The Brief

Editor's note: We first ran this guide at the start of the season. We've updated it with a few more spots and some great specials for the World Series.

In the immortal words of Vin Scully: "It's time for Dodgers Baseball" — World Series edition.

The stadium seats will soon be packed with the SoCal sunset casting its warm golden shadow against the palm trees and bougainvilleas.

If you're lucky enough to have scored tickets (congrats), you may be looking for somewhere to eat beforehand.

Consider it the fuel you'll need to get through the traffic into the stadium and the trek to your seats.

Here are some of my favorite places to eat and drink within five miles of the ballpark. If I missed one of yours, please let me know, and I might add it to this list later on. Email me at gchabran@scpr.org or reach out via Instagram.

Pro-tip: If you’re short on time (which you will be, since time, traffic, and parking are always issues in L.A.), consider ordering ahead and having a passenger jump out to pick up the food while the driver circles the block. There's no parking cost, and you can have your private tailgate in the parking lot and still make the starting pitch.

Little Fish in Echo Park

Grab the fried fish sandwich with a side of crispy nori potatoes at Little Fish in Echo Park.

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Gab Chabrán

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Little Fish is located about a mile from the ballpark and is an excellent casual "order-at-the-window" establishment. It started as a pop-up specializing in seafood, and recently earned a mention in the Michelin Guide.

The most popular item is the beer-battered striped bass sandwich ($17), with a slice of American cheese, Kewpie mayonnaise, and sliced pickles on a potato bun.

The superb-tasting fish, whose breading resembles a delicate crackly Japanese tempura, interplays with the creaminess of the umami-inflected mayo, the fresh crunch of the pickles, and the softness of the bun. They also offer a tofu version ($14) for non-meat eaters.

Pair it with crispy nori potatoes seasoned with seaweed and salt and served with hearty garlic aioli for a supreme dipping experience.

Both items travel exceptionally well, making L.F. a tremendous to-go option if you need to eat on the run. Also, Little Fish's sister establishment, DADA, is in the back alley entrance behind the cafe. With a cool-looking speakeasy vibe, they serve various upscale bistro plates. It's a great place to unwind after the game.

Lowboy in Echo Park

The Dodgers Blue Cheeseburger, topped with blue cheese mornay, caramelized onions, apple, and pickled mustard seed relish

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Courtesy of Lowboy

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Located on Sunset, Lowboy is a casual sit-down bar restaurant just down the street from the main stadium entrance in Echo Park. Lowboy goes hard with the neighborhood vibes, offering an extensive array of cocktails, beer, wine, and reasonably priced food.

For the World Series, they're offering a special Dodgers Blue cheeseburger ($13) made with a half-pound beef patty, blue cheese mornay sauce, caramelized onions with an apple, and pickled mustard seed relish. The cheeseburger will be available every day starting Friday until the end of the World Series last game.

Looking for drink specials? Try their Sho-time special, where you get an Asahi beer and + a shot of Toki whiskey for $10.

There's also plenty of happy hour deals, including The Triple Play Lowburger, small fries, and a draft beer for $15 from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday.

Simón in Silver Lake

The fish al pastor taco, soft shell crab and enchilada suiza tacos from Simón in Silver Lake.

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The cobalt blue truck known as Simón is parked in Sunset Triangle Plaza, with signage featuring text around its logo that reads "Mariscos Chingones, Seafood Bomb A.F." And indeed it is. It’s one of my favorite places to get mariscos in Los Angeles.

Chef Francisco Aguilar came to L.A. after stints in Oaxaca and Chiapas in southern Mexico, where he worked, studied, and developed his culinary language.

Now, armed with only a fryer, a plancha, and staple ingredients like beans, cheese, and bacon, he seeks to hypercharge the flavors of each dish. The fish al pastor, for example, is rubbed with spices, grilled, garnished with a sizable slice of lightly caramelized pineapple and a generous helping of guacamole, and then topped with crispy onions.

Also check out the soft shell crab, which comes whole and is garnished with chipotle mayo, pico piña, (their version of pico de gallo, with pineapple and pickled onion.), and the picadillo taco, which, at first glance, gives the impression of an empanada rather than a quesadilla or taco. It's made with a fried corn tortilla stuffed with a mixture of fish and shrimp, habanero cream, and proper hints of lime, cheese, and avocado.

All of the tacos hover just under $5.

Burgers Never Say Die in Silver Lake

A double cheeseburger and fries from Burgers Never Say Die in Silverlake.

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Many often cite Burgers Never Say Die as the gold standard of smash burgers in Los Angeles. Owner Shawn Nee was a cameraman when he started a side hustle slinging burgers in the courtyard of his East Hollywood apartment complex.

Slowly developing a cult-like status in the burger world, he opened his Silver Lake location while continuing to meticulously refine his concept.

When you head over to the window and order the Regular ($11), you'll see that Nee has achieved nothing short of alchemy. He's somehow channeled what a McDonald's hamburger tasted like when we were younger. The perfectly cooked burger patty with its smooth and lacey edges, and the mixture of ketchup, mustard, pickles, and tiny bits of white onion stirs up waves of nostalgia. The burger has no business being this good, but it is, and we are all better for it.

Avocado egg and cheese, pork bulgogi roll and bacon egg and cheese sandwiches from Bodega Park

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Bodega Park in Silver Lake

It's an all-day breakfast menu at Bodega Park, which specializes in breakfast sandwiches seen through the lens of a Korean American chef who grew up in Los Angeles and trained on the East Coast.

About two miles from the ballpark, it’s an excellent choice for ordering sandwiches. My go-to is the pork bulgogi roll ($13), featuring a house-made marinade, a few slices of raw white onion and mayo on a modern rustic-style bun, somewhere between a ciabatta and a French roll with a crusty outside and a moist, fluffy inside.

Add a few splatters of the accompanying smokey-sweet hot sauce; the results are fantastic. But you also can't go wrong with the bacon, egg, and cheese ($11), executed perfectly with a superbly cooked piece of thick-cut bacon, a simple slice of American cheese, and an over-medium-fried egg.

Bánh Mì Mỹ Dung Sandwich Shop in Chinatown

The special and Vietnamese cold cut sandwiches from Bánh Mì Mỹ Dung Sandwich Shop.

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A banh mi sandwich is one of life's many pleasures, with its crusty bread, fresh garnishes made of sweet-tasting carrots and daikon radish, and a protein combo of your liking.

A good banh mi can be found in areas such as the San Gabriel Valley or Westminster in Orange County, known as Little Saigon, but finding them in other parts of Los Angeles can be more challenging.

One under-the-radar gem is the Bánh Mì Mỹ Dung Sandwich Shop, located in a tiny storefront on Ord Street between Broadway and Spring, about 1.5 miles from the stadium.

A warning — it doesn't exactly scream neighborhood sandwich destination on arrival. You're greeted by fresh produce stacked outside the entrance, including hanging bunches of bananas, and you'll feel like you’ve entered a corner store.

But take a quick stroll to the back, and you'll find a menu board with about eight sandwiches for around $5 to $8. The ultra-fresh ingredients, paired with the salty-savory cuts of meat, create a highly satisfying experience.

Mariscos Jalisco in Boyle Heights and DTLA

The Tacos de Camaron and Oysters Peinados from the beloved Mariscos Jalisco food truck.

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LAist

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If you've ever discussed where to find the best tacos in L.A, the Mariscos Jalisco food truck will have invariably been mentioned. Founder Raul Ortega's M.J. menu is minimal, consisting of tacos and ceviche. However, the care given to each item shines through, especially in dishes such as the tacos de camarón.

This is not a classic Ensenada-style shrimp taco; it is something completely different, a corn tortilla containing finely minced shrimp, vegetables, and other secret ingredients that Ortega refuses to divulge.

The tacos, which come in two to an order ($5), are then deep-fried and topped with a light red salsa de mariscos and a sliver of avocado. The result is taco magic.

Pioneer Chicken in Boyle Heights

A two-piece chicken combo from Pioneer Chicken in Boyle Heights.

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A piece of Los Angeles history stands on the corner of Soto Street and Whittier Boulevard, about five miles from the stadium via surface streets. It's one of the last two locations in L.A. owned by the fried chicken fast-food chain Pioneer Chicken. (The other location is in Bell Gardens.)

At one point, Pioneer Chicken boasted 270 locations and was known for television commercials featuring O.J. Simpson. It's fried chicken nostalgia for Angelenos looking to relive the heyday of the '70s and '80s. It's hard to beat the two-piece dinner with two sides (choices include mashed potatoes and gravy, spicy rice, or crunchy coleslaw) and a fluffy biscuit ($11).

Homage Brewing in Chinatown

Homage Brewery in Chinatown is game day ready with plenty of specials for the World Series.

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Gab Chabrán

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LAist

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The hidden taproom tucked away off a small street in an industrial section of Chinatown does double duty by offering an excellent selection of eclectic beers and great grub.

For the World Series, Homage is going all out with its food and drink specials, including $5 game-day pints during every game, pitchers of its German-style pilsner, and West Coast IPA ($24-$32).

To munch on, including lemon pepper wings and garlic parm fries, plus their Dodger stadium-inspired menu featuring a hot dog ($7) with sausage from Glendale's own Continental Gourmet Sausage, nachos ($7), and a carne asada nacho ($11). There will also be a few game day giveaways, including a 2020 official World Series baseball for Game 1, plus a couple of rare bobbleheads.

Homage is also open late on the weekends, so if you are inclined, you can take advantage of the cadre of DJs to dance the night away after the game.

Highland Park Brewery in Chinatown

Highland Park Brewing in Chinatown offers food and drinks for your pre-game needs, with specials during the big game.

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Gab Chabrán

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LAist

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Highland Park Brewery, the bastion of Eastside craft brewery culture, is just around the corner of Homage. The large taproom overlooks Los Angeles State Historic Park, near the A Line Chinatown Metro Stop, just one stop from Union Station, where you can catch the Dodger Express.

They've built their name on a wide selection of deliciously hopped craft brews and plenty of natural wine. If you are hungry before the game, take advantage of burgers, dogs, wings, loaded fries, and their stellar fish sandwich.

For their WS specials, the brewery will offer $5 pints and $20 pitchers of their aptly named Baseball Lager, which they'll start serving at noon on Friday.

For food specials, they're offering their version of garlic fries, fries topped with chili flakes and parmesan cheese. (We dare you to try both here and at Homage; remember to bring some breath mints). Also, if you are heading to the game, grab one of their Dodger-themed baseball caps ($35) to show off your hometown pride.

Pro tip: HPB is known to fill up quickly before the game, so it's best to get there early. Parking can also be scarce, so plan to take a ride share or go Metro.

LaSorted's Pizza in Silver Lake

Slices of pizza from La Sorted's Pizza in Silver Lake.

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With your choice of sit-down or counter service, La Sorted's Pizza is the place to celebrate all things Dodgers, especially since it’s named after the famed Dodgers coach.

There's always a large selection of slices, and it can be hard to choose, so I usually grab one of everything and assemble a sort of "greatest hits" equivalent to an entire pizza.

My favorite includes the Upside Down Mamba ($5 a slice, $20 for a whole pie), their signature cheese slice, flipped upside down with the cheese melted directly onto the crust and then topped with a thick layer of tomato sauce.

In celebration of the World Series, both LaSorted’s locations will serve slices of their Triple Dog Dare for $7, featuring a yellow mustard béchamel, mozzarella, and provolone topped with Jody Maronis hot dogs and bacon and finished with cornichon and fried onions. So, if you’ve ever wondered what a hot dog tastes like on a pizza, now is your chance.

If you want to catch the game at the new Chinatown location, make a reservation through LaSorted’s website. The minimum per person is $50, so come hungry! The Silver Lake location will be open for take or dine-in; no reservations are required.

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

More than 100 Boyle Heights and East L.A. residents packed a boardroom Wednesday in Diamond Bar to tell air regulators how air pollution and lingering odors from the Lineage warehouse fire have affected their health, homes and daily lives.

Some boarded buses before 8 a.m. to travel the 25 miles to the South Coast Air Quality Management District hearing, where the agency is considering whether to order stricter cleanup requirements and penalties against Lineage Logistics.

The hearing board is considering whether to issue an order of abatement, which would require Lineage to take specific steps to address air pollution from the warehouse fire and meet stricter cleanup standards at the site.

The hearing comes after AQMD said it received more than 4,000 odor complaints since early July and issued 19 notices of violation to Lineage, alleging the odors created a public nuisance.

Lineage said it had removed about 80% of the food waste from the facility and expects to spend between $80 million and $100 million on cleanup.

The air district hearing board is expected to continue its review Thursday as it considers issuing an order and possibly charging fines for the air quality violations. Board and Lineage representatives are scheduled to give presentations tomorrow on the cleanup and related pollution.

Here are five takeaways from the testimony.

1. Residents made the trip to make sure their voices were heard

Several speakers said it was frustrating that residents had to leave their communities, miss work and travel to Diamond Bar just to be heard. They called on AQMD to hold future hearings in Boyle Heights, closer to the people most affected by the fire.

On the bus ride to the hearing, residents told Boyle Heights Beat that they were coming to speak for their children, for neighbors who feared reprisal and because they had lived through environmental crises, like the Exide battery recycling plant, which contaminated neighborhoods in Southeast Los Angeles for years.

2. Weeks later, people say they still don’t feel safe

Speakers told the hearing board they are still dealing with foul odors from rotting food and health issues, including nausea, headaches, bloody noses, rashes, sinus and eye infections, asthma flare-ups and breathing problems. Many said they worry about the long-term effects of exposure and whether the air will be safe when kids return to school.

Amanda Diaz carried her newborn son with her to the microphone. She told the board her son was about two weeks old when the fire broke out . Her voice shaking with emotion, Diaz said she had to take her child to a hospital after he broke out in rashes, and she is worried that the exposure has caused harm that isn’t yet apparent.

“The fire has robbed me of these chances to recover from childbirth in peace and enjoy these precious first weeks with my son,” she said.

Several people said the impacts extend beyond the streets closest to the warehouse and that more people across Boyle Heights and East L.A. have been affected.

“Does the air have a ZIP code?” resident Margarita Gonzalez asked the board and Lineage’s representatives, inviting them to spend time in her home to better understand the extent of the odor problem.

“Our community deserves fresh air,” Erika Jimenez, who lives near Mariachi Plaza, added.

3. Elected leaders call lingering odors a public health crisis

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass addresses the board and residents via remote video at a hearing held in the William A. Burke Auditorium of the South Coast Air Quality Management District (South Coast AQMD) in Diamond Bar.

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Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, District 14 City Councilmember Ysabel Jurado and State Sen. María Elena Durazo urged the board to require stricter cleanup standards and impose financial penalties against Lineage.

Bass called on the board to use its enforcement authority to require a stronger cleanup plan, including financial support for impacted residents.

“What the residents of Boyle Heights are facing is not just a nuisance, but it is a public health crisis that requires urgent and actionable measures,” Bass told the board.

Bass said Lineage should be required to establish a fund dedicated to the ongoing support of impacted residents, including relocating them until the issue is completely resolved. She added that the company has made some effort to provide help but only after pressure from residents and elected leaders.

Jurado said the sheer volume of complaints and notices of violations is evidence enough that Lineage’s management of the crisis has been inadequate.

“Residents should not have to file complaint after complaint to force a multi-billion-dollar corporation to contain the harm that it created,” Jurado told the board.

She added that any order against Lineage should include firm deadlines, aggressive odor control, public reporting and meaningful consequences if it is violated.

Durazo echoed outrage that residents are expected to endure unsafe conditions while the cleanup unfolds at the “company’s pace.” She said the rotting material should be removed before students are expected to return to school on Aug. 12.

Durazo said Lineage should pay for the full cost of housing and home remediation for residents, and the board should enforce the maximum financial penalty against the company. She also asked that another hearing be held in Boyle Heights rather than miles away during the workday.

“Residents deserve to be heard,” Durazo said.

Concerned residents of Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles at a hearing held in Diamond Bar. The South Coast AQMD Hearing Board held a hearing listening to proposed conditions to reduce odors impacting the nearby community from the Lineage Warehouse fire cleanup in Boyle Heights.

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Gary Coronado

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4. Residents say they don’t want history to repeat itself

For many speakers, the Lineage fire was not an isolated incident. They said it was another example of Boyle Heights and East L.A. communities being forced to live with the impacts of policies and businesses that create health hazards for the community.

Several people compared the situation to Exide. Others questioned why communities near industrial facilities are often asked to endure pollution and health risks while waiting for action.

“We are witnessing environmental racism,” Eve Sanchez said.

Alma Martinez, of Monterey Park, weeps during public comments at a hearing held in the William A. Burke Auditorium of the South Coast Air Quality Management District in Diamond Bar.

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Some called for the warehouse and other industrial facilities to move away from residential neighborhoods.

“I need you to pay attention to what’s happening in our community and for these factories to move from their location please,” said Cristina Fernandez, an East L.A. resident, with help from an interpreter.

She also invited Lineage representatives to visit her home and experience the poor air quality.

5. Students and parents describe a disrupted summer and back-to-school concerns

Leonardo Gutierrez, 8, and mother Maria Patiño Gutierrez, of East Los Angeles, address the board at a hearing held in the William A. Burke Auditorium of the South Coast Air Quality Management District (South Coast AQMD) in Diamond Bar.

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Gary Coronado

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The LA Local

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Several youth who are members of East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice spoke on behalf of their families and their neighbors and highlighted the uncertainty of going back to school in the aftermath of Lineage.

“Am I expected to go into my senior year in these conditions? It’s ridiculous,” said Isabella Hernandez, a Boyle Heights resident.

“Lineage is banking on the fact that we’re poor,” Hernandez said. “They think we’re stupid and uneducated and that we’re just going to lie down and take this.

“We’re not. We deserve clean air and a safe place to live,” she continued.

Another Boyle Heights youth spoke about a lack of purifiers being distributed.

“I come from a multigenerational home and we only have one air purifier … How does this make sense?” she said.

Maria Patiño Gutierrez said she’s not comfortable with her son going back to school, which is less than two miles away from Lineage.

“Our summer plans were ruined because of this fire,” she said.

Her son also addressed officials during the hearing.

“It was my birthday when the fire started," he said. "My baseball game was canceled. Everything was canceled because of the fire.”

An effort to put a rent control measure on the November ballot in Anaheim has fizzled. That means Santa Ana is likely to remain the only Orange County city with rent control, at least for now.

The group Tenants United Anaheim launched an effort in January to put rent control on the November ballot. The initiative proposed to cap rent increases in the city at 3% annually. It also would have required landlords to pay relocation assistance to tenants forced to move through no fault of their own, such as when an owner takes a rental unit off the market.

Why did it fizzle?

Tenants United Anaheim has yet to release an official statement, but an organizer with the group told LAist the group had decided to suspend signature-gathering in order to improve and strengthen the text of the ballot measure.

This week is the deadline to submit ballot initiatives for the November election in Orange County. The group expects to resume the effort for a future election.

The context

Tenant advocates in Anaheim had hoped to follow in the footsteps of neighboring Santa Ana, which became Orange County’s first city to adopt rent control in 2021. It was upheld by voters in 2024. The efforts in both cities have faced strong opposition from the California Apartment Association, which represents landlords.

What's next

Some cities have had to pare down their protections for renters after negative court rulings. Los Angeles and Pasadena have stopped enforcing mandatory relocation assistance following legal victories by landlord groups.

Tenants United Anaheim's members hope their revised rent control proposal will make it on the ballot in 2028.

Dire water conditions, missed deadlines and uncertainty on the Colorado River are complicating critical water decisions in California.

No single state, water agency or federal official has shown the power, or the will, to break the deadlock among Colorado River basin states over how to share the dwindling supplies.

Years of fraught negotiations have failed to yield consensus even as major reservoir storage plummets to record lows — ratcheting up the tensions, and the stakes, for the states’ negotiators.

Now, key agreements for managing the river are expiring at the end of this year. These include agreements reached in 2007 that lasted nearly two decades, which took fewer than three years to craft.

This round of talks has already taken longer — and, so far, produced nothing so durable.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the federal steward for the river under the Department of the Interior, last week released a 10-year framework that establishes rough parameters for managing the river, but imposes no specific long-term plan.

The federal provisions include cuts of up to 40% to the shared supply of California, Arizona and Nevada in the lower basin. They also allow releases from Lake Powell, which collects flows from the upper basin, to dip low enough that they risk violating a legally required threshold for water deliveries to downstream states.

These dramatic cuts are an upper limit for future operations. The federal government plans to roll out more detailed management plans every two years if the states continue their impasse.

The agency will release the first of those plans any day, imposing cuts in the downstream states of California, Arizona and Nevada — an estimated 10% cut to California's supply through 2028, or roughly 440,000 acre-feet a year.

No mandatory cuts are expected in the upper basin states of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico, according to those involved in negotiations. The Los Angeles Times first reported the split.

It reflects the limits of federal power and political will: The Interior Department can force cuts in the lower basin, but has no comparable authority to impose cuts in the upper basin states — the limits of which the Congressional Research Service said are the subject of “ongoing debate.”

This isn’t the long-term plan that California’s water suppliers were hoping for.

Building anything to store, move or make more water typically takes decades and billions of dollars. Without longer-term certainty about how states will share the river’s water supply among 40 million people, millions of acres of agriculture and two states in Mexico — cities and irrigation providers are struggling to plan how to close the gaps.

“A cut is never fun, but you can deal with it. But not if you say, ‘Well, we have a cut here, and then maybe a cut in two years, and maybe another cut in two more years,’” said Bill Hasencamp, Metropolitan Water District’s manager of Colorado River resources.

“We need to plan for our future. And this deal does not let us do that.”

The future of Southern California’s water 

In California, where the availability of water is never certain, nature-defying engineering keeps dry parts of the state flush with water even when little falls from the sky.

Much of that engineering converges around one Southern California supplier: the Metropolitan Water District. The giant wholesaler imports water from Northern California and the Colorado River to supply cities and other retailers serving 19 million people across six counties.

Metropolitan’s imports are so central to the region that when its Northern California supplies dropped to a trickle during the most recent drought, 6 million Southern Californians faced unprecedented water restrictions in 2022.

Southern California isn’t facing such serious shortfalls again yet. But uncertainty over the Colorado River compounds the risks the next drought will bring.

“There's a good chance it'll be as bad as it's been, and there's a reasonable chance that it'll be worse,” said Hasencamp’s colleague, Keith Nobriga, whose job as an operations manager at Metropolitan is helping the district prepare for the future amid climate change.

The uncertainty also throws a wrench in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration’s water machinations to the north. Metropolitan's board will play an outsized role in deciding the fates of Sites Reservoir and the Delta tunnel because of the district's water needs and spending power.

Both multibillion-dollar projects, decades in the making, aim to send more of Northern California’s water south. Metropolitan is also planning a large-scale water recycling and reuse program, called Pure Water Southern California, with the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts.

Metropolitan has already committed hundreds of millions of dollars to the Delta tunnel’s planning costs and about $31 million for Sites Reservoir. The board hasn’t committed to receiving water or contributing to construction for either yet, though board votes on whether to approve the tunnel and recycled water project could come as soon as next year.

Subtracting one part of the equation, such as the Colorado River, could change the calculus for the others. But Metropolitan has to know how much water it stands to lose, and for how long.

The consequences of picking the wrong path could leave Southern California thirsty during the next drought, on one hand, or unnecessarily increase water rates, on the other.

Nobriga compares his job to insurance planning. The costs of nudging these water projects along, he says, are like paying an insurance premium.

“We'll keep these projects alive. We'll keep looking down the road,” he said. “And if it gets to a point where we really think these droughts are imminent, then we'll … construct and pay the big money for one or several of these projects. And we don't know which ones yet.”

Agriculture in limbo

California uses the largest share of the Colorado River’s water among the states. And the Imperial Irrigation District uses the largest share of that to supply half a million acres of alfalfa, grasses, winter vegetables and other crops in the southeast corner of the state.

As climate change and a megadrought plunged the Colorado River into its driest decades in over a century, the Biden administration struck a deal with the Imperial Irrigation District, trading more than half a billion federal dollars for short-term water conservation.

Growers cut irrigation to their alfalfa and other forage crops for weeks at a time, and the district conserved enough water to add more than 12 feet to Lake Mead on the Colorado River, according to Tina Shields, water manager for the irrigation district.

Now, those conservation programs are coming to the end of their funding and regulatory lifetimes. Starting new ones would require new plans and approvals to address the environmental impact of reduced irrigation runoff that feeds the Salton Sea.

Seeking those permits and environmental approvals “needs to be done on a longer term, not on a two-year term,” Shields said. “Because it’ll take us at least a year to negotiate, probably longer, the environmental actions necessary to move forward.”

In the meantime, negotiations are ongoing with other California water users about how they’ll share the coming cuts, including who is going to pay for it, Shields said. The district has not yet committed to anything.

“The district's perspective is: We've done a lot. We're doing a lot. It's challenging to do more,” she said.

Art of the deal

Though the U.S. Department of the Interior has not yet released its plan for the river’s next two years, those involved in negotiations expect that it will call for reductions and conservation in California, Arizona and Nevada similar to what the states proposed in May.

The three lower-basin states then must agree among themselves and with the federal government on how to implement it. After that, individual water suppliers in California will seek approvals from their boards for their share of the cuts.

Jay Weiner, an attorney representing the Fort Yuma Quechan Indian Tribe, whose reservation lies on both sides of the Colorado River, compared the plan to a Band-Aid, not a long-term path to sustainability.

“To a large extent,” Weiner said, “it leaves us at the mercy of this coming winter.”

The Trump administration relied on the states reaching consensus rather than imposing terms — an approach that so far hasn't broken the deadlock.

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs called for the federal government to step in and broker a deal. But federal leverage looks different in the upper and lower basins. Lower basin stakeholders say there are other strings the federal government could pull upstream, such as forcing water out of reservoirs, but isn’t. And cloistered negotiations and hardline positions among negotiators have driven an impasse.

Arizona negotiator Tom Buschatzke publicly lambasted the upper basin in The Denver Post for failing to propose “One. Single. Gallon.” of mandatory, verifiable reductions. Colorado negotiator Becky Mitchell wrote in The Colorado Sun that had the lower basin states lived within their means, “the reservoirs would not be in crisis today.”

Elizabeth Koebele, a political science professor at the University of Nevada, Reno said that negotiations have been most productive when participants had strong working relationships. Without clear federal leadership, she said, the same conflicts keep resurfacing.

The fraying relationships, she said, could stem from turnover. But years of constant crisis have also worn people down.

“We have been governing in crisis for a long time, and so every time we meet at the table, there's this big problem to solve,” she said. “The house is on fire.”

While the lower basin may sue the upper over deliveries that dip below a legally required threshold, both sides would risk the uncertain outcomes of litigation.

“In essence, this federal action has 40 million people living from paycheck to paycheck on water supply,” said Mark Gold, an environmental scientist and board member of the Metropolitan Water District.

That paycheck comes due again in two years with the same states, and the same asymmetry of power, still in place. Until then, the interior secretary can still force deeper cuts on the lower basin. No one, right now, is willing to force the upper basin to do the same.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.