It’s been a bad year for the Colorado River Basin. Dismal snowpack and a fast spring melt have left water users across the system in a shortage. The basin’s two largest reservoirs, Lake Powell and Lake Mead, are at record-low levels and shrinking daily, threatening federal infrastructure.
On Friday July 31, amid these dire circumstances, the Bureau of Reclamation released its plan to manage the Colorado River after 2026. The plan has been in the works for several years, as 2007 operating guidelines for the river expire this fall.
But Reclamation has had to release its plan without a consensus agreement from the seven states that use the river. The Upper Basin states of Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, and New Mexico have been at an impasse with the Lower Basin states of California, Arizona, and Nevada over who should use less water in the face of prolonged drought driven by climate change.
The Lower Basin has already taken major cuts, and has agreed to further reductions in water use, but representatives from those states say they need to see more commitment from the Upper Basin to conservation. The Upper Basin maintains that water users in their states cannot conserve water that isn’t there, and because of their hydrology, their water users already take cuts during poor water years.
Reclamation has said that it would prefer to have a consensus agreement from the Upper and Lower basins. But the new water year begins on October 1, when precipitation in the high country has historically begun falling as snow rather than rain, and a plan needs to be in place before then.
The environmental impact statement released by Reclamation sets out a ten-year framework, with specific operating guidelines to be released every two years.
“It provides a range of Lower Basin shortages. It talks about using reservoirs above Lake Powell. It talks about establishing conservation pools,” said John Berggren, a regional policy manager for Western Resource Advocates. “So basically it said, ‘Here's the things that we could do.’ What it didn't say is ‘here's exactly what we're going to do for the first two years.’”
The Lower Basin would be most impacted by the cuts. The three states are expected to take about 1.5 million acre-feet in cuts each year for the first two years. But, in Reclamation’s plan, they could be asked to divide up 3 million acre-feet in cuts each year—more than double what the three states proposed earlier this year.
“That's a big number, but it still may not be enough to protect the system,” said Chris Winter, the director of the Getches-Wilkinson Center at CU Boulder’s School of Law. “The federal government has said, ‘on top of that, we reserve our authorities to act in emergency situations to implement even deeper cuts to the Lower Basin.’”
The Department of the Interior, the cabinet agency that houses Reclamation, has far more power over water in the Lower Basin than in the Upper Basin. In its plan, instead of mandatory cuts, it outlines a plan for conservation for the upper basin that involves “voluntary contributions” of up to 200,000 acre-feet each year, “subject to hydrologic conditions.”
Is this enough to prevent a collapse of the Colorado River system?
“We are essentially in crisis right now in the Colorado River,” Winter said. He added that the worsening drought could force a reckoning of the whole system, and would require “courageous, forward-thinking leadership on behalf of the federal government.”
Berggren adds that the stakes are incredibly high—and not just from Reclamation’s perspective of trying to protect its infrastructure.
“Lake Powell Lake Mead are the two largest reservoirs in the country, major water supplies for one in 10 Americans,” he said. “Lots of our agricultural production happens here. There are huge recreational economies. This is an incredibly important river to protect.”
Reclamation has said repeatedly that its preference would be for the states to come to a consensus agreement, which it would then incorporate into the operating guidelines for the river.
“Until we get that seven-state deal, I think we're going to be in this kind of uncertain, just trying to prevent the next immediate crisis, just keep Powell just barely above that level, keep Mead just barely above that level, and really hope for a big snow pack next year,” Berggren said.
He said that what Reclamation’s plan does is provide short-term certainty for water users. The states should have an idea of what they’ll be working with for the next two years, and that buys them time to reach that long-term, consensus agreement.
“I really hope that (the states) take advantage of that short-term certainty,” Berggren said. “Don't squander it. Don't keep doing the same thing you've been doing for the last two and a half, three years, because clearly, it hasn't been working. We've got to change this up. We’ve got to do something new. Let's take advantage of this and actually get to that robust seven-state agreement.”
Winter agreed, saying that without that agreement, the states have essentially given up their ability to control their own destiny when it comes to managing the river.
“If we can't all agree on how we're going to co-exist together in this watershed, given the changing hydrology and the need to adapt to a changing climate, if we can't agree on that, then we're going to just be dealing with endless cycles of conflict and litigation, and that's going to be hard,” Winter said.
What would a Colorado River lawsuit look like?
The threat of litigation is one that’s become increasingly concerning for water users.
Over a ten year rolling average, the Upper Basin is meant to send 8.25 million acre-feet of water to the Lower Basin (7.5 million as outlined in the Colorado River Compact, plus 750,000 acre-feet to fulfill treaty obligations with Mexico). That’s measured just downstream of Glen Canyon Dam, at a point called Lee’s Ferry.
“It's pretty clear when you read through the (plan) that we're not going to average 8.25 million acre-feet a year in releases from Lake Powell moving forward,” Winter said. “The Lake Powell that we knew before is not the Lake Powell that we're going to have moving forward.”
He said that does bring up the potential for litigation. The compact states that the Upper Basin “will not cause” the river’s flow at Lee’s Ferry to fall below the 7.5 million acre-feet threshold—though the Upper Basin would argue that climate change is what’s causing that flow to be depleted.
If there were a lawsuit, Winter said it would likely go straight to the U.S. Supreme Court, and would probably be a Lower Basin state suing an Upper Basin state.
“That would be expensive, lengthy, and uncertain in terms of its outcome,” he said. “Most importantly, it's not going to actually create any additional water in the system. It's just going to move the debate from something that's in the states’ control, to a forum that is not in the states’ control.”
Copyright 2026 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.
