Fighting to avoid massive water cuts, California offers proposal on Colorado River crisis

California has given the federal government its own counterproposal for apportioning reductions of Colorado River water, saying a plan offered by six other states would disproportionately burden farms and cities in Southern California.

Water agencies that depend on the river submitted their proposal to the Biden administration on Tuesday, the same day that federal officials had set as a deadline for the Colorado River Basin states to reach agreement on how to prevent reservoirs from dropping to dangerously low levels.