I agree with you regarding the ratios you mention. Importantly, the Colorado River Compact was established during an atypically wet cycle, and even with ag reductions, I’d argue no additional pressure should be placed on the watershed due to long duration droughts becoming more frequent. We might yet have to bring water from elsewhere, no further pressure should be incurred.

It does not change the fact that the area is becoming unliveable without massive investment.

Why should the rest of the country subsidize these people lifestyle choices to live in an inhospitable area?

I’d be willing to support subsidizing moving them to a new location that’s better suited to living in, but I have no interest in helping pay for people to spit in reality’s eye so they can live in a place they have emotional/cultural ties to

Residential is only 7% if you put the burden on the producer (agriculture) and not the consumer (people). Every time that such numbers are shared, most people quickly jumps to "farmers should pay more attention / switch cultures". Very rarely someone will talk about the impacts: a change of diet for consumers, most likely with less meat (though depends on the area). It is easy to assume that the water you consume only comes from the tap, but 1kg of beef meat costs 15,000 litres of water to produce [1]. Moreover, at a larger scale: "One third of this volume is for the beef cattle sector; another 19% for the dairy cattle sector." [1]. So instead of trying to find the scapegoat that supposedly consumes most of our water, we should all remember that we, meat eaters, are one of the main culprits here !

[1] https://waterfootprint.org/en/water-footprint/product-water-...