U.S. officials released a set of proposals for distributing cuts from the Colorado River — including one that would break from precedent by evenly assigning reductions among lower basin states, forcing users in California to shoulder more of the load.
Experts say the river's flow is expected toThat statement includes three options for apportioning cuts that would save nearly 2.1 million acre-feet of water, including previously agreed-to cuts, which would be more than 15% of the river's total flow.
The first proposal would allocate cuts based on legal priority of water rights, which governed previous cuts, favoring California. It's similar to aThe second would evenly distribute cuts among lower basin states of Arizona, California and Nevada, much like a planThe other option is to do nothing, which would threaten Lake Mead and Lake Powell with "dead pool" conditions in which water levels would be too low for the dams to function.
Arizona U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema said Arizona can't bear the brunt of the cuts and the "only real, lasting solution is a consensus agreement between all Basin States."
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