The three Lower Basin states have offered a proposal to manage the struggling but essential Colorado River water supply.
California, Arizona, and Nevada have been at an impasse with the Upper Basin States — Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming — for about two years now, unable to decide who should take cuts and how deep those cuts should be.
This season's low snowpack and record heat also made water supply forecasts more dire.
A long-term deal is still not agreed on, but on Friday, Lower Basin states offered a short-term deal to prop up Lake Powell and Lake Mead so the river system doesn't collapse entirely.
That includes over a million acre-feet of water conservation contributions by the Lower Basin in 2027 and 2028.
The current agreements for the Colorado River expire in October. The federal government has threatened to step in if a deal is not made.
