The states along the Colorado River — a vital source of water and electricity for the American West — reached an agreement with the Biden administration to conserve an unprecedented amount of their water supply in exchange for $1.2 billion in federal funding, state and federal officials said Monday.

After nearly a year of negotiations and multiple missed deadlines, the deal is a temporary solution intended to protect the country’s largest reservoirs — Lake Powell and Lake Mead — from dropping to critical levels over the next three years. These reservoirs have fallen dramatically as the warming climate and the past two decades of drought have reduced the river’s natural flow by about 20 percent.

To stabilize the river, the three states that make up the Lower Basin — California, Arizona and Nevada — have agreed to voluntarily conserve 3 million acre-feet of water over the next three years, which amounts to 13 […]