Colorado River Basin states have just weeks left to agree on plan

During a tour of the Western Slope last week, U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., said he was frustrated with the pace of negotiations that could determine how the Colorado River is shared in the future and that the Upper Basin states may be pushing back too hard.

A deal should have been reached last summer, he said.

“Colorado should have a right to keep the water that we have been using the way we’ve been using it, and I don’t think we should compromise that,” he said. “But there are a lot of things we could do to give a little to be part of the solution to the Lower Basin and get to a collaborative solution. Again, I’m frustrated by our lack of progress.”

The remarks came during a Q&A with reporters April 15 after a roundtable in Glenwood Springs with Western Slope water managers, many of whom spoke about their projects that were promised funding through the Inflation Reduction Act, which was earmarked for environmental and drought issues. That funding has since been frozen by the Trump administration.

Hickenlooper added that Colorado River management decisions should not be coming from Washington and that the only path forward is an agreement among the seven states that comprise the two basins. He has supported conservation efforts in the Upper Basin (Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming), including the System Conservation Pilot Program, which paid water users to cut back in 2023 and 2024.

The seven states that use water from the Colorado River — Arizona, California, and Nevada comprise the Lower Basin — have just over a month left to agree on how the nation’s two largest reservoirs would be operated and cuts shared in the future before the federal government may decide for them.

“It’s our understanding from Reclamation that they are going to start the impacts analysis in early June, so they are seeking a consensus alternative by the end of May,” said Chuck Cullom, executive director of the Upper Colorado River Commission.

The current guidelines for the management of the Colorado River expire at the end of 2026, and new ones need to be in place by that August, when reservoir operations for the next water year are set. That means the clock is ticking on the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process that will develop and adopt new guidelines. Without an agreement between the basins, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation will move forward with its own management plan.

“(Reclamation) is targeting a record of decision in the summer of 2026 so that it is implementable on Oct. 1, 2026, when the next new water year starts,” Cullom said.

Although water managers say coming to an agreement that all seven states can live with is better than the federal government imposing its own rules, the Upper Basin and the Lower Basin remain divided. Talks ground to a halt at the end of last year, but they have since resumed, according to Colorado officials.

Lead negotiator for Colorado Becky Mitchell said in a written statement that Colorado is focused on working with the basin states toward a consensus approach for the post-2026 operations of Lake Powell and Lake Mead that would fit within Reclamation’s timeline for the NEPA process.

“The basin states share common goals: We want to avoid litigation, and we want a sustainable solution for reservoir operations,” Mitchell said. “In light of these goals, I see the basin states working towards sustainable, supply-driven operations of Lakes Powell and Mead that are resilient across a range of hydrologic conditions experienced in the basin.”

In March 2024, each basin submitted competing proposals to federal officials. In January, the bureau released an alternatives analysis, which outlined five potential paths forward. It did not include either basin’s proposal as an option and instead looked at a “basin hybrid” option, with elements from each basin’s proposal.

A major sticking point that has not yet been resolved is that Lower Basin water managers say the Upper Basin states must share cuts under the driest conditions. Upper Basin officials maintain they already suffer annual shortages of about 1.3 million acre-feet because they are squeezed by climate change and shouldn’t have to share additional cuts because their states have never used the entire 7.5 million-acre-foot apportionment given to them by the Colorado River Compact. Upper Basin officials, however, have offered to voluntarily conserve up to 200,000 acre-feet of water a year.

“A lot of the difference in the two proposals is that the Lower Basin seems much more comfortable running the system at a lower volume of water in the reservoirs, and we view that as leading to crisis management,” Andy Mueller, general manager of the Glenwood Springs-based Colorado River Water Conservation District, said at the district’s regular board meeting April 15. “So if you keep the system in a constant state of crisis, then it’s one emergency after another, which should feel familiar to anybody who’s been following the Colorado River for the last 20 years, because that’s what has been happening.”

Of the five potential options in the bureau’s analysis, the “federal authorities” alternative may be the most likely way forward if a consensus between the two basins is not reached. That alternative includes up to 3.5 million acre-feet of cuts in the Lower Basin, no Upper Basin conservation, and a focus on upstream reservoir releases to keep Lake Powell full enough to make hydropower at Glen Canyon Dam.

“We have to remember that creating your own solution for the consensus is always better than allowing somebody else to create it for you, so we are hopeful that will happen,” Mueller said.

Adding to the urgency of finding agreement on future river operations is a rapidly diminishing snowpack and spring-runoff forecast that could once again drive reservoirs to crisis levels. Hot and dry conditions have pushed snowpack across the Upper Basin down to 74% of average — a 27% loss in the past two weeks. Conditions may be beginning to resemble 2021 and 2022, when Lake Powell fell to its lowest point ever, threatening the ability to make hydropower and triggering emergency upstream reservoir releases and calls from federal officials for 2 million to 4 million acre-feet in conservation from the states.

“It’s the opposite of good,” Cullom said of this year’s runoff forecast. “Now through the first week of May, either we’ll get some replenishment or the snowpack will collapse. My money’s on collapsing, unfortunately, similar to 2021.”

This story is provided by Aspen Journalism, a non-profit, investigative news organization covering water, environment, social justice and more. Visit AspenJournalism.org.