Today marks a big deadline for states that rely on the Colorado River: California, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Nevada. The federal government has asked them to come to an agreement on drastic cuts for water use, or it would make the decision itself. California has not submitted a plan, but the other states did. Two decades of drought has drained the river to dangerously low levels, and now it faces a deadpool, where reservoir levels drop so low that water can’t flow downstream.
“Most of the water that California diverts from the Colorado River goes to agriculture, a lot of it in the Imperial Valley, as well as the Palo Verde Valley. … Southern California cities rely for a large share of their water from the Colorado River as well. So it's really vital for the whole region,” says Ian James, Los Angeles Times reporter covering water in California and the West.
He says the biggest disagreement between California and the other states is how the water cuts will be divided, and while today is the deadline, officials at water districts will continue talking to reach a consensus.
He points out that an important question is how this will affect food production. “A lot of the farmers who I've spoken with in the Imperial Valley say that they hope to, as much as possible, absorb reductions through efficiency improvements, and minimize the amount of farmland that would be would be fallowed.”