http://droughtreporter.unl.edu/

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Officials with water agencies in Arizona, California and Nevada signed an agreement at the Colorado River Water Users Association conference to try to protect Lake Mead from dwindling further. The cooperating states intend to add up to three million acre-feet of water to Lake Mead by 2020 by way of conservation and changes in water management to limit demand on the lake. Forty million people rely on Lake Mead for water, and a lot of electricity is generated there and also at Lake Powell. While states are working together at present to preserve Lake Mead, individual states also have reason to fight for their allotment of water. In the 1960s, Arizona traded its senior rights to Colorado water in exchange for California’s support in Congress for the Central Arizona Project. If Lake Mead were to become too low, Arizona’s water would be rationed while California would continue getting its fill. Lake Mead was about 40 percent full and just 10 feet above the trigger for the federal government to declare a shortage and start water rationing. The federal Bureau of Reclamation says rationing could happen as early as the spring of 2016 and is likely in 2017. New York Times, Dec. 17, 2014