Click the link to read the article on the AZ Mirror website (Caitlin Sievers). Here’s an excerpt:
July 31, 2026
A new federal plan released Friday could mean cuts of up to 77% to Arizona’s share of Colorado River water, in the midst of a 25-year megadrought, something that state leaders say would cause catastrophic harm to the state’s economy.
“Such reductions would devastate Arizona’s water users and its economy,” the Arizona Department of Water Resources said in a statement denouncing the plan…
Water officials in Arizona and the Lower Basin states have criticized the Upper Basin states for their refusal to agree to any federally mandated water usage cuts of their own. While the Lower Basin states insist that every state take their fair share of cuts, Upper Basin states have argued that they’ve never used their full allotment and already face regular cuts and shortages based on physical availability of water. Riley Snow, director of the water law department at Rose Law Group, told the Arizona Mirror that he viewed the Upper Basin’s refusal to take mandatory cuts as a “tragedy of the commons.”
“I just don’t feel like it’s good policy,” he said. “It’s not good for the Southwest, essentially, especially Arizona (and) California, to not get what they’re entitled to under the compact just because the Upper Basin is in a drought and feeling like they need to hold on to everything that they can.”
[…]
Arizona faces an outsized burden when it comes to reductions because the Central Arizona Project, a series of canals that supplies Colorado River water to the Valley and the Tucson area, is one of the newest users of the river water, making it legally one of the first to be cut. But Snow said now isn’t the time for Arizonans to panic, as the state has prepared for potential Colorado River cuts via groundwater banking and increasing efficiency. Beyond that, 70% of the state’s water goes toward agriculture, where adopting more efficient practices, fallowing land and growing less thirsty crops could make a big difference…
Hobbs said forcing Arizona to take on such devastating cuts will have repercussions across the American economy and national security.
“Arizona provides the agricultural produce, critical minerals, weapons defense systems and cutting-edge semiconductors that feed America, protect America and fuel America’s high-tech economy,” Hobbs said in the statement. “No other state in the Colorado River basin can say the same. We developed the Lower Basin Proposal to increase water resiliency for the region and ensure that no single state was bearing the burden alone.”
