For the region as a whole, “the major impact is going to be on our groundwater,” said Kathryn Sorensen, research director for ASU’s Kyl Center for Water Policy. “We will have less Colorado River water to replenish our groundwater pumping and that’s a big problem,” she said.

At the same time, Tucson has a “good runway” to handle CAP cuts because it’s recharged so much CAP water into its aquifer since the early 2000s, Sorensen said.

“Beyond the Tap: Water Insecurity in the United States” panel — This session will outline a new scale for measuring household water insecurity in the U.S., presenting preliminary findings from both national and site-specific studies that used this tool. Patrick Thomson of the Arizona Water Innovation Initiative and Alexandra Brewis of The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences are among the panelists.

Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University, said she’s felt litigation is increasingly likely since the basin states missed their initial federal deadline in the fall and their negotiations began to deteriorate. 

“I believe that everybody has kind of stared it down and concluded that litigation isn’t such a horrible idea that it needs to be avoided,” she said.

Over in the Colorado River Basin, which supplies Southern California with about 20% of its water, snowpack is at about 64% of normal.

“ There's no way to sugarcoat it,” said Kathryn Sorensen,  director of research at the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University. “ I've been doing Colorado River stuff for 25 years. This is the worst I've seen.”

“It’s pretty bad and looks like runoff is going to be terrible,” said Kathryn Sorensen, director of research for the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University.

But the situation appeared similarly bleak at this point in 2015, she said.

“Then we had that weird miracle May,” she said. “Snowpack was awful, but then for some reason there was a ton of rain. Weird things can happen, so let’s hope weird things happen. Otherwise it’s going to be pretty awful.”

A crisis is brewing in rural Arizona communities, and without action, they may be at a point of no return. According to a recent study by Arizona State University, covered by ABC News, groundwater in the Colorado River Basin has been depleting rapidly over the past decade. 

"Much of that groundwater is irreplaceable," lead researcher and Arizona State University Professor Jay Famiglietti said.

What the 1922 compact means is the "crux" of the ongoing fight over the river, said Kathryn Sorensen, a researcher for Arizona State University's Kyl Center for Water Policy.

The Lower Basin states interpret the compact to mean the Upper Basin states must deliver the 82.5 million acre-feet over a decade, even if the Upper Basin states have to curtail their water uses to meet that target, she said.

The Upper Basin states believe that because they're not using their total 7.5 million acre-foot allocation of river water every year, it's not their responsibility to ensure that much water reaches the Lower Basin, Sorensen said.

About 36% of the water we use here in Arizona comes from the Colorado River. So why are negotiations taking so long? Sarah Porter, the director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at ASU, told Arizona’s Family the upper basin and lower basin states disagree about how to share the cuts, and Arizona has already taken steep ones.

The transfer basins have been designated now for 35 years. Some cities have made investments or look to those areas as their future water supply if there are deep cuts to Colorado River water, said Sarah Porter, director of ASU's Kyl Center for Water Policy, in a Q&A for the university. "Eliminating or redefining transportation basins would potentially be disruptive to those plans."