Arizona has joined Nevada in its legal battle against the Trump administration\u2019s proposed cuts to their shares of the shrinking Colorado River.<\/p>\n
The move comes after the interior department announced<\/a> restrictions this summer that could slash the water supplied to lower basin states \u2013 Arizona, California and Nevada \u2013 over the next two years depending on the river\u2019s condition.<\/p>\n The river\u2019s major reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, have plummeted to historically low levels, due to overuse and a changing climate.<\/p>\n The states sharing the waterway were at an impasse with the upper basin states arguing that their downstream counterparts were responsible for the reservoir\u2019s water shortages and should thus face the largest cuts.<\/p>\n The federal government\u2019s intervention came after the states missed several deadlines for a consensus.<\/p>\n The fear looming over the state of the river is that if reservoir levels plunged far enough, the waterway would effectively<\/a> not be able to flow downstream, a so-called deadpool.<\/p>\n The upper basin states \u2013 Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico \u2013 were spared from the water cuts, an exemption that has drawn sharp rebuke from the leaders of the lower basin states.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are drawing a line in the sand,\u201d Arizona governor Katie Hobbs said in a Friday statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI am taking this legal action alongside Nevada because the federal government refuses to hold the Upper Basin accountable for the water deliveries they owe Arizona<\/a>, and is threatening to force draconian cuts that go well beyond the Lower Basin Agreement,\u201d Hobbs continued, referring to a two-year-voluntary water conservation pact among her state, California and Nevada.<\/p>\n