Interior Department will pay farmers to leave water in Lake Mead

Producers who use water from the lower Colorado River Basin could get paid... to not.

The Interior Department says that it is using part of the $4 billion dollars allocated for drought under the Inflation Reduction Act to pay to leave portions of their water deliveries in Lake Mead.

Farmers could sign one to three-year agreements to give up some of their allocations and get up to $400 dollars per acre-foot they do not use.