Albuquerque, N.M. • Arizona and Nevada will face their first-ever cuts in Colorado River water next year, but the changes aren’t expected to be overly burdensome for either state.
The water is delivered through Lake Mead, one of the largest manmade reservoirs in the country that straddles the Arizona-Nevada border.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation said Thursday that Lake Mead barely will fall below 1,090 feet on Jan. 1, triggering cuts for the junior users in the river’s lower basin, at 1,089.4 above sea level.
For Arizona, that means less water for underground storage, recharging aquifers and for agricultural use.