Lake Powell and Lake Mead are drying up, and so is the Colorado River.
That’s according to the recently released 24-month study projections done by the Bureau of Reclamation. It’s the latest in a series of dire warnings about the aridification of the river that supplies 40 million people with water across the West, and it comes as the seven states in the river’s basin attempt to iron out new operating agreements as current ones are set to expire next year.
Rocky Mountain Community Radio’s Caroline Llanes spoke with Chris Winter to find out what the report says about the basin’s future. Winter is the executive director of the Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy, and the Environment at the University of Colorado, Boulder’s School of Law.
Editor’s note: this interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Llanes: Let's start by talking a little bit about the Bureau of Reclamation's 24-month study projections. What is the agency saying about the Colorado River Basin in this study?
Winter: Yeah, so the latest projections are quite dire, and it's not good news. So the Bureau typically says, ‘here's what the reservoir levels are.’ And then it says, ‘over the next 24 months, we're going to do our best to guess or estimate what those levels might be over time.’ And so this year in particular has been a really bad year for runoff and the Colorado River Basin, and that's because of course we had a low snow year, especially for lots of areas on the Western Slope of Colorado and other areas. So, because we had less snow this year, that's generating less runoff into the Colorado River and into Lake Powell. And so as a result of that, the reservoir levels are going down, because we're withdrawing using more water than is going into the system—so, a basic supply-demand problem. The Bureau's report basically starts saying, ‘here's the elevation of Lake Powell and Lake Mead based on the water year that we've had so far,’ and I think that's something, you know, somewhere around 3,555 feet, which is quite low, that number doesn't mean a lot to a lot of folks, but those of us who focus on the Colorado River all the time are like, ‘wow, that's not a good number,’ and that's quite low for the reservoir levels in Lake Powell.
Llanes: Did they make any policy recommendations or (provide) actions for the states in the basin to take?
Winter: Yeah, so the report itself doesn't make recommendations on how to change management of the system in response to this. This is really just a technical report that estimates how much water will be in the system over the next 24 months, but there's preexisting operating guidelines in place from 2007. The reservoir levels, and the predicted reservoir levels, trigger under those operating guidelines, certain restrictions. And those restrictions generally require reductions in releases of water to lower basin and water users, states like California and Arizona. And so I think we've all been assuming that those restrictions are gonna kick in any way. So this isn't really a lot of really new information on that front, but this report certainly clarifies that. But I think what it really does now is it places a lot of importance on the negotiations that are taking place among the states with the federal government to figure out how to allocate water in the future and especially what's at stake and what kind of timelines we're working with.
Llanes: I'm so glad you brought that up, because I wanted to ask you about Colorado River negotiations. How does this study impact the ongoing negotiations, if at all?
Winter: Well, I hope this data does have an impact on those negotiations and helps all of us realize how serious the situation is. And we find ourselves here because in the big picture we've been using more water, taking more water out of the system than the system is producing in terms of precipitation and runoff. And as a result, our bank of water, the reservoirs themselves, are declining in elevation and that's just not sustainable. There's no way that's sustainable, and if we don't do something about it, we're going to find ourselves in a crisis: suddenly having to adjust to not having nearly enough water to support our activity. So that means economic shock in the ag community, reductions in municipal water deliveries, all kinds of bad things might happen. So we need to get in front of this at some point and start to adapt to this new reality.
The states have been trying to do that. They've been negotiating over new operating guidelines for the reservoirs. And that negotiation includes discussions over how to allocate the available water in terms of supplies, withdrawals, how to allocate the withdrawals among the upper and lower basins, and how to align those withdrawals with the supply of water that's going into the system. And so those are the negotiations that are taking place. Unfortunately, it's taking quite a long time to get to a resolution. Meanwhile, the train is slowly, or not so slowly, headed towards the cliff. So this recent report from the Bureau really gives us some concrete data as to how quickly that cliff might be approaching. And so that's, I think, why it's hopefully important to the negotiations that are taking place right now.
Llanes: With the Colorado River, it seems like there are deadlines for the states to come to an agreement and those deadlines just fly by. Are we actually going to see an actionable deadline this year?
Winter: I think we are quickly approaching that point where the rubber meets the road, and I think it will either look like the states announcing that they have an agreement that they want the federal government to approve on how to adjust management of the system moving forward. But if the states don't reach an agreement, the federal government is probably going to make a decision on its own.
We had a conference here at the Getches-Wilkinson Center in June, and Mr. Scott Cameron, who's the Acting Assistant Secretary for Water and Science (at the Bureau of Reclamation), who's responsible for this decision, was at that conference and he stood up and he said to the states and the crowd, “figure it out amongst yourselves, but if you don't, we will do it.” And I take him at his word. So I think the federal government is prepared to make a decision if the states can't reach an agreement, and I think we will have a draft decision from the federal government by the end of this calendar year. So the rubber will be hitting the road quickly. Whether that's soon enough to make a meaningful difference on this very dire forecast we've seen from the Bureau is yet to be determined.
Llanes: Well, what are you and your colleagues going to be keeping an eye out for as we watch negotiations and plans for the Colorado River unfold over the next couple of months?
Winter: One of the things I think we're all really looking at right now is the elevation of the reservoirs. And so in the 24-month projections, one of the scenarios is that Lake Powell drops below the power producing level in November of 2026. So that's a realistic possibility right now. On top of that, I think there's a lot of concern that the numbers that the Bureau is using are overly conservative, because one of the inputs into their calculations are 30-year average flows. And of course, that's not a very reliable number anymore. So I think there's a lot of concern that we're much more likely to see the worst-case scenario based on this most recent projection than we are to see the middle case or the more optimistic scenario. So a lot of us are watching what's actually happening on the ground.
And then I think that in 1922 when the compact was done, the Tribes were left out, they were not at the table. Ever since then they have been dealing with really significant historic injustices in terms of water use in the Colorado River Basin, and a lot of that injustice is continuing to impact tribes in their communities today. And a lot of the work that folks across the basin have done is in an effort to correct those injustices and figure out ways for the tribes to use federally reserved water rights to benefit their communities. So the other thing I think that's really important for all of us to pay attention to is how and whether any new agreement or new decision from the government makes progress on addressing those historic injustices. And that's also to be determined.
Llanes: That was Chris Winter. He's the executive director of the Getches Wilkinson Center at CU Boulder's School of Law, which focuses on natural resources, energy, and the environment. Chris, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with Rocky Mountain Community Radio.
Winter: Yeah, happy to do it. It's always nice to talk with you.
Copyright 2025 Rocky Mountain Community Radio. This story was shared via Rocky Mountain Community Radio, a network of public media stations in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and New Mexico, including Aspen Public Radio.
