Arizona has asked a federal court to pull water out of reservoirs upstream of Lake Powell, including Flaming Gorge on the Utah-Wyoming line, while it tries to lock in a smaller cut than the one the federal framework still allows.
On October 16, 2026, Governor Katie Hobbs and the Arizona Department of Water Resources announced that Arizona had moved to intervene in a lawsuit Nevada filed against the U.S. Department of the Interior. The complaint, State of Nevada v. Burgum, No. 2:26-cv-02665, was filed August 24, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada by the state, the Colorado River Commission of Nevada, and the Southern Nevada Water Authority. It names Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, the department, the Bureau of Reclamation, and Reclamation Commissioner Aubrey Bettencourt, and it asks the court to set aside Interior’s August 21 Record of Decision until what Nevada calls legal and technical defects are fixed.
Hobbs said Arizona is “drawing a line in the sand” because the federal government “refuses to hold the Upper Basin accountable for the water deliveries they owe Arizona, and is threatening to force draconian cuts that go well beyond the Lower Basin Agreement.” Arizona Department of Water Resources Director Tom Buschatzke said the filing is how Arizona protects its legal rights while it keeps working with California and Nevada. Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo welcomed Arizona, saying the federal plan “unfairly burdens the Lower Basin and fails to require the Upper Basin to make meaningful reductions.”
Two cuts, and which one is in court
Interior published the Record of Decision and the 2027–2028 operating guidelines on August 21, after the seven basin states failed to write their own replacement for the 2007 rules. Secretary Burgum said Lake Powell and Lake Mead together hold less water than at any time since before Powell began filling in 1963, and that both reservoirs had just hit record-low elevations. The winter of 2025–2026 produced the lowest snowpack on record in the basin’s 26-year drought.
The guidelines now in force reduce deliveries to Arizona, California, and Nevada by 1.25 million acre-feet in 2027 and again in 2028. If those states carry out their own sharing agreement, Arizona takes 760,000 acre-feet of that cut, California 440,000, and Nevada 50,000. The guidelines also call for at least 700,000 acre-feet of additional Lower Basin conservation over the two years. Hobbs’s office describes the Lower Basin Agreement as a pledge to conserve more than 3.2 million acre-feet in 2027 and 2028, and says Arizona went to court to preserve that deal. The state’s target inside the case is narrower than a full repeal: Hobbs’s office says Arizona will challenge the parts of the Final Environmental Impact Statement and the Record of Decision that “unlawfully fail to require deliveries from Upper Basin water reservoirs to Lake Mead,” and that could impose cuts of up to 3 million acre-feet a year on the Lower Basin.
That 3 million acre-foot figure is a sideboard in the 10-year Decision Framework, which runs through 2036, and the Colorado River Authority of Utah’s August newsletter describes it the same way. Reclamation’s fact sheet says the sideboards do not adopt specific volumes for later years. Each two-year guideline is its own decision, and Interior says it will give priority to any consensus the states reach.
Nevada’s description of the outer bound is specific. Governor Lombardo’s office said the Record of Decision could cut Nevada’s 300,000 acre-foot allocation by as much as 213,556 acre-feet, leaving southern Nevada less than 86,500 acre-feet a year. The community used slightly less than 212,500 acre-feet in 2024, after cutting Colorado River use about 40 percent over 25 years while adding more than 800,000 residents. Buschatzke told the Deseret News the larger reductions “could effectively dry up the Central Arizona Project” and would more than double the cuts in the Lower Basin Agreement. He also said Arizona had not restarted talks with the Upper Basin states after August 21.
Where Utah’s water sits in the case
The August 21 decision places the mandatory reductions on Arizona, California, and Nevada. Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming are left with voluntary conservation. The Colorado River Authority of Utah says the framework allows voluntary Upper Basin contributions of up to 200,000 acre-feet a year, depending on hydrology.
The same decision reaches a reservoir Utah shares with Wyoming. Interior’s guidelines authorize the secretary to operate Flaming Gorge, the Aspinall Unit in Colorado, and Navajo Reservoir to protect Glen Canyon Dam. Reclamation’s fact sheet says extra water can come from those Upper Initial Units when Lake Powell’s annual release drops below 7 million acre-feet. For water year 2027, which began October 1, Interior expects Powell to open between 3,540 and 3,510 feet and to release 6.0 to 7.0 million acre-feet, with the final volume set in April 2027, in order to hold the reservoir at or above 3,510 feet.
Amy Haas, executive director of the Colorado River Authority of Utah, told the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on June 10, 2026, that 60 percent of Utah’s population depends on the Colorado River system, in a state of more than 3.4 million people. She said this year brought the lowest spring inflow into Lake Powell since the reservoir began filling in the early 1960s, and that the river is already forcing cuts of more than 40 percent of the Upper Basin’s proven water rights.
Haas said Utah is willing to line up conservation of up to 23,000 acre-feet in 2027 and 2028 through a Demand Management Pilot Program that pays farmers to skip irrigation, and that the Bureau of Reclamation should count that water as Utah’s when it reaches Lake Powell. Last year, she said, agreements covered about 10,000 acre-feet and dry weather produced about half of that. The largest project, estimated near 4,500 acre-feet, yielded about 1,000.
On Flaming Gorge, Haas told senators the reservoir “will not save the system” and is “good for one, maybe two, major releases.” She said Reclamation is drawing it down by more than a third of its capacity after a 1 million acre-foot release, and she asked that later releases stay within one and a half times that volume unless the water is put back. Minimum power pool at Glen Canyon Dam is 3,490 feet. Haas asked Congress to treat 3,500 feet as a floor the system does not cross.
Gene Shawcroft, chairman of the Colorado River Authority of Utah, called the July 31 Final Environmental Impact Statement “a bridge, not a destination,” and said the preferred federal course lined up with the outcome Utah wanted among the options then on the table. From 2020 through 2024, Bureau of Reclamation figures cited by KSL put Lower Basin use at 6.5 million acre-feet a year and Upper Basin use at 3.8 million, out of 13.1 million acre-feet of system production.
Utah was already budgeting for a courtroom before Nevada sued the federal government. In February, Rep. Rex Shipp, R-Cedar City, sponsored House Bill 157 to place $5 million with the Department of Natural Resources for water litigation in 2027, telling colleagues, “This is mainly to litigate our Colorado River issues.” An appropriations subcommittee voted to support $1 million in new funds for the Colorado River Authority of Utah. Sen. David Hinkins, R-Ferron, called that request “a million dollar investment into Utah’s water security.” Rep. Scott Chew, R-Jensen, sponsored House Bill 473 so the authority can work with the Utah Attorney General’s Office to prepare for litigation. On June 10, before any complaint was on file, Haas asked the Senate for “legal détente” and said federal water dollars should not go to a state that is suing a sister state.
What moves next
Water year 2027 is underway. Interior said the August 21 decisions govern operations, that Lake Mead deliveries to the Lower Basin drop by 1.25 million acre-feet in calendar year 2027, and that a separate process with Mexico under the 1944 water treaty is nearing completion through the International Boundary and Water Commission.
Nevada’s office said on August 24 that a preliminary hearing had not been set. Arizona’s motion arrived on October 16. Buschatzke told the Deseret News the state wants a seat if that case starts to move, and that since August 21 Arizona’s negotiators have been turning the Lower Basin proposal into an agreement with California and Nevada.
The Decision Framework calls for a fresh set of operating guidelines about every two years through 2036. Interior said a seven-state agreement can still be written into operations in the third year, the fourth year, or later. Assistant Secretary for Water and Science Andrea Travnicek said the department and Reclamation will keep working with basin stakeholders on infrastructure, conservation programs, and ways to deliver water as conditions change. The Utah position still on the record, in Haas’s June testimony, is that the state will keep paying for conservation, will insist that water it sends to Lake Powell be counted as Utah’s, and will treat Flaming Gorge as a limited emergency supply for Glen Canyon Dam.
