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By Joe Edwards
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A major Arizona water supplier has said it will join a lawsuit against the Trump administration over its plans for managing the Colorado River, escalating a multi-state legal fight over proposed cuts.
The Central Arizona Project (CAP)—which supplies Colorado River water to the most populated regions in Arizona—said in a release this week it filed a motion in Nevada district court to intervene in the ongoing litigation against the Department of the Interior over a 10-year plan that includes steep cuts for Lower Basin states.
The Colorado River is a vital resource for the West that stretches 1,400 miles and supplies water to tens of millions of people across seven states: Arizona, California and Nevada in the Lower Basin and Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming in the Upper Basin. It also irrigates millions of acres of farmland and supports hydropower generation, recreation, fish and wildlife habitat.
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Its two largest reservoirs—Lakes Mead and Powell—fell to record lows this summer amid what federal water managers called a multidecadal, "unprecedented" drought that produced "historically low" runoff and reservoir levels.
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“The actions by the federal government disregard the Colorado River Compact and other laws governing the Colorado River. Those of us who share this precious resource have no choice but to turn to the courts to correct those errors,” CAP general manager Brenda Burman said in a Tuesday release.
“While our journey through the judicial process has just begun, we remain focused on finalizing an agreement with our partners in California and Nevada to provide water certainty through 2028.”
CAP said it sought to join the case to protect its interests in the river and ensure they were considered in any resolution.
The project’s statement added: “CAP’s intervention aims to prevent the implementation of fundamentally flawed and unlawful Colorado River operations that the Department of the Interior is attempting to impose through its Record of Decision and Operating Guidelines issued on August 21, 2026. These federal decisions fail to comply with the requirements of the Colorado River Compact and allow the existing breach of the Compact to continue unabated.”
Newsweek contacted the Interior Department for comment via email on Friday.
Water Plan Sparks Legal Dispute
Earlier this year, the Department of the Interior outlined a new operating framework for the Colorado River as the states that depend on it struggled to agree on rules to replace key water-management agreements expiring in 2026.
The proposal would require the Lower Basin States to collectively cut their Colorado River water use by up to 3 million acre-feet through 2036, as Newsweek reported previously. Upper Basin states were spared mandatory cuts.
Nevada filed a lawsuit against the Interior Department in August contesting the “potentially devastating cuts,” arguing the Lower Basin states “would face no mandatory reductions at all and only vague voluntary conservation goals.” Arizona said it was joining the lawsuit in October.
Upper Basin leaders have argued that they “strictly regulate water use and already experience mandatory reductions due to state regulation based on available supply.”
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Matthew Robinson and Trevor Davies
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