Overview
- On Friday, Aug. 21, the Department of the Interior and Bureau of Reclamation finalized a record of decision that requires about 1.25 million acre-feet of reduced deliveries in 2027–2028 split roughly as Arizona 760,000 acre-feet, California 440,000 acre-feet and Nevada 50,000 acre-feet.
- The plan sets a Lake Powell target elevation of about 3,510 feet to preserve hydropower intakes and avoid catastrophic loss of generation and ties future, larger mandatory cuts to reservoir-driven triggers if levels continue to fall.
- Lower Basin parties agreed to voluntarily conserve and store at least 700,000 acre-feet over the two years and to use paid conservation tools such as the Southern Nevada Water Authority’s $16.25 million deal to leave 50,000 acre-feet in Lake Mead.
- Upper Basin states were not placed under mandatory cuts in the near-term plan which has prompted state and tribal letters threatening legal challenges and raised the prospect of long, costly court fights including possible Supreme Court litigation.
- Water experts say the plan buys time but does not solve the underlying problem of a 1922 overallocation, shrinking flows from climate-driven low snowpack, and the fact that agriculture uses roughly three-quarters of basin water which will require large, paid and structural changes to resolve.