Band-Aid, not a cure: federal Colorado River plan leaves states guessing every two years

The federal government's latest plan for managing the Colorado River is more of a placeholder than a solution. Per CalMatters, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation released a ten-year framework last week that imposes no specific long-term management plan. Instead, the agency plans to roll out detailed management plans every two years if states can't agree. The first plan could come any day, imposing an estimated ten percent cut to California's water supply through twenty twenty-eight — roughly four hundred forty thousand acre-feet a year. That uncertainty is creating headaches for water suppliers serving forty million people: without knowing how much water they'll actually have, or for how long, cities and irrigation providers can't plan for droughts, new infrastructure, or conservation programs.

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