Arizona has told the federal government, in writing, that it may sue over how the Colorado River will be managed after this year.
In an Aug. 10 letter to the U.S. Department of the Interior, Arizona Department of Water Resources Director Tom Buschatzke laid out seven objections to the federal government's preferred plan for operating Lake Powell and Lake Mead, and reserved the state's right to take its claims to court.
What Arizona is objecting to
The four-page letter ranges from how much water may be released from Lake Powell to how deeply Arizona, California and Nevada could be required to cut their use. Reporting on the draft indicates deliveries to those three Lower Basin states could be reduced by as much as 3 million acre-feet a year.
Arizona's central argument is legal rather than hydrological. The state contends the federal government's preferred alternative is inconsistent with the Colorado River Compact of 1922 and the broader body of law, court decisions and agreements known as the Law of the River. The letter points out that the federal Final Environmental Impact Statement does not mention the Compact at all.
The state also objects to the length of the framework, favoring a two-year approach over the federal government's proposed ten years, and disputes how reductions would be divided between the Upper and Lower basins.
Running underneath all of it is a question the seven basin states have avoided for years: what happens when they cannot agree on new rules and the federal government writes them instead. Arizona's position is that federal authority has limits.
