Arizona has joined a lawsuit against the Trump administration over its plan to impose major water cutbacks to deal with worsening shortages along the Colorado River.
Arizona Department of Water Resources Director Tom Buschatzke announced Friday that the state filed a motion to intervene in a lawsuit by the state of Nevada.
He said the mandatory water cuts under the federal plan “would devastate Arizona’s economy.”
Nevada sued to challenge the Trump administration’s plan in August, saying similarly that its allotment could shrink so much that it would devastate Las Vegas and surrounding cities.
The expanding legal fight could end up before the U.S. Supreme Court and further complicate efforts by seven western states to agree on how to share water from the shrinking river and its reservoirs, which have fallen to record low levels.
In recent years, Arizona has depended on the Colorado River for 36% of its water. A large portion of the water is pumped in the Central Arizona Project, the series of canals that run to the Phoenix and Tucson areas.
But under the Trump administration plan, much or all of the water that the state gets from the CAP canal could be slashed. Arizona faces especially large cutbacks because the CAP isn’t nearly as old as other aqueducts, giving it low-priority water rights and putting it among the first in line for cuts.
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