As the region wrangles over Colorado River water cuts, California hopes its senior water rights will trump the united front shown by six other states.
With the recent expiration of a federal deadline, California now finds itself sharply at odds with six other states over how to take less water from the shrinking Colorado River.
“The strongest thing that the other basin states have going for them is some relative level of consensus. And the strongest thing California has going for it is the law,” said Rhett Larson, a professor of water law at Arizona State University. “California is trying to play its best card, which is, ‘The law is on our side.’ And the other six states are trying to play their best card: ‘We are on each other’s side.
California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot said the state’s proposal is “timely, practical and achievable in a way that works within existing law.” Arizona water agencies released a statement Wednesday responding critically to California’s proposal, which they said “reflects a strict adherence to a California definition of the Law of the River.”
Negotiations among the seven states are set to continue, but the impasse between California and the other states remains.
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