Overview
- The Bureau of Reclamation released a Final Environmental Impact Statement on Friday, July 31, 2026, that sets a 10-year operating framework with checks every two years through 2036.
- The framework authorizes up to 3 million acre-feet of collective reductions for the Lower Basin but is expected to adopt the states’ two-year counterproposal of about 3.2 million acre-feet through 2028, including roughly 1.25 million acre-feet per year in mandatory cuts.
- Upper Basin states—Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming—are spared mandatory cuts for now and are limited to voluntary conservation of about 200,000 acre-feet per year, with savings tied to actual river hydrology.
- The rules are not yet final: Interior must issue a Record of Decision before the plan is binding and operational changes are slated to begin on October 1, 2026, which will require state and local sign-offs and could prompt litigation.
- The action responds to decades of over-allocation, long-term drought and record-low Lake Powell and Lake Mead levels that threatened hydropower and spurred emergency releases such as from Flaming Gorge, and the plan could reshape water deliveries for roughly 40 million people, farms and power markets across seven states.