Colorado water experts and elected officials urged collaboration across industries, borders and political parties as the Western Slope seeks sustainable water systems that will serve future generations.
The year’s unprecedented statewide drought won’t be the last, speakers said throughout Friday during the Colorado River District’s annual water seminar on Friday in Grand Junction.
“We can’t run from it — we have to learn from it,” said Andy Mueller, the district’s general manager, during the event, which was held at Colorado Mesa University.
Discussions centered on what this year’s water shortage means for the state’s and country’s future, as well as what could be learned from it. Speakers included farmers, climatologists, elected officials and candidates for Colorado governor.
“‘Unprecedented, worst-ever, miserable, warmest ever, hottest ever’ — you can keep going,” Mueller said of 2026’s water season. “But I want to also say that this was a year of extremely collaborative creativity in western Colorado.”
That collaboration, Mueller and other speakers emphasized, is vital to note and continue. The state’s climate will continue to change, he said, and with that, so should the Western Slope’s water use.
The Glenwood Springs-based Colorado River District is the Western Slope’s central water planning and policy agency. Created in 1937, the district became publicly funded by a tax voters approved in 2020.
The year’s drought, caused by factors including a low snowpack, early spring, low rains and higher temperatures, led to the Colorado River system hitting a low of 23% capacity, which Mueller described as “crisis level.”
Mueller said the region isn’t making it through the drought by relying on multi-year politics. Rather, the drought “required immediate action,” he said.
Communities and entities made sacrifices to ensure the region’s water needs were met. Reservoirs, such as Ruedi Reservoir east of Basalt, have been drawn down at faster rates than normal, municipalities have led water conservation campaigns and farmers across the valley have needed to settle for significantly smaller crop yields.
Reid Fishering, owner of Montrose-based Mountain Quality Farms, which grows sweet corn, said his company went into growing season with a “hope and a prayer.” Water officials told him at the start of the year that his farm would start the spring getting 50% of the water they typically do, and that he shouldn’t expect any water after mid-August.
In 2025, his company irrigated 1,800 acres. This year, it irrigated 600.
“It did come through,” Fishering said. “But it still was the barest of minimums in us getting through the season, money-wise.”
Mindi Figueroa, land stewardship liaison with the Community Agriculture Alliance, said she feels water infrastructure projects, specifically larger and new reservoirs, will be key investments to sustain the state’s agriculture industry.
Fishering echoed her sentiment.
“I don’t care how much snow falls this year, we’re still in the same situation that we are because we don’t have the storage going forward,” he said. “A lot of it’s a joke, but we may not be farming next year if we don’t get something.”
Mueller touted several of the river district’s efforts to build out sustainable water infrastructure and policies, including its recent progress toward acquiring the water rights of the Shoshone Hydroelectric Power Plant, a key controller of the Colorado River’s flow. The plant sits just east of Glenwood Springs.
The river district has for years sought the means to buy from Xcel Energy the Shoshone water rights, the oldest and largest non-consumptive water rights on the Colorado River. In acquiring the rights, the river district would prevent any other potential buyers from diverting the water from Western Slope communities.
The agency has raised about $97 million of $99 million for the acquisition, $40 million of which comes from federal funds. Those federal dollars, which were secured by the state’s Democratic senators under the Biden Administration, were frozen in 2025 under the Trump Administration. Earlier this year, U.S. Rep. Jeff Hurd, R-Grand Junction, worked successfully to release the funds.
“That’s the kind of collaboration we need in Congress and in our communities,” Mueller said.
U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colorado, and Hurd both spoke at the seminar. Together, they emphasized that despite their opposing parties, protecting the Colorado River’s flow is a shared priority.
“This is a Colorado issue,” Hurd said. “Whether it’s our agricultural producers, whether it’s our communities, water managers, outdoor recreation — all of the communities that depend on stable, reliable Colorado River flows.”
The two federal officials said they want to work more to devote federal funds to locally driven issues, like they did with Shoshone.
“Money is getting spent … not to dictate how people do their work here, but to support the work of people here,” Bennet said. “We're going to need more of that money, not less.”
A look ahead
Looking at this winter, it’s hard to say whether the Colorado River Basin’s snowpack will benefit from this year’s “super” El Niño, said Russ Schumacher, a climatologist at Colorado State University.
The climate pattern distinction is given to years that see abnormal warming of sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean.
During El Niño years, Colorado tends to be colder, but not necessarily wetter, Schumacher said. The Colorado River Basin falls just above the southern region of the country, which climatologists expect will see a wetter winter.
“We don’t have a lot of really bad droughts in strong El Niño years, so that’s good,” Schumacher said. “But it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to be a blockbuster either.”
Moving forward, he noted, Colorado needs to be prepared for more dry years like 2026.
As the country’s climate warms, early springs such as the one this year will become more common, causing snow to melt sooner and rivers to dry up earlier in the fall. He cited a study from the Adrienne Marshall School of Mines showing that while the likelihood of a drought like 2026’s is currently 0.02%, that could become a 17% chance by the end of the century.
Mueller said the state’s future water security depends on finding sustainable systems to manage the water it has now.
“How can we adapt to uncertainty and rising temperatures and reduced streams?” he asked. “We don’t need to argue about whether or not that’s happening. We need to focus on the future and figure out solutions.”
Drew Shaw is a Report for America corps member covering public lands and other items of interest in Garfield County for the Aspen Daily News.
