Interior orders 1.25 million acre-feet of Colorado River cuts for two years

The U.S. Department of the Interior has locked in operating rules for the Colorado River in 2027 and 2028 that cut Lower Basin deliveries by 1.25 million acre-feet each year. Arizona is assigned 760,000 acre-feet of that cut, California 440,000 and Nevada 50,000. The three states must also store at least 700,000 acre-feet of additional conserved water over the two-year span. Upper Basin states, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming, face no mandatory cuts.

Secretary Doug Burgum signed the 2027-2028 Operating Guidelines and the Record of Decision on the Post-2026 Colorado River Operations Final Environmental Impact Statement. The package creates a ten-year decision framework. Inside that frame, actual operating plans will be rewritten every two years. Future two-year plans can raise Lower Basin cuts as high as 3 million acre-feet a year if reservoirs keep falling.

The numbers sit on a system that is already thin. Lake Mead has been reported near 27 percent of capacity. Lake Powell has been reported near 22 to 23 percent. Combined storage in the two reservoirs touched levels last seen before Powell filled. The Bureau of Reclamation's August 24-month study put Powell at the start of the October water year between elevations 3,540 and 3,510 feet. That band is the Lower Elevation Infrastructure Protection Range. Expected water-year releases from Powell sit between 6.0 and 7.0 million acre-feet. The guidelines set a floor of 3,510 feet to keep Glen Canyon Dam able to operate.

One acre-foot is 325,851 gallons, enough for two to four typical houses for a year. A 1.25 million acre-foot annual cut is about 21 percent of Lower Basin use under current accounting. Arizona's 760,000 acre-foot share is the sharpest relative hit, on the order of 31 percent of its take. California's cut is about 12 percent. Nevada's is about 28 percent. Farms in central Arizona and cities that already lean on groundwater will feel the first squeeze. Los Angeles and Southern California agencies have more flexibility, and a larger political fight if the 3 million acre-foot ceiling is ever used.

The Trump administration's public notice did not mention climate change. Hydrology papers on the basin have. Since 2020, flow has averaged about 32 percent below the twentieth-century mark. The legal trigger was simpler. The 2007 shortage rules were expiring, and Reclamation had to put something in their place. Negotiations with the seven basin states ran about two and a half years. The draft EIS came in January. The final EIS came in late July. The record of decision landed on 21 August.

Jennifer Pitt of the National Audubon Society told the New York Times there is no buffer left if the next two years are dry. Arizona officials have already warned they may sue if later plans push toward the 3 million acre-foot cap. Upper Basin leaders treated the absence of mandatory cuts as a win and pointed to smaller voluntary programmes that Washington has said it will pay for.

The river still waters about 35 million people and about 5 million acres of farmland. The two-year plan is a bridge. It does not reset the 1922 compact or the structural deficit that the Lower Basin runs every year. It does set a number that cities and irrigation districts can put into 2027 budgets. The next argument starts when the 2029-2030 plan is drafted and someone has to decide whether 1.25 million acre-feet was the floor or the peak.