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Six of the seven Colorado River basin states sketched out a joint proposal for how they could meet the federal government’s demand to make unprecedented cuts to water usage as more than two decades of drought in the West have pushed crucial reservoirs to dangerously low levels.

But the largest water user, California, did not join them — an impasse that suggests the wrangling over how to conserve the dwindling water supply that serves 40 million people will continue in coming months. The Interior Department had asked states to contribute by Tuesday plans for how to voluntarily reduce water usage by 2 to 4 million acre feet — or up to one-third of the river’s annual average flow.

“Obviously, it’s not going swimmingly,” said Jeffrey Kightlinger, the former general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, a water provider that is a major player in the talks. “It’s pretty tough right now.”

The proposal by the six states — Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming — seeks to protect the major reservoirs in Lake Powell and Lake Mead from falling below critical levels, such as when the dams would no longer be able to generate electricity or at “dead pool,” when water would effectively be blocked from flowing out of these lakes. Before above-average snows in recent weeks, the Bureau of Reclamation was projecting that Lake Powell could start to reach such thresholds by this summer.

Officials fear ‘complete doomsday scenario’ for drought-stricken Colorado River

During the past two decades of drought, and particularly in recent years, the river’s flow has declined but states continue to consume more than the river provides, based on a framework established a century ago.

The proposal lays out potential new cuts for the states of the Southwest that lie downstream from the major reservoirs — Arizona, Nevada, and California — as well as the country of Mexico, which has treaty rights to a portion of the river’s water. The proposal would result in about 2 million acre feet of cuts — the low end of what the federal government has asked for — and would be largest for the biggest consumers of water: California and Arizona. As reservoir levels drop, the document suggests California, which has rights to 4.4 million acre feet of water, would need to cut more than 1 million acre feet.

California has offered to reduce just 400,000 acre feet. An acre foot is 326,000 gallons, or enough to cover an acre in water one foot deep. JB Hamby, chair of the Colorado River Board of California, told the Associated Press in a statement that the state “remains focused on practical solutions that can be implemented now to protect volumes of water in storage without driving conflict and litigation” and will submit its own plan.

The six other states made their case in a letter to the Bureau of Reclamation Monday.

“We recognize that over the past twenty-plus years there is simply far less water flowing into the Colorado River system than the amount that leaves it, and that we have effectively run out of storage to deplete,” the states wrote. The state representatives added that they would continue to work together and with the federal government and others “to reach consensus on how best to share the burden of protecting the system from which we all derive so many benefits.”

“This modeling proposal is a key step in the ongoing dialogue among the Seven Basin States as we continue to seek a collaborative solution to stabilize the Colorado River system,” Tom Buschatzke, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, said in a statement.

Reclamation is in the process of an environmental review of how to operate Glen Canyon and Hoover dams at low-water scenarios. By the summer, the process is expected to clarify the federal government’s legal authority to make unilateral cuts to states’ water allotments.

One of the central tensions of these complicated negotiations is how to balance cuts between farming regions against those in cities, including major population centers. Agriculture uses some 80 percent of the river’s water and also tends to have the most senior rights, some dating back to the 19th century. The way this “priority system” works, residents of Phoenix would lose water before vegetable farmers in Yuma. Those who grow alfalfa in Southern California’s Imperial and Coachella valleys would keep their water before people in parts of Los Angeles.

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Kightlinger, along with many other water experts and officials, say cuts of this magnitude and severity have to be shared, rather than doled out according to seniority.

“They can’t follow the priority system. That would be a disaster. That would be: We’re basically going to put all the cuts on the major share of the economy. That just simply can’t be reality,” he said.

But officials in these farming districts with long-standing water rights do not intend to give them up without a fight — or without compensation that meets their needs.

Alex Cardenas, the president of the board of directors of the Imperial Irrigation District, noted that the water rights among the farmers in his area of California near the border with Mexico predate the formation of the Bureau of Reclamation, which manages the river system. His water district uses about 2.6 million acre feet of water per year to irrigate more than 400,000 acres of farmland for alfalfa, grasses, and other crops.

“We stand behind the priority system on the river, and we also understand that there’s painful cuts that people need to make. But we will not serve as an emergency reservoir for uncontrollable, unsustainable urban sprawl,” Cardenas said. “We’re not going to wreck our local economy so that they can continue to grow their urban economy.”

As negotiations have progressed in recent months, the Imperial Irrigation District has offered to cut its usage by 250,000 acre feet — or about 10 percent. The Biden administration helped pave the way for that offer by pledging $250 million for environmental projects to address the dust-ravaged shorelines around the Salton Sea, California’s largest lake, that’s fed by agricultural runoff from the Imperial Valley.

Cardenas said that the prospect of a 10 percent cut to the region’s $5 billion agricultural economy would mean serious economic pain for a community that already suffers from high unemployment. But from the perspective of other states — even those cuts wouldn’t be nearly enough.

Negotiators have had a bit of help from nature to start the year. The rain and snowstorms that battered California in January have raised reservoir levels in the state and coated the Sierra Nevada mountains in snowpack that is 210 percent above normal for this time of year. The snowpack in the Rocky Mountains, the main source of runoff that feeds the Colorado River system, is also higher than normal but not by as much as in California.

California’s snowpack, aided by atmospheric rivers, could help drought

But the bountiful precipitation has also been a double-edged sword, creating a political challenge for negotiators trying to agree on painful cuts, according to analysts following the talks.

“If severe, extreme drought conditions continued then it’s easier for them to sell additional cuts,” said Michael J. Cohen, a senior researcher with the Pacific Institute and an expert on the Colorado River. “But there’s this public perception that look there’s flooding, why do we need to take additional actions now when there was so much water through all these recent storms.”

The past two years have also seen healthy winter snow accumulation in the Rockies only to have runoff levels into Lake Powell that were a fraction of normal, as terrain dried out by the warming climate absorbs more of the water before it can reach the reservoir. The water level in Lake Powell has fallen about a foot this year and currently stands 33 feet above the threshold where Glen Canyon Dam could not longer produce power.

“There’s a problem of aridification. But on top of that there’s a problem with the rules,” Cohen said. “The rules governing the system are not sustainable.”

A spokesperson from the State Department confirmed in an emailed statement that a U.S. citizen was killed but would not confirm that person’s identity, citing privacy concerns.

“The U.S. Department of State has no higher priority than the safety and security of U.S. citizens overseas,” the statement read. “We are aware of an avalanche in Nagano, Japan on January 29. We can confirm the death of a U.S. citizen in Nagano on January 30. Due to privacy considerations, we have no additional details at this time.”

A snowboarder was caught in an avalanche. He filmed his 300-foot slide.

A spokesperson at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo said it was “aware of the incident in Nagano Prefecture and has been in touch with the relevant authorities to provide all appropriate assistance.”

At least five skiers from the United States and Austria were caught in the avalanche on the eastern slope of Mount Hakuba Norikura, a Nagano Prefecture police spokesperson told Reuters. Three were able to escape the avalanche, but two skiers were found dead. Weather forced a search to be suspended, and their bodies were recovered Monday.

An avalanche warning had been issued for the area, with Japan dealing with widespread heavy snow and record cold. Backcountry skiing is popular among advanced skiers and snowboarders, lured by fresh, deep snow and the absence of crowds. “This,” Smaine had written on Instagram along with video of him skiing, “is what brings me back to Japan each winter.”

But even an experienced skier or snowboarder can trigger or be caught by a naturally occurring avalanche, which starts a race against the clock — and the odds — for rescue teams. Although most victims are buried by an average of only three feet of snow, the prospects for survival become increasingly unlikely after about 15 minutes, Dale Atkins, a past president of the American Avalanche Association and a former forecaster with the Colorado Avalanche Information Center, told The Washington Post in 2021. When the avalanche stops, the snow compacts around victims, becoming almost like concrete.

Grant Gunderson, a Mountain Gazette photographer, and Adam Ü, a professional skier from Glacier, Wash., also were on the trip, and Ü told the Mountain Gazette that Smaine and the other deceased skier, who has not been identified, were transitioning their backcountry gear into uphill mode when the avalanche occurred.

“It was the last run of the last day of our trip,” Ü told the publication.

As news of the tragedy swept through the freestyle skiing community, there were several remembrances on social media. Joss Christensen, a Park City, Utah, freestyle skier, replied to Smaine’s most recent video: “Wish we had more time to ski these past few years. Thanks for always being such a positive energy Kyle.”

The U.S. Free Ski Team wrote on Instagram that it had lost “an incredible person, friend, skier and teammate to the mountains,” describing Smaine as “a fierce competitor but an even better person and friend.”

Travis Ganong, an Olympian and freestyle skier, wrote that he was “heartbroken to hear of the passing of my friend. … He loved skiing more than anyone I knew. You will be missed.”

Mio Inuma reported from Tokyo.

Ms. Wersching’s husband, Stephen Full, confirmed her death in a statement to Deadline. “There is a cavernous hole in the soul of this family today,” he said. “But she left us the tools to fill it. She found wonder in the simplest moment. She didn’t require music to dance. She taught us not to wait for adventure to find you. ‘Go find it. It’s everywhere.’ And find it we shall.”

Tributes to Ms. Wersching flooded social media late Sunday. “We just lost a beautiful artist and human being. My heart is shattered,” tweeted Neil Druckmann, the creator of “The Last of Us” and co-president of the video game developer Naughty Dog.

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“Everyone loved Annie. Everyone,” wrote fellow actress Ever Carradine in a verified GoFundMe fundraiser set up for Ms. Wersching’s husband and three sons.

“Annie was diagnosed with cancer Summer of 2020,” Carradine wrote. “She’s a private person by nature, and the diagnosis made her even more so. She wanted to protect her boys. She wanted to get better so she could continue working. And honestly, she just didn’t really want to talk about it. She wanted to live her life, on her terms, and be with her family.”

Following her cancer diagnosis, Ms. Wersching continued to act, appearing as Borg Queen in “Star Trek: Picard” on Paramount Plus and as the serial killer Rosalind Dyer in “The Rookie” on ABC. In her last Instagram post in August, she shared her enthusiasm at returning to that role.

Ms. Wersching was born in St. Louis. She acted for about two decades, appearing as recurring and one-off characters in dozens of television series, including “Bosch,” “Runaways,” “The Vampire Diaries” and “Star Trek: Enterprise.”

She gave voice and motion to the character of Tess Servopoulos in the popular 2013 PlayStation 3 title “The Last of Us,” which HBO recently released as a television series. Co-creators Druckmann and Craig Mazin said in a joint statement that Episode 3, released Sunday night, would be dedicated to Ms. Wersching.

Her friend Carradine described Ms. Wersching as a joyful and generous person who “lived for her family.”

In his statement to Deadline, Full said that whenever he drove with their sons, Freddie, Ozzie and Archie, away from the home they all shared, “she would yell ‘BYE!’ until we were out of earshot and into the world. I can still hear it ringing.”

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Gene Park contributed to this report.

Johnson said Putin made the remarks during a “very long” and “extraordinary” call in early February last year, as Russian troops were massing along the Ukraine border. Johnson, who was prime minister at the time, had recently visited Kyiv to show Western support for Ukraine.

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“He sort of threatened me at one point and said, ‘Boris, I don’t want to hurt you, but with a missile, it would only take a minute,’ or something like that. You know … jolly,” Johnson said.

Russia has one of the world’s largest stockpiles of nuclear weapons, including longer-range missiles, but Johnson suggested that he didn’t regard Putin’s comments as a serious threat.

“From the relaxed tone that he was taking, the sort of air of detachment that he seemed to have, he was just playing along with my attempts to get him to negotiate,” Johnson said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied that Putin threatened Johnson with a missile attack and said that the former prime minister was either deliberately not telling the truth, or had misunderstood the Russian president.

“It’s a lie, there were no threats of missiles,” he told reporters during a press briefing. “Speaking about challenges to the security of the Russian Federation, President Putin noted that if Ukraine joined NATO the potential deployment of NATO or American missiles near our borders would mean that any missile would reach Moscow in minutes. If this passage was perceived in this way, it is very embarrassing,” he said.

For his part, Johnson said that in the conversation, he had warned Putin that tougher sanctions would follow if there was an invasion and that it would bolster Western support for Ukraine, resulting in “more NATO, not less NATO” on Russia’s borders.

“He said, ‘Boris, you say that Ukraine is not going to join NATO any time soon. … What is any time soon?’ and I said, ‘Well it’s not going to join NATO for the foreseeable future. You know that perfectly well,’” Johnson recalled of the exchange. Three weeks after their call, on Feb. 24, Russia invaded Ukraine.

Johnson has sought to position himself as one of Ukraine’s most outspoken supporters. He made a surprise visit to Kyiv just over a week ago — despite having no official role in the British government after being ousted from office in September after a string of scandals — and met with President Volodymyr Zelensky, pledging that Britain would “stick by Ukraine as long as it takes.”

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In separate comments from excerpts of the documentary “Putin vs the West,” set to air Monday evening, British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace also spoke about exchanges with Russian officials during a visit to Moscow in February last year.

Referring to conversations with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Gen. Valery Gerasimov, chief of the military’s General Staff, he said: “I remember saying to Minister Shoigu ‘they will fight,’ and he said, ‘my mother is Ukrainian, they won’t!’ He also said he had no intention of invading.”

“That would be ‘vran’e’ in the Russian language. ‘Vran’e’ I think is sort of a demonstration of bullying or strength: I’m going to lie to you. You know I’m lying. I know you know I’m lying, and I’m still going to lie to you. He knew I knew, and I knew he knew. But I think it was about saying: I’m powerful.

“It was the fairly chilling but direct lie of what they were not going to do that I think to me confirmed they were going to do it. I remember as we were walking out, Gen. Gerasimov said, ‘Never again will we be humiliated. We used to be the fourth army in the world, we’re now number two. It’s now America and us.’ And there in that minute was that sense of potentially why [they were doing this].”

Natalia Abbakumova in Riga, Latvia contributed to this report.