A Jan. 31 deadline to strike a deal on voluntarily cutting water use of the Colorado River has come and passed amid a historic drought and record low reservoir levels.
While a proposal called the "consensus-based modeling alternative," was jointly submitted by six Western states, California - the largest user of the Colorado River - is not on board. It plans to submit its own plan to protect one of America's most important natural resources, which supplies water to 40M people.
The federal government might now have to impose cuts that will likely end up in court, while Wall Street is smelling dollar signs from the latest crisis as water turns into a hot commodity.
Asset management firms are buying up land out West, looking to profit from the water rights that come with the properties. The federal government also recently allocated $4B in drought funding under the Inflation Reduction Act, which could pay users of the Colorado River to fallow their land, and potentially give them another opportunity to ring the register.
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Deadline passes to reach deal on water cuts from Colorado River