ABOUT NEVADA?

Nevada has the smallest amount of Colorado River in the Lower Basin, 300,000 acre feet, that serves metropolitan Las Vegas.

Water recycling and other measures in southern Nevada have safeguarded the water supply. The state doesn’t use its full allocation. It would face some relatively small cuts, but it’s unclear how deeper cuts would affect residents.

WHAT ABOUT THE UPPER BASIN?

None of the plans would affect water deliveries to Colorado, Utah, New Mexico or Wyoming.

The four states get water directly from the river and, in most years, do not use the full 7.5 million acre feet appropriated to the Upper Basin.

WHY DOES THE ANALYSIS MATTER?

The analysis provides water users some fresh starting points in negotiations over cuts.

“The question will become ‘how bad that pain is and who it falls on,’” said Jay Weiner, an attorney for the Fort Yuma Quechan Indian Tribe.

The tribe along the Arizona-California border has senior rights to water and has opposed sidestepping the priority system, as has California and its irrigation districts.

Bill Hasencamp, manager of Colorado River resources for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, says the two proposals will spur renewed efforts to reach consensus over the next 45 days. That goal has been elusive for nearly a year.

WOULD DOING NOTHING RISK DISASTER?

Yes.

Doing nothing raises the risk that Lake Powell and Lake Mead drop so low that hydropower from their dams is threatened. Power production has already been affected with low lake levels. Voluntary water conservation can help. Precipitation, runoff from the Rocky Mountains and temperature also play a role.

The priority-based proposal would protect Lake Powell’s water levels — but could result in lower capacity at Hoover Dam. Sharing percentage-based cuts would help stabilize power production at both dams.

Everyone agrees that relying on the existing rules and guidelines that expire in 2026 is not a real option.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

States, tribes and other water users have until May 30 to comment. Federal officials are expected to announce a formal decision this summer. If states and tribes don’t reach consensus, that deadline could be delayed.

Meanwhile, representatives from the U.S. and Mexico will meet in the coming weeks and months to discuss Mexico’s role. The treaties governing Mexico’s voluntary water savings are separate from any agreements reached between U.S. states and Native American tribes.

Federal officials will announce how much water is available for 2024 in mid-August, along with any reductions in the Lower Basin states and Mexico.

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This story corrects that Glen Canyon Dam controls Lake Powell, not Lake Mead, in paragraph 8.

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The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

An upscale community outside of Scottsdale, Arizona, that had been getting its water from the city had it cut off New Year’s Day after years of warning tied to the Colorado River supply shortages.

The state of Arizona saw a reduction in its Colorado River water go into effect Jan. 1 as the arid state in the Southwest, like the six other basin states, struggle under the weight of a drought that has gripped the region for more than two decades.

What happened? A Scottsdale memo in December warned of the eventuality of its water no longer being delivered to Rio Verde Foothills for multiple years, including as late as 2022, as the city informed residents of the Jan. 1 cutoff. Now some residents who only get their water delivered by Scottsdale City tankers are suing.

According to the city’s website, it stated that given the unprecedented drought on the Colorado River, it ceased allowing any of that water to be transported outside its boundaries in compliance with its drought management plan. “This means the water haulers Rio Verde has relied upon must find another source of water to haul. They have found other sources of water and are still offering to haul water to serve the homes in Rio Verde,” it said.

Alternative, but pricey sources: The water cut off from Scottsdale affects about 500 to 700 homes that lack wells and relied on tankers from Scottsdale to supply their water. As the tankers have been forced to go farther to find water, the price of it has gone up in some homes by as much as three times. Residents have taken to using paper plates, filling their toilets with rainwater, showering less and other measures, according to The New York Times.

Finding development loopholes: Scottsdale passed a law passed in 1980 that requires subdivisions with six or more lots to show proof that they have a 100-year water supply, according to the Times. But in the case of Rio Verde Foothills, developers sidestepped the law by carving larger parcels into sections with four or five houses so they did not need to legally prove the community had water.

A Maricopa County official told the Times there is not much that can be done if a developer makes that type of move to avoid the water supply requirement.

Outsourced water supplies: Rio Verde Foothills is not the only unincorporated community cut off from the tap in Arizona as the state wrestles with how to cope with a 21% cut in its Colorado River water deliveries. Phoenix discontinued water hauling to the unincorporated areas of New River in 2017.

Scottsdale said it is acting within the law, according to its website. Scottsdale has a 100-year “assured water supply” as certified by the Arizona Department of Water Resources. That supply designation applies to the city’s population at build-out — it does not account for residents outside its service area who are not connected to the city’s water utility delivery system. According to the Times, larger cities like Flagstaff and Prescott also deliver water outside municipal boundaries to communities that could find themselves in the same situation.

Utah connection: The state Legislature has had to grapple with a similar situation as some areas outside of Salt Lake City receive their water supply from the municipality, including Alta. Although there are contracts in place, those surplus water supply contracts can be revoked with 30 days notice.

Brenda Burman, the new general manager for the Central Arizona Project (CAP), is optimistic that Arizona and other Colorado River basin states can agree on how to conserve 2 million to 4 million acre-feet of water per year.

State of play: Burman takes over CAP at a precarious moment, with Arizona and the rest of the basin struggling through a prolonged drought that began in 2000 and ranks as the region's worst in 1,200 years.

1 looming deadline: Burman tells Axios Phoenix that the Bureau of Reclamation plans to issue a draft of a supplement to a 2007 environmental impact statement (EIS) on Colorado River conditions in March or April and that it needs data from the basin states in February.

Context: Burman says CAP will then have a better idea of what the bureau could impose on the basin states if they can't agree on conservation measures.

Catch up quick: Arizona has already taken multiple rounds of cuts to its allocation of Colorado River water under the auspices of a Drought Contingency Plan (DCP) that it signed onto in 2019.

What they're saying: "I am confident in an outcome in which Brenda is going to be sitting next to me at a table in discussions with the federal government, the basin states, the tribes, the NGOs," Arizona Department of Water Resources director Tom Buschatzke said.

Daisy Mountain Fire and Medical said that the 2-year-old child was in cardiac arrest when they arrived.

NEW RIVER, Ariz. — A 2-year-old child is in the hospital after being pulled from a backyard pool in New River. The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office said that the child was taken to the hospital with life-threatening injuries.

Daisy Mountain Fire and Medical crews were called to a home near 37th Avenue and Jenny Lin Road early Wednesday morning for reports of a missing 2-year-old.

Deputies arrived on the scene and found the child in a neighbor's pool.

Authorities said that it's unknown how long the child was in the water, but they were in cardiac arrest when first responders arrived.

First responders took the child to a local hospital with life-threatening injuries. As of Wednesday afternoon, the child was still in critical condition.

This is a developing story. Stay with 12News as we continue to update this story with more information.

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LAS VEGAS (AP) - Facing the future with a dwindling Colorado River supply and intense pressure from the federal government, Arizona, California and Nevada have offered a plan to cut their water use significantly.

The proposal announced Monday isn't final. It calls for cities, irrigation districts and Native American tribes to accept federal money — and in some cases volunteer — to use less water over the next three years.

The 3 million acre-feet that the states have proposed cutting through 2026 amounts to about 10% of their collective water allocation. An acre-foot is enough water to serve two to three U.S. households a year.

To compensate water users for the cuts, the Biden administration plans to spend about $1.2 billion.

The river that courses through the U.S. West serves 40 million people with drinking water, as well as water for irrigation and hydropower.

The watershed deal broke a stalemate that could have swept the seven states that rely on the river into expensive and lengthy legal fights, though the amount of water offered falls short of what the federal government sought last June.

Related

Arizona, California and Nevada on Monday proposed a plan to significantly reduce their water use from the drought-stricken Colorado River over the next three years.

The plan comes after mandatory and voluntary cuts. It aims to conserve an additional 1.5 million acre-feet by the end of 2024.

California is entitled to 4.4 million acre-feet of water per year, Arizona to 2.8 million acre-feet and Nevada to 300,000 acre-feet.

WHAT ABOUT ARIZONA?

AZ water leaders outline Colorado River water proposal

The deal is intended to protect the state's water future and "puts the state on the right path to conserve water in the long-term."

Arizona has already endured two years of federally mandated water cuts tied to the level of Lake Mead. The latest proposal from the three states will affect eight cities that get water through the Central Arizona Project and farms in tribal areas, said Brenda Burman, the entity’s general manager.

Based on commitments from Nevada and California, Arizona would accept 1.1 million acre-feet in additional cuts. Water officials in the state declined to confirm the number and said discussions are underway on how cuts to other water-users would be shared.

"I would believe that part of the calculus here for those cities is: ‘Step up here, we do this, and we avoid maybe bigger mandatory cuts,'" said Tom Buschatzke, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources.

Much of the state’s Colorado River supply is delivered through a canal system to dozens of water users that include cities in metropolitan Phoenix and Tucson, Native American tribes, businesses and farms. Some water savings are expected to come from a longstanding program that provides funding for leaving water in Lake Mead, the reservoir behind Hoover Dam outside Las Vegas.

Already, the Gila River Indian Community and the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation in metropolitan Phoenix have agreed to cut back their water use in exchange for tens of millions of dollars.

The plan is to move from simply trying to protect water levels at the major reservoirs — Lake Powell and Lake Mead — to building them up, Buschatzke said. Both are less than one-third full.

"This is a short-term deal to build stability," Burman said. "We all know we are going to have to learn to live with a smaller river."

Related

The $233 million pact with the Gila River Indian Community is part of a broader effort to get states that rely on the Colorado River to substantially lessen their water use.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR CALIFORNIA?

California has committed to conserving 1.6 million acre-feet of water under Monday's agreement — which is about half of the total.

The Imperial Irrigation District, which provides water to the crop-rich Imperial Valley in southeastern California, is the largest single recipient of the river's water. The district will work on a pilot program where farmers would turn off their water for 60 days on forage crops like alfalfa to save water during hot summer months, said JB Hamby, a district board member and chair of the Colorado River Board of California.

That might affect dairy farmers, but farmers, their workforce and consumers wouldn’t see a major hit, he said.

Another key recipient of river water is the Metropolitan Water District of California, which provides water to 19 million people in six counties, including Los Angeles.

The district is benefitting from a winter that battered the state with storms, leaving California awash with water for the first time in several years. Metropolitan will turn to other sources of water and leave about 250,000 acre-feet in Lake Mead this year, said Bill Hasencamp, the district’s manager of Colorado River resources.

The district also typically pays a nearby farming district to fallow land in exchange for about 130,000 acre-feet of water a year. Under the plan, the district would instead let the federal government buy that water.

Featured

As Arizona officials look at desalination, or the process of creating freshwater by removing salt from saltwater, as a way to solve the state's water crisis, there are also mounting questions over whether such ways to create water can even work for the Grand Canyon State, which has no access to the ocean.

HOW DOES NEVADA FARE?

The Las Vegas area — with 2.3 million residents and nearly 40 million tourists per year — relies almost completely on Colorado River water drawn from Lake Mead. But due to strict water-use laws and conservation measures, residents and tourists are not likely to notice changes in water supply in coming months. Ranches, farms and rural cities elsewhere in Nevada draw from groundwater and other sources.

Under Monday’s plan, Nevada will conserve about 285,000 additional acre-feet of water, the regional Southern Nevada Water Authority said.

Nevada historically has not used its full allocation of Colorado River water. Famous fountains on the Las Vegas Strip use recycled water, and for the past two decades, the Southern Nevada Water Authority has banned front yard lawns in new neighborhoods from using water. Grass at office parks and street medians is also banned, and home swimming pools are limited in size.

A DEAL HAS BEEN ELUSIVE. WHY NOW?

The states have been struggling to reach agreement since the river manager, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, called for swift and dramatic cuts last summer to stave off a crisis. A series of winter storms refreshed mountain snowpack and lowered some of that urgency for now, but the states agree that some reductions are still needed.

Though the federal government has threatened unilateral action since last summer, Reclamation officials didn't put in writing what that would look like until last month. They proposed two ways of forcing cuts: Relying on an existing, decades-old water priority system, or forcing cuts on a proportional basis across the board. The latter likely would have resulted in drawn-out, complicated lawsuits that few of the parties wanted.

The wet winter, fear of a nasty legal battle and the promise of federal dollars all appear to have helped bring everyone to the table.

"It’s always a concern when states lose control of their own process," said John Entsminger, Southern Nevada Water Authority general manager.

Featured

As the megadrought continues, there are a number of solutions being offered to help cities, as well as households, save water. One solution involves reclaiming water from sewage, as well as water used in washing dishes, doing laundry, and bathing.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

Reclamation lifted a May 30 deadline for comment on its earlier proposals so that it can evaluate the environmental and other impacts of the three-state proposal.

Ultimately, a decision is likely to be made by mid-August, when federal officials outline the state of the river for the following year.

If it's finalized, the agreement will run through 2026, when other regulations and guidelines expire.

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Naishadham reported from Washington D.C., and Taxin reported from Orange County, California.