Click the link to read the article on the KJZZ website (Alex Hager). Here’s an excerpt:
October 16, 2026
Arizona has filed to join a lawsuit against the federal government over its new plan for managing the Colorado River. The federal plan would cut Colorado River supplies for Arizona, California and Nevada by about 20% through 2028, and could cut them by about 40% after that. The lawsuit, originally filed by Nevada in August, argues that the plan is too harmful to water users in those states. Arizona would take the largest cuts under the new federal plan, and state officials have openly criticized it. By filing a motion to intervene in Nevada’s lawsuit, they are arguing that the federal water plan is not only unfair, but illegal.
“Arizona believes the federal government’s new operating framework ignores basic elements of the law of the river and could result in cuts to the state apportionment that would devastate Arizona’s economy,” said Tom Buschatzke, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources.
The lawsuit is not the so-called “nuclear option” that could bring Colorado River matters before the Supreme Court. That would likely require one state to sue another. Arizona has laid out its case to sue if it determines that upstream states are not sending a legally-required amount of water downstream, but has not yet done so…The lawsuit Arizona filed to join on Friday does something different. Nevada’s original suit claims that the federal government violated procedural laws while creating its new plans for managing water. The Bureau of Reclamation, the federal agency which operates reservoirs and dams across the West, is required to fill out a lot of paperwork alongside big decisions about water management. Within that paperwork, Reclamation has to explain how its new strategy might impact the environment, people and businesses that are connected to the river system. Nevada’s lawsuit — and Arizona’s motion to join it — argues that Reclamation did not do enough to consider the extent of that impact.