Water cuts loom as US unveils long-awaited response to Colorado river crisis

Federal government plan outlines cuts to California, Arizona and Nevada but fix is likely to be only temporary

The US government released its anxiously awaited plan for how to manage the Colorado river crisis on Friday, outlining cuts in water supplied to California, Arizona and Nevada.

The proposal from the US Bureau of Reclamation spares Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming from facing mandatory cuts, for now. But it is a temporary fix as the states that rely on the river continue to fight over a long-term management plan for the dwindling resource that supplies huge swaths of the western US.