Los Angeles Times

States at impasse as Colorado River water deadline arrives; pressure builds on California

Water levels in Lake Powell have been dropping during the past 23 years of drought in the Colorado River Basin.

The seven states that depend on the Colorado River have missed a Jan. 31 federal deadline for reaching a regionwide consensus on how to sharply reduce water use, raising the likelihood of more friction as the West grapples with how to take less supplies from the shrinking river.

In a bid to sway the process after contentious negotiations reached an impasse, six of the seven states gave the federal government a last-minute proposal outlining possible water cuts to help prevent reservoirs from falling to dangerously low levels, presenting a unified front while leaving out California, which uses the single largest share of the river.

The six states — Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — called their proposal a “consensus-based modeling alternative” that could serve as a framework for negotiating a solution. They submitted the proposal to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation ahead of an end-of-January deadline that federal water officials had set for the states to present a consensus

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