Water cuts are coming for Arizona. Is your salad on the chopping block?

The Colorado River fills America's salad bowl. It's a vital source of water to Yuma County, Arizona, which grows 90% of the leafy greens the country consumes in the winter — but it's nearing a crisis point.

With the river's water levels at record lows, Arizona is poised to take the biggest cuts: about 30% of its Colorado River supply in 2027 and 2028.

Those are the terms stipulated by the Bureau of Reclamation, which imposed a mandatory two-year plan after the seven states that use Colorado River water failed to reach an agreement. If the megadrought persists and water levels continue to fall, a 10-year management plan the bureau has proposed would allow even harsher cuts that could threaten the country's winter greens.

"If you cut us off at the knees, or if you restrict the water, it has a national impact," said Jonathan Lines, a member of the Yuma County Board of Supervisors. "It's a national security issue and a food security issue."

Arizona's agriculture is one rather large ripple of the Colorado River crisis, whose full scale is almost impossible to grasp. About 40 million people in Western states rely on the river for drinking water, but it is shrinking from overuse, drought and climate change. Utilities also depend on it to generate electricity at the dams on Lake Mead and Lake Powell, where much of the water is stored, but both reservoirs hit record lows this month.

Arizona has boomed for decades on the back of the river, which has fueled both suburban expansion and high-tech desert farming. But as the cuts begin to reshape its agricultural economy, the state sits at a crossroads.

'The sunniest place on Earth'

Winter produce thrives in Yuma County, which is a little bigger than the state of Connecticut, because of its fertile soil, ample sunshine and Colorado River water. In winter, nowhere else in the country has what it takes.

"It's the sunniest place on Earth," said Tanya Hodges, the executive director of the Yuma Center of Excellence for Desert Agriculture. (Yuma does actually hold the Guinness World Record for the most sunshine.)

"November through April in the United States, there's very, very limited places to be growing," Hodges said, adding: "This little 180,000-acre community is able to pretty much feed North America."

So, each October, produce companies send their machinery, farm crews and shipping equipment from California's Central Valley — which produces much of the country's summer greens — to Yuma. From there, "about 2,500 to 3,000 semitrucks a day get loaded and distributed all across North America," Hodges said.

The Colorado River cuts will cascade down a system of priorities that governs how much water people in Arizona receive in times of shortage.

The oldest claims get priority, and because Yuma has more senior water rights, that should protect the region next year, according to Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University. After that, she said, all bets are off.

"The farmers can probably get their crops planted and irrigate them through April," she said. "Will it be the same next year? I wouldn't count on it."

John Boelts, a farmer in Yuma County who is president of the Arizona Farm Bureau, said that if and when further cuts come, fellow Yuma farmers are likely to first sacrifice the rotational crops they plant to keep soil healthy, like alfalfa, cotton, durum wheat for pasta and silage to feed livestock.

"Every farm in Yuma that farms fresh produce is going to prioritize that," he said.

That may bode well for America's salads in the short term, but a shortage of those rotational crops, Boelts said, would quickly pose challenges for local dairies, ranchers and Italian pasta makers like Barilla, which use Arizona wheat.

"There are big dairies … that serve metro Phoenix and Tucson as well," said Dari Duval, an extension economist for the University of Arizona Cooperative Extension. "And those cows have to eat something."

A shrinking river

Colorado River water is divided up between seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico, according to rules that began with the 1922 Colorado River Compact.

Though the policy has been refined since then, the agreements had fatal flaws from the start: Negotiators overestimated the amount of water that typically flows down the river, so gave more water rights than what actually exists most years.

About 16.5 million acre-feet of water are allocated for use annually, but from 1906 to 2024, the average flow was around 14.6 million. Since 2000, the number has dropped to 12.4 million.

Now, a prolonged megadrought, along with increasing heat and aridity from climate change, are squeezing the supply even further. Utah and Colorado reported their worst-ever snowpacks this year.

Lake Mead is at 27% of its capacity, and Lake Powell is at 22% — all-time lows for both. Their hydroelectric plants could stop generating power within months.

Sharon Megdal, the director of the University of Arizona Water Resources Research Center, compared the river water to a person's finances.

"People really haven't wanted to have to cut back on their expenditures," she said. "You're relying on your savings, you plan to make a deposit, and then you lose your job."

Simply put, the river is broke.

Fallow fields

The Bureau of Reclamation's plan requires Arizona to relinquish about 380,000 Olympic swimming pools' worth of water in each of the next two years. Almost every drop will come from the Phoenix and Tucson areas, which rely on the Central Arizona Project (CAP), a system of aqueducts, pumps and reservoirs created in the late 1960s that has junior water rights.

Over the past five years, farmers there have weathered significant water cuts; one district saw a 30% increase in uncultivated farmland from 2020 to 2024. Next, the hammer is set to fall on tribes, industry and cities. Some cities in the CAP could lose 20% of their water, and huge residential price hikes are expected.

Nancy Caywood's 255-acre family farm near Casa Grande, Arizona, used to receive water from the CAP, as well as from the Gila River. But shortages have left much of it fallow, without the cotton her family used to grow.

"For the last two years, we have nothing growing except 35 acres of alfalfa," Caywood said.

She hopes to hang on to the farm, which has been in the family since 1930, but solar companies have been circling, she said, looking to cover waterless farmland with panels.

"How much longer can we turn these offers down? Because we're surrounded by solar," Caywood said. "We're being squeezed out."

Dan Thelander, another farmer in the area, said that since CAP imposed water restrictions in 2022, he has only been able to use about half of the 6,000 acres his company farms to grow cotton, alfalfa and durum wheat.

The cuts have pushed him to try alternative crops. As an experiment for Bridgestone Tire, his company started growing guayule, a woody desert shrub that produces a natural latex.

"We have hopes that it will turn into a commercial crop," Thelander said. "If you don't irrigate it, it just kind of sits there and survives like a cactus would."

Federal crop insurance is the reason he's still in business at all, he said. With little hope of water returning, he's ready to sell some of his property.

"Some land that we own is under option to be purchased by a solar company, and we're definitely hoping that they exercise their option," Thelander said.

The fight continues

Recipients of Colorado River water are divided into two categories: upper basin and lower basin. The former, the states above Lake Powell, do not face mandatory restrictions. But California and Nevada, Arizona's lower-basin partners, do.

Nevada filed a lawsuit last week challenging the federal plans and asking a court to block their implementation.

"Southern Nevada could lose more than 70 percent of its already meager Colorado River allocation while the Upper Basin states of Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Wyoming are not required to contribute a drop," Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo said in a news release.

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs similarly said the bureau's 10-year management plan leaves "unacceptable options" for her state, though she said the shorter-term, two-year plan would provide stability.

However, "Arizona has the same issues" as Nevada, Porter said. "That's made me wonder if Arizona will also bring a lawsuit. I wouldn't be surprised."

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com