DENVER, April 27 (UPI) -- Seven western states have failed to agree on managing the Colorado River in drought conditions and the federal government will have to craft a plan.
Interior Secretary Gale Norton will have to decide by the end of the week whether to alter releases from Lake Powell, the Rocky Mountain News reported Wednesday.
About 40 water officials from Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming met in Las Vegas, Nev., Tuesday but were unable to reach agreement.
The upper basin states -- Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico -- want to hold more water in Lake Powell to help with recovery from drought conditions over the past five years.
John Keys, commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, warned the seven states last December they needed to begin resolving their differences. The river, which runs from Colorado to Mexico, serves about 25 million people.
The federal plan may also create new legal precedents in western water law and affect millions in recreation dollars and electric power sales from Glen Canyon Dam at Lake Powell and Lake Mead's Hoover Dam.
