Click the link to read the article on the InkStain website (John Fleck):
March 18, 2026
Some notes on the current state of the Colorado Riverโฆ
Iโm preparing for a panel discussion this evening in Albuquerque. I promised โ three-finger promise, Scoutโs honor, which still means something to me โ that I wouldnโt use any swear words., either in the blog post or the panel discussion.
The state of the water
Per the latest numbers from my colleague/collaborator/friend Jack Schmidt, Lake Powell currently holds 1.57 million acre feet of water above the protect-the-infrastructure no-go line of elevation 3,500.
Storage at this point in the year is similar to 2022, when we began a hair-about-to-be-on-fire drill as Interior raced to figure out how to protect Glen Canyon Dam because of newly understood (or newly publicly understood) risks of dropping below minimum power pool and using the damโs outlook works. That constraint still holds.
The forecast this year is a catastrophe compared to 2022: 1.75 million acre feet for the 2026 runoff season, compared to 3.8 maf in the 2022 runoff season. [ed. emphasis mine]
The result, according to theย most probableย forecast from Reclamation, is that absent some sort of action (see governance below) Powell will drop below 3,500 in September, and stay that way until the spring runoff in 2027.
According to theย min probableย forecast, which is realistic given the looming heat-pocalypse, we hit 3,500 by July and stay there forever (by which I mean as far as the current 24-month forecast runs โ as the late Jim Morison wrote, the futureโs uncertain and the end is always near).
The state of the governance
The state of the governance nests two separate by closely linked problems: near term actions and long term rules.
Near term actions
Protecting Glen Canyon Dam from that 3,500 no-go line requires coming up with a least 2 million acre feet of water over the next two years โ to get us past that spring 2027 problem described above. There are two ways to do this. The first is to release a bunch of water from upstream, primarily Flaming Gorge Reservoir. How much? Dunno. The second is to cut releases from Glen Canyon Dam, reducing flows through the Grand Canyon and into Lake Mead. How much? Dunno, though we may find out soon.
The current rules, adopted in response to the challenges of 2022-23, allows releases from Glen Canyon Dam to drop this year to 6 million acre feet, which effectively gets 1.5 million of the needed 2 million feet from Lake Mead by reducing releases thereto. Another 500,000 in releases from upstream reservoir gets you 2 million acre feet, with room to do more if the hydrology gets even worse โ which it might.
Longer term actions
The longer term stuff is where, as a student of governance, this gets really interesting for me. As a citizen of the basin, I am inclined to swear words at the dysfunction that has left us with no long term plan beyond the end of this year. But I Scoutโs honor promised, so shifting to the โstudent of governanceโ schtick gives me a view from nowhereway to approach this dispassionately, without the, yโknow, words that would have made Mr. Vinatieri, my Scoutmaster, disappointed in me.
Others have chronicled the failure of the seven U.S. Colorado River Basin states to come to a consensus agreement on a set of river operating rules, we need not repeat that here, other than to note that what we have here is a classic case of what has been called the tragedy of the anticommons. This is a situation where many people or entities โ in this case the states of the Colorado River Basin โ each have the power to block a solution that might be to the benefit of the community as a whole. In this case, each of the seven states of the Colorado River Basin have blocking power over solutions that would prevent the reservoirs from crashing.
See above: the reservoirs are crashing and we have no plan to prevent it because any proposal that might prevent it has been blocked by one or more states that object.
The reason behind this is a set of rules written beginning in the 1920s governing the river โ the Colorado River Compact and a series of ad hoc additions that followed โ that attempted to lay out rules for managing the river but failed to include functional processes for modifying the rules when they proved inadequate to changing the situation. Weโre now stuck with a system under which each of the seven basin states has blocking power over any attempt to change the rules.
This violates one of the fundamental institutional design principles identified by the late Elinor Ostrom, who taught us so much about how we succeed or fail in overcoming the tragedy of the commons: โHow will the rules โฆ be changed over time with changes in the performance of the resource system, the strategies of participants, and external opportunities and constraints?โ We have to have rules about how we rewrite the rules. We lack that.
Despite this, we have succeeded in the past, in a series of rule-writing exercises that began in the late 1990s, by depending on principled actors at the state level recognizing that they needed to balance their need to protect their own communityโs water supplies against the need to solve problems at the scale of the basin as a whole.
My personal values on this question are both instrumental (things that I think are in the best interests of myself and my community) and deontological (things that I think are fundamental moral principles). The second first: I think we have ethical obligations to those upstream and downstream of us in shared river basins. This is, for me, fundamental. The second is instrumental โ I think compromise is in the best interests of my communityโs water supply and therefore its future, because if we end up in litigation and the system crashes, we stand to lose a lot more than if we compromise, are willing to act on our obligations to our downstream neighbors by using less ourselves.
The last two years of increasingly hostile negotiations among the states make clear that behavior that recognizes those principles is gone, replaced by interpersonal bickering and a game of chicken driving the basin toward litigation (effectively hoping to manage the basin by convincing a judge of our preferred interpretation of ambiguous rules written a century ago) and reservoir collapse.
Thar be dragons.
Map of the Colorado River drainage basin, created using USGS data. By Shannon1 Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0
The dimensions of batteries was demonstrated during the public unveiling of a project for Holy Cross Energy near Glenwood Springs and Carbondale in late 2022. Those particularly batteries did not work out as expected and are being replaced, although two later battery projects in the Hoiy Cross service territory along Interstate 70 west of Glenwood Springs were immediately successful. Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots
Click the link to read the article on the Big Pivots website (Allen Best):
March 19, 2026
Utilities are rapidly integrating energy storage places from Durango to a tiny place near the Nebraska border now best known for storing grain
Amherst lies in northeastern Colorado, about seven miles from the Nebraska border. It has a gas station, a Lutheran church, and a population of 58. Dozens of grain silos, each 110 feet tall, loom over the community. Together, they can store 2.7 million bushels, mostly wheat and corn.
In about a year, Amherst will also be storing electricity. Highline Electric, a cooperative based in nearby Holyoke, plans to install lithium-iron batteries with two megawatts of storage.
Dennis Herman, the general manager of Highline, explained that the battery storage will enable Highline to lower its peak demands for electricity, primarily in late afternoon to early evening hours. This will save money for Highline and its wholesale provider, Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association. Like most everything, electricity typically costs most when in highest demand.
Battery storage is becoming commonplace in Coloradoโs energy landscape. Utilities large and small are embracing lithium-iron batteries as prices have continued to plunge.
Xcel Energy by the end of March will have 200 MW of battery storage available. The company expects to have 1,725 MW of capacity by 2028. Tri-State, Coloradoโs second largest electrical generator, plans 550 MW in Colorado and another 150 in New Mexico.
Batteries represent a crucial step in the decarbonization of our energy. Fuel agnostic, they can store electricity generated by natural gas or even coal plants. Most commonly they are paired with renewable energy, particularly solar. Utilities with large-scale batteries can stock up on cheap energy to meet hours of peak demand, as in the case at Amherst.
โAs we move to a much higher percentage of renewables on the grid, storage takes on a role that is more and more important,โ said Will Toor, director of the Colorado Energy Office. โWhen you think about how we will keep the lights on in the future in a grid with high amounts of renewables, storage just gets more and more important.โ
Batteries can also serve other purposes. For example, they can provide electricity in areas of the distribution grid with potential weaknesses, such as places that will lose power if a power line goes down.
Robin Lunt likens the role batteries are playing in energy to that of refrigeration in food supply chains.
โYou can move lettuce from California to the Midwest if you have refrigeration. And if you donโt, youโre just betting on the weather,โ said Lunt, chief commercial officer for Denver-based Guzman Energy. โStorage is a new tool that smooths out the volatility that currently exists with energy.โ
Taking a national perspective, Dennis Wamsted, an analyst with the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, sees the โblistering pace of the buildout of solar and battery storageโ continuing for at least the next two years. โThis allows renewables to gain more market share from coal and gas in U.S. power markets.,โ he said in a new report he co-authored.
โBattery storage is about to change how the utility industry operates, and it will be for the better,โ he said.
Sharp declines in prices have been crucial in spurring rapid deployment of utility-scale four-hour lithium-batteries. Bloomberg NEF, a research organization, reported that costs in 2025 fell more than 27% even as other clean energy costs rose. Taking a longer view, Energy Storage News in December reported that battery costs during the prior decade fell an average 20% annually even as installations rose 80% annually. Solar recorded parallel cost declines.
Lazard, a global assessment management firm, in 2025 found the sharp price declines were driven by technology advances, including increased cell capacity and energy density. An oversupply of battery cells resulting from lower-than-expected demand for EVs also contributed to the reduced prices.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed by President Donald Trump in 2025 gutted many elements of the Inflation Reduction Act signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2023. Tax credits for battery storage were largely spared and benefit Highline and other not-for-profit electric cooperatives.
First utility scale in 2012
Batteries have stored electricity since Thomas Edison was tinkering in his New Jersey laboratories a century ago. Only in 2012, however, was the first utility-scale application battery storage project implemented in the United States. That was a pilot project in Oregon.
Coloradoโs era of utility-scale battery storage began service in November 2018. Brighton-based United Power, an electric cooperative serving a broad arc along metropolitan Denverโs northern fringe, wanted to begin understanding how batteries fit into the puzzle of the energy future.
โUnderstanding storage is the next logical step in the progression of renewable generation,โ said Jerry Marizza in 2018 when announcing the batteries. He was then United Powerโs new business director. โWithout the ability to store energy, renewables will have an artificial cap placed on their utilization.โ
Marizza, who now lives in Arizona, remembers utilities resisting batteries as they had also once resisted solar. Many were blind-sided when prices tumbled. โThey just didnโt want to learn about this stuff because they didnโt see any value in doing it,โ he said.
โTo me, it was a no-brainer,โ said Marizza. โWe didnโt do it because we wanted to become Renewables USA, although that was a benefit. We did it because it made business sense.โ
United Power has rapidly deployed lithium-ion battery storage systems in its service territory north of metropolitan Denver. Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots
The payback on investments has declined to six or eight years. Payback on an electrical substation โ crucial to delivering electricity โ is 50 years.
In some situations, the payback can be far quicker. In 2024, United added 120 megawatts. Those batteries paid for themselves almost immediately by avoiding the need to buy electricity from other sources during times of high summer temperatures. That saved the cooperative $300,000 a month. Plus, cheap solar can be used to recharge the batteries, further saving money.
Unitedโs first experiment at the cooperativeโs office along Interstate 25 between Longmont and Firestone now looks humble. The Tesla four-megawatt batteries sit behind chain link fences and within an enclosure little larger than a typical suburban two-car garage.
One measure of batteries โ the one used mostly in this story โ is in simple megawatts. A different measure, megawatt-hours, defines how much electric energy can be delivered from a battery over time. Unitedโs 4 MW of storage, for example, has 16 MW-hours. The 2 MW batteries at Amherst will have 8 MW-hours (also called MWh).
Think of megawatts being the water sitting in a jug and megawatt-hours being the time it takes to empty the jug.
Unitedโs small 4-MW experiment from 2018 was slow to be surpassed. Finally, in 2023, Holy Cross Energy began using 5 MW batteries (15 MWh) coupled with 13,500 solar panels at the Colorado Mountain College Spring Valley Campus above Carbondale. Soon after, Xcel began use of far larger battery arrays.
Tri-State is a case study in this altered thinking. Twenty years ago it saw a future consisting almost entirely of coal. By 2018 it had abandoned those ambitions but still discouraged Unitedโs battery experiment. At that time it provided wholesale power to United. Now, Tri-State is working with 10 of its member cooperatives, including Highline, most of them in Colorado, in exploring utility-scale batteries as part of Tri-Stateโs demand-response program.
โThe overall goal of this Tri-State program is to introduce flexibility to electric system loads, which is becoming more necessary as the generating assets being built today are not dispatchable in the traditional sense,โ explained Highlineโs Herman.
A striking example of the growing and valuable role of batteries can be found in California. In a December 2025 New York Times story, Ivan Penn pointed out that California officials had often asked residents in recent years to use less electricity on hot summer days to prevent power outages. Those alerts ceased after 2022, he wrote, largely because batteries have allowed California to use its abundant solar power well into evening hours.
Californiaโs battery capacity, 14,583 MW, dwarfed Coloradoโs 459 MW as of January, according to Clearview, a data-tracking company dedicated to the clean energy transition. Colorado, though, has had a far more rapid rate of growth. It had gained 102 times as much battery capacity by 2025 as compared to the 30-fold increase in California.
Texas, a politically red state, had an adoption rate that dwarfed those of bluish California and mostly blue Colorado: 4,100% since 2020. Batteries are apolitical.
A game changer
Mark Gabriel calls batteries a game changer. He is the chief executive of United Power. The electrical cooperative has nearly 120,000 members. They include data centers, oil-and-gas operators, and expansive suburban neighborhoods. Unitedโs 6% annual growth in demand ranks highest of all Colorado electrical utilities.
How can that demand be satisfied? Wind generation remains the least expensive energy but requires transmission from mostly distant locations. That transmission is costly and typically takes a decade or more to build, Gabriel points out. Renting space on transmission lines is like driving in the toll lane of a highway.
Gas is another option, and United managed to get its natural gas plant near Keenesburg on line in July 2025 after being commissioned just 20 months earlier. The same plant might take three to five years now because of constricted supply lines.
Batteries have tightened supply chains, too, and somewhat heightened prices of late. But they can be installed within 10 months. Too, they can use existing infrastructure. In other words, no new transmission lines needed.
Substations are commonly located in areas where demand for electricity is congregated. โItโs in the distribution system that the batteries have real value,โ said Gabriel.
Siting can be a challenge in areas where land is already at a premium. They do take up space, if far less than solar farms. Visually, though, they are boring, small monoliths 8 to 10 feet tall, erected in rows.
United today has 119.5 MW of battery capacity, second in Colorado only to Xcelโs existing 200 MW. Both utilities plan far more.
United Powerโs first foray into battery storage was in an area little bigger than a suburban garage behind its office along Interstate 25 between Firestone and Longmont. Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots
United plans 200 megawatt batteries more by 2027 in a project south of Brush called Fortress that will be coupled with 200 MW of solar. That 319.5 MW of battery storage will, if necessary, enable United to meet 40% to 50% of demand.
Xcel Energy is also rapidly expanding its battery capacity. This year it expects to complete two 200-MW battery installations, one near Brush and the second in South Park. In addition, Xcel is contracted to buy capacity from others through power purchase agreements n Adams County and Pueblo County and perhaps elsewhere.
The company is also seeking approval from state regulators to add 400 MW of battery storage adjacent to its Hayden coal plant.
Batteries are also making inroads in homes and businesses. Two electrical cooperatives, Glenwood Springs-based Holy Cross Energy and Fort Collins-based Poudre Valley Electric, have incentives for home batteries, as does Xcel Energy.
Higher prices for these small-scale applications have so far discouraged broad adoption. Multi-day outages during the last year resulting from high-wind events along the foothills west of Boulder and Denver are also spurring purchases for home use.
Microgrids are also becoming more common. At Red Feather Lake, northwest of Fort Collins, 140-kilowatt (446-kilowatt-hour) Tesla Powerpack batteries are coupled with solar and propane generation.
This microgrid is meant to provide power for fire, emergency medical services, and other critical community functions in case Red Feather Lake is cut off from the outside world, as nearly happened during the Cameron Peak Fire in 2021. As was, the fire forced evacuation of the community.
Aspen had a close call in 2018 when it came within one burning electric pole of losing power during the Lake Christine Wildfire. Now, it has a small microgrid for emergency services. So does a hospital at Cortez, among others.
In Durango, La Plata Electric was awarded a state grant for a microgrid at the Mountain Middle School. The electrical cooperative would add battery storage to couple with existing rooftop solar to allow the school to become a haven in case of extended power outages.
A setback because of setbacks
Batteries have occasionally posed problems. Batteries installed for Holy Cross Energy above Glenwood Springs in 2022 underperformed. The manufacturer, Powin, has gone bankrupt, and those batteries are now being replaced with a new Tesla utility-scale battery system. Phil Armstrong, the power manager for Holy Cross Energy, said he expects the new batteries to be in operation soon. Two more recent battery installations worked immediately and as expected.
Wildfire potential has slowed deployment of batteries in La Plata County. The county has had several major wildfires in the last 25 years. Continued drought combined with warming temperatures cause worries of worse to come.
California has had two fires caused by batteries in recent years. At the most recent, in January 2025, anywhere from 55% to 80% of the 100,000 lithium-ion batteries at the Moss Landing Vistra Energy Storage Facility burned, causing concern about air pollution in the Monterey Bay area. As of January 2026, the cause had not been determined, according to Inside Climate News.
Does La Plata County have a legitimate worry about fire? The Durango Herald, in a December editorial, pointed out that Moss Landing relied on older technology and pre-2018 fire codes.
โBattery safety has advanced quickly,โ the newspaper said. It cited a National Labs report of 97% decline in battery energy storage system failure rates since 2018 โthanks to modern fire testing, safer chemistries like lithium-iron phosphate, and strict codes.โ
Wamsted, of the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, had much the same to say: The big fire at Moss Landing was a mess, clearly, but it used a construction technique no longer used across the industry,โ he said. โThose batteries were not containerized, simply placed in the turbine building of the old plant. Now, everything is in a container, so if you have a fire, it stays little.โ
In January, the county commissioners voted 2-1 to mandate a 200-foot setback from property lines. That leaves only one of the electrical cooperativeโs 28 substations in the county eligible for battery storage without a variance.
The Herald said this approach doesnโt add safety. โIt adds delay, cost, and uncertainty.โ
Chris Hansen, CEO of La Plata Energy, makes a point as Robert Kenney, CEO of Xcel Energyโs Colorado operations, listens during a recent solar and storage association conference in Denver. Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots
โHansen had urged La Plata County to let hazard-mitigation analysis determine the appropriate property setbacks. โUnfortunately, they decided to use a flat number instead,โ he said.
It makes our job harder. It makes it more difficult to get a battery project done in La Plata County at the places we think are best. Really, what weโre going to do is show the county that we can do it safely and reliably. We have a site where we can do that right out of the gate, where thereโs enough space, and weโll then cross the next bridge when we get there.โ
La Plata Electricโs second project will be in neighboring Archuleta County, where a site has been identified as having urgent need for storage.
Adams, Arapahoe, Denver, and El Paso along with the city of Fort Collins have already adopted codes governing batteries. So have county commissioners in Pitkin County, which Hansen contends has as much fire risk at La Plata. None, he says, are restrictive.
Jeremiah Garrick, of the COSSA Institute, the educational arm of the Colorado Solar and Storage Association, reports Moffat County has also started work on regulations, as have Teller, Delta, Washington and several other counties scattered across Colorado. Logan County adopted regulations in concert with other regulations in anticipation of a hyperscale data center.
Future batteries
Lithium-ion batteries now rule but will likely be displaced in the next few years by lithium-ion phosphate, solid-state, and sodium-ion batteries.
โYouโve already seen Xcel Energy and United Power be able to get these into tighter footprints in a very safe way,โ said Hansen. And that will be even easier when new technologies, solid state and sodium-ion batteries, are available in the market, because they basically have no flammability or oxidization risk at all. So youโll be able to put them in even tighter footprints than the lithium-ion technology.โ
Toor, at the Colorado Energy Office, similarly sees varieties of long-duration storage entering the picture.
Pueblo remains scheduled to be the site of deployment of a 100-hour iron-air storage collaboration between Form Energy and Xcel Energy.. A similar collaboration is alreayd underway in Minnesota.
In Pueblo, Xcel Energy, working with Form Energy, plans to deploy 100-hour iron-air storage. The project depends upon federal funding, and the Department of Energy in the Trump administration hit a pause on the project in 2025. Xcel now says it plans to have this new long-time battery storage technology operating in early 2028. Xcel and Form expect to have a project in Minnesota on line sometime in 2026.
Colorado also has several companies trying to be part of this new future.
Solid Power, a company with offices in Louisville and a factory in Thornton, is focused on solid-state batteries. โWe need a new breed of battery that looks, acts, and is built like todayโs lithium-ion batteries, but that comes with the benefits consumers and automakers have been seeking for decades: longer life, increased safety and lower costs,โ the company states.
The company is focused on the auto market, but as Teslaโs batteries demonstrate, the technologies cross lanes from automotive to utilities.
Synthio, which has roots in the Boulder-Golden-Broomfield triangle, specializes in chemistries, including batteries.
In short, storage during the last few years has become the frontier of this big pivot in energy. What may be most remarkable is that the first batteries of any scale were not used in Colorado until little more than seven years ago.
Into the detailed weeds, if you wish:
Colorado Springs Utilities
Colorado Springs Utilities gained access to 100 MW of battery storage in 2025 and plans another 100 MW in โcoming years.โ
Holy Cross Energy
Holy Cross Energy has three solar-plus-storage projects at the Colorado Mountain College campus, Parachute, and Rifle. They collectively have 55 MW of storage and 24.5 of solar generation.
Platte River Power Authority
Fort Collins-based Platte River Power Authority has a battery adjacent to the Rawhide power plant. Relatively soon, working with NextEra Energy, it will have 100 MW, 4-hour (400 MWh) utility scale battery project in Weld County . Platte River is also working to add four 5-MW/20-MWh battery storage system batteries in each of its four communities: Longmont, Estes Park, Loveland, and Fort Collins.
Tri-State Generation
The portfolio approved by the Colorado Public Utilities Commission calls for 650 MW of battery storage as follows:
Montrose County, 50 MW
Moffat County, 200 MW
Kit Carson County,150 MW
Other places in eastern Colorado, 150 MW
Plus 200 MW in New Mexico.
United Power
United today has 119.5 megawatts and plans another 200 MW to be completed by December 2027.
Xcel Energy
The companyโs Rocky Mountain Battery Energy Storage System has 200 MW/800MWh of storage.
Coming online by the end of 2027:
A 200 MW/800 MWh of storage near the Pawnee coal plant, near Brush.
South Park 200 MW/400MWh. Both projects are expected to come online by the end of 2027.
In addition, Xcel is contracting with several other projects through power purchase agreements. Two will come online in 2027, two in 2028. This is in addition to two already in service.
In the past two to three years there’ve been important advances both in enteric methaneโreducing feed additives and in manureโfocused technologies, and several options have progressed from the laboratory to commercial use.
Whatโs new?
3โNOP (Bovaer): Now the most advanced commercial additive, approved in 60+ countries and marketed in the U.S. by Elanco, with typical methane reductions of about 30% in dairy and beef cattle at very low doses. It works by inhibiting a key enzyme in the rumenโs methanogenesis pathway without harming animal performance1.
Red seaweed and bromoform products: Asparagopsisโbased seaweed supplements can cut enteric methane by over 80โ90% in controlled studies, and work is shifting toward purified bromoform or standardized products rather than raw seaweed to control variability and safety. Several pilot trials are underway in Australia, the EU, and the U.S., but broad regulatory approval is still pending2.
Other additives under study: Research programs (e.g., Teagasc, CSU AgNext) are testing oils, grainโindustry byโproducts, probiotics, and other inhibitors; some trials in housed cattle report up to 30% methane reduction with no productivity loss, though pastureโbased delivery remains a major challenge3.โ
Adoption status: A recent technical review notes that methaneโinhibiting feed additives are now the fastestโemerging enteric solution, with strong private investment but limited onโfarm uptake so far due to cost, regulation, and farmer skepticism4.
It was early June, and we sat out in the shade in our backyard in Silverton, Colorado, wearing short-sleeves and shorts and drinking cold beverages under a cloudless blue sky. That, in itself, made the day memorable. Blizzards are as likely on Memorial Day as barbecues in this mountain town, elevation 9,318 feet, and sweater-free days usually donโt come along until July.
The winter of 2001-2002 had been unusually mild and a warm April and May had melted what little snow had fallen; the Animas Riverโs spring runoff had peaked at historically low levels a couple weeks earlier. I, for one, wasnโt too worried. By then it was understood that the climate was warming, and that it could wreak havoc on the planet, but the idea of rising sea levels and devastating heat waves felt pretty abstract in the Colorado high country. Besides, as an amateur historian, I had read accounts of similarly dry and warm winters from the San Juan Mountainsโ past: In 1879, the snow was all melted from the highest peaks by May (giving way to the Lime Creek Burn that summer); sleighing was impossibleโ on Silvertonโs streets during the 1890-91 winter; and the newspaper ran a photo of a water wagon suppressing dust on Greene Street on New Yearโs Day, 1918, during โone of the most delightful winters ever experienced.โ
Vallecito Reservoir during Missionary Ridge Fire via George Weber Environmental.
This, it seemed, was just another one of those occasional weird years, so we figured we might as well enjoy it. Then someone noticed what looked like puffy cumulonimbus cloud rising up in the gap formed by the Animas River gorge. It wasnโt a cloud at all, but a billowing tower of smoke from the Missionary Ridge Fire, ignited that afternoon on a slope about 35 miles south of where we sat. Over the coming weeks, the blaze would eat through 73,000 acres of parched scrub oak and aspen and conifer forest, along with 83 structures. It eclipsed the 26,000-acre Lime Creek Burn as the stateโs largest wildfire on record, but lost the title to the Hayman Fire (138,114 acres) that was burning at the same time across the state.
Aerial view from the south of Hayman Fire June 30, 2002. Road traversing from left to right is U.S. Highway 24. Town of Manitou Springs is in lower part of photo, Colorado Springs to the right. Garden of the Gods park defined by three upright orange rock formations in right center just below smoke line. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
And it was then that we realized this was no normal abnormality, and that 2002 would go down as the Water Year of our Discontent: dry, smoky, and catastrophic for irrigators and river rafters alike.
This year is shaping up to be even more dire. Indeed, with temperatures in Silverton climbing into the 60s this week, Iโm sure a few people have shed some layers and soaked up the sun โ in March. Now, however, we know that this is no anomaly, but part of a long-term trend toward aridification, most likely caused or at least exacerbated by climate change. Call it the โnew normalโ if youโd like, but just remember the words of Bruce Cockburn: โThe trouble with normal is it always gets worse.โ
I wanted to wait until April to give this assessment, on the off chance that the weather might shift radically in the last days of March in a way that might give us all some hope. While anythingโs still possible, Iโve seen enough to bet that, unfortunately, we may already have seen peak snowpack in many places, making this the driest water year on record by far. And besides, I wanted to get the spring runoff โpredict the peakโ streamflow contest going before, well, the streamflows actually peaked.
A crappy snow year does not necessarily lead to a nasty fire season, since so many other factors come into play. The same can sort of be true about the peak of the spring runoff. Thatโs more about timing: A fast melt after a dry winter can result in a bigger, albeit short-lived, peak, than a slow melt of a relatively abundant snowpack. The riverโs average flows across the entire water year are much more closely tied to snowpack, but those can also be affected by a big monsoon season.
Still, looking back at similar years in the past can help with predicting flows this year. Iโm going to focus on the Animas River in Durango, because itโs my home river, it is unimpeded by dams or major upstream diversions, and it is a good proxy for a lot of other Southwestern rivers, since its headwaters are located in the same mountain range as those of the Rio Grande, the Gunnison, the Dolores, the San Miguel, the San Juan, and the Uncompahgre rivers. If the runoff is weak in the Animas, it is also likely to be weak in all of those other rivers.
The snowpack graph shows that the current heat wave has really taken a toll, and probably launched the spring runoff.
Hereโs the temperature graph for the Animas watershed. You can see that it reached a record high for the date of 42.8ยฐ F. That doesnโt seem too warm until you consider that the median temperature for March 18 is about 25ยฐ F. Probably more significant than this one little blip is the fact that daily temperatures have far exceeded โnormalโ on dozens of days this winter. Also note the contrast with 2002 (the darker green line).
When you talk to Colorado climate folks and old-timers with good memories, youโll often hear that the 1977 water year was even drier than 2002. Unfortunately, SNOTEL records typically go back only to the early 1980s, so itโs difficult to make a good apples-to-apples comparison. But by looking at the โnatural flowโ of the Colorado River, which is the calculated estimate of how much the river would carry without any human intervention, it appears that 1977 was, indeed, the driest winter across the Upper Colorado River Basin since at least 1900.
However, historic Animas River flow data suggest that 2002 was actually drier in southwestern Colorado.
Hereโs the average annual daily flow for the Animas. Note that there are several years missing between 1898 and 1911; apparently the USGS did not record flows during those years.
Average stream flows on the Animas River have trended downward over the last century and some, but the river has struggled through extreme dry years in the past. Source: USGS.
Because that graph isnโt so easy to read, hereโs a table showing the eleven lowest average daily flow water years. Note that in 1927 they only had 92 records, potentially skewing the results. The 2002 and 2018 water years were lower than in 1977. If snowpack levels correlate with annual average flows, then we could expect this yearโs to be around 200 cfs, which is pretty damned dismal.
When I took a look at the peak streamflows for the Animas, I was a bit taken aback to see that in 2002 it topped out above 1,000 cfs, which is more than I would have expected.
Then I saw the date: It peaked in September, after the monsoon arrived, not in the spring. The 2002 spring runoff actually topped out on May 21 at 880 cfs, which was far lower than the 1977 spring peak.
Based on all of that, my Animas River peak streamflow prediction is a bit wacky, but Iโm standing by it: It will top out at 700 cfs on April 15.
The rest of the Land Desk community will have a chance to predict the peak starting next week, when Iโll announce the terms, the river gauges in the contest, and the prizes for the winner(s). Most likely it will only be open to paid subscribers, so the time to upgrade is now!
We might as well get even more depressed. Hereโs the snowpack graph for the Upper Colorado River Basin, showing 2026, 2002, and 2018 โ i.e. the dismal years. Note that the spring melt has begun in earnest. If it continues at this rate, runoff will be over by early May.
And hereโs the natural flow graph for Lees Ferry on the Colorado River. Natural flow is the calculation of how much water would be in the river at that point if there were no human diversions or consumptive use upstream. If you compare this to the historic streamflows on the Animas River, youโll notice that there is a correlation, but itโs not direct. For example, 1977 was the driest year on record for the Colorado River as a whole, with a total volume of just 5.4 million acre-feet, which is about half what the Lower Basin alone was using throughout the 1990s.
The ten lowest years on record are:
1977: 5.4 MAF
2002: 5.9 MAF
1934: 6.6 MAF
2021: 7.2 MAF
1954: 8.3 MAF
2012: 8.4 MAF
2018: 8.5 MAF
2025: 8.5 MAF (provisional)
1981: 8.6 MAF
1931: 8.9 MAF
It looks like we could be in that 5.4 MAF territory once again. That wasnโt a huge deal in 1977, since it was an anomaly. It is a big deal now.
And just so you know, itโs not just the Colorado River watershed thatโs in trouble. Even California, which got pummeled by atmospheric rivers, is losing its snow rapidly.
๐ Reading (and watching) Room ๐ง
The Upper Basin and Lower Basin may not have come up with a deal yet on how to save the Colorado Riverโs massive plumbing system, but they are looking for solutions. One of them is creating an Upper Basin conservation pool. Like a lot of issues related to the rivers, itโs a slightly complicated one. But Heather Sackett of Aspen Journalism gives a really great rundown. Sheโs always a must-read for those looking to understand whatโs going on with the Colorado.
๐บ๏ธ Messing with Maps ๐งญ
The current heat wave is breaking records across the West. Hereโs a little sampling:
If you want a quick and comprehensive look where those records were broken during the last day, week, or month, check outย coolwx.com/record. In the side panel you can click on the United States and the time period you wish to see and it will show an animation of all of the records. It looks kind of like this:
Update: I’ve replaced all the graphics that I published early this morning. I hope they are now accurate. All major basins are showing a big drop which was expected with the record heat the past few days.
Demand for copper is surging because of demand from new technologies, but suppliers are struggling to keep up, and they are likely to fall further behind in the coming years, resulting in shortfalls globally. Even though copper prices are at historically high levels, the financial risk involved in mining means that prices will need to go much higher before mining companies see profit in addressing the supply shortage.
Copper is abundant in the ground, but thereโs not enough being extracted to be able to meet the demand. Thatโs because investors want higher and more reliable returns than copper mines currently offer, and the industry faces complex permitting processes and canโt find enough workers. Our analysis found that for new technologies to continue to develop, and for the global economy to continue to grow, even higher prices are ahead.
Recycling existing copper could help reduce the amount needed from new mines, but it would not be enough to meet the rising demand. Even under generous assumptions, we found that recycling might provide 35% of the global copper supply by 2050, with mining producing the remaining 65%.
The only other way to get more copper is to mine more of it. But building a new mine can take 20 to 30 years โ a period during which investors are spending money but not yet getting returns, and a time when costs can rise significantly from preliminary estimates.
If industrial and economic growth is to stay on track in the 2030s, new mines would need to be in the financing and permitting processes right now. But they arenโt.
Even Resolution Copper, which started decades ago trying to develop a mine in Arizona outside Phoenix, has more work to do before being able to start mining. Since 1995, the projectโs developers have spent several billion dollars on planning, permitting and legal cases.
Once in place, it could meet as much as 25% of U.S. copper demand from a high-concentration body of ore located near existing truck and rail lines.
Evaluating the environmental and community effects of proposed mining projects is essential, but in many countries there are overlapping levels of review that have different, and variable, timelines. And many parts of the process can be appealed to courts by opponents or supporters. That increases costs and imposes time delays for mine developers โ and means consumers will have to wait longer, and pay more, for copper-intensive products and services.
Yet even though copper prices are near historic highs โ over US$13,000 per ton on the London Metals Exchange โ the profit margins are still too low and price swings are too volatile for companies to forecast reliable returns on the risky investment of building new mines.
Metal structures on the site of Resolution Copperโs proposed underground copper mine in Arizona, in a place that has been sacred to Native American people for thousands of years. Jim West/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
To get a picture of what might be possible if there were a significant global effort to increase copper availability, we evaluated several optimistic scenarios. We looked at faster permitting for new mines, higher recycling rates and smoother mining processes than those currently in place. But even then, economic development drove demand to grow far faster than the available supply.
Existing mines will have decreasing amounts of ore available and will produce less copper in 2050 than they do in 2025. Yet even if all known copper deposits with known mine-opening dates go into production as scheduled copper supplies will not keep up with demand.
Our best-case scenario has global mine production at about 30 million metric tons of copper a year by 2050. But to keep pace with global economic development, the world will need 37 million metric tons of mined copper a year by then.
To meet that additional need, more mines will need to be opened, and extra production developed โ including extracting residual copper from old mine debris that was previously viewed as having too little copper to be worth processing.
Higher copper prices will ripple through the economy, raising costs for construction, energy and technology. But pretending those costs can be avoided doesnโt make them disappear. Underinvestment across the supply chain from mines to processing today shows up as bottlenecks tomorrow, including delayed grid upgrades and constrained digital growth.
Sunlight glimmers on the Colorado River near Page, Arizona on Nov. 2, 2022. Alex Hager/KUNC
Click the link to read the article on the KUNC website (Scott Franz):
March 20, 2026
This story is part of ongoing coverage of the Colorado River, produced by KUNC in Colorado and supported by the Walton Family Foundation. KUNC is solely responsible for its editorial coverage.
Critical negotiations about the future of the Colorado River took a two week hiatus last month after the seven states in the basin missed a key Valentineโs Day deadline for striking a deal, New Mexicoโs water negotiator said Thursday.
Estevan Lรณpez said talks resumed March 2, and the upper and lower basin states are using a short-term pitch from Nevada as a starting point.
โRight now, we’re in discussions with the lower basin about a potential short-term agreement,โ Lopez told New Mexico’s Interstate Stream Commission.
Nevada is proposing to increase water releases from upper basin reservoirs like Flaming Gorge by at least 500,000 acre feet to help prevent Lake Powell from dropping too low.
The latest forecasts predict that Powell could drop enough to stop producing hydropower by December.
In return, lower basin states would agree to cut their water use by 1.25 million acre feet โuntil system conditions have meaningfully improved.โ
Lรณpez said upper basin states had a counter proposal and talks about it were scheduled on Thursday afternoon.
โThe hydrology right now is incredibly dire,โ Lรณpez said. โSo we’re beginning for this year, for the remainder of this water year, we’re suggesting that there needs to be a release from the upper initial units, most likely Flaming Gorge, since that’s the reservoir that’s largest and has the most water. And we are anticipating that there will be a release of half a million acre feet from Flaming Gorge to prop up Lake Powell.โ
Meanwhile, the Interior Department is reviewing thousands of comments it received on a range of options for how to manage the vital waterway.
The alternatives were published in January and could result in a variety of scenarios, ranging from significant water reductions in lower basin states to creating new incentives for states to conserve water.
And after the states missed two deadlines to reach an agreement, itโs becoming increasingly likely the federal government will try to piece together its own plan before the current guidelines expire in the fall.
Water negotiators are also facing a worsening water supply forecast with record low snowpack across the West.
A map shows how much water is predicted to arrive at certain locations in the Colorado River basin as of a March 1 forecast.
Cody Moser with the federal Colorado Basin River Forecast Center said last week just 2.3 million acre feet of Colorado River water is expected to reach Lake Powell through July. Thatโs about a third of whatโs considered normal.
โYou’ll notice it’s not a pretty picture here with lots of reds,โ he said as he presented a color coded map of how much water is expected to reach certain locations in the river basin. โThat’s 50 to 70% of normal April through July runoff. Those maroon colors are 30 to 50% and we even have some of those pinks, which indicates less than 30% normal seasonal spring runoff.โ
An attorney for New Mexico’s Interstate Stream Commission said Thursday the state expects the Interior Department to identify a preferred option for managing the dwindling river by July. The current operating guidelines for Lake Powell and Lake Mead expire in the fall.
The city of Montrose held a groundbreaking Monday marking the start of a major upgradereaking Monday marking the start of a major upgrade to its wastewater treatment plant, a facility that has operated with much of its original equipment since it was built in the 1980s.ย The project will replace outdated equipment and install new infrastructure to meet current and future water quality standards set by state and federal regulators. Mayor Dave Frank said the plantโs equipment has become difficult to maintain.ย
โThe equipment in our wastewater treatment plant is original to the building of the wastewater treatment plant,โ Frank said. โSo when something breaks, theyโre having to find parts in museums and junkyards in order to repair the equipment that we currently have.โ
[…]
The plant treats sanitary sewage in accordance with federal and state standards, releasing treated water back into the Uncompahgre River. The project will replace existing equipment with newer versions and install a tank for biological phosphorus removal. Wastewater Treatment Plant Superintendent Hyrum Webb said the phosphorus removal addition is a proactive step.ย
โWe want to get ahead of the curve on removing phosphorus out of the water before weโre required to by the state,โ Webb said. โIt gives us some incentive points to help out with future permitting, and itโll be cheaper now than when the state mandates us to do so.โ
Frank said water quality going back into the river is a priority…The project is expected to take approximately 18 months to complete. The total cost is estimated at $40 million, which will be funded through bonds and reserve funds.
An example of lawn space free of non-native turf grass and filled with native plants that consumer far less water. Courtesy photo
Click the link to read the article on The Vail Daily website (David O. Williams). Here’s an excerpt:
March 15, 2026
Eagle County water officials are urging property owners to voluntarily scale back water usage in a big way this spring and summer, reducing outdoor watering of landscaping in order to avoid fines and to keep water providers from having to declareย aย waterย shortage.ย The idea is to keep people in tiers one and two for outdoor water use โ 95% of which does not return to local streams and rivers โ and that one of the best ways to do so is water-wise landscaping, or basically tearing up non-native turf grass and going with native plants that require far less outdoor watering…The Eagle County Conservation District runs a program calledย Beyond Lawnย that will assess your yard, give you some ideas on how to minimize turf,ย how to go with water-wise native plants, reconfigure your irrigation system, find like-minded landscapers, and make sure fines and surcharges from your water provider arenโt part of your future this summer. Beyond Lawnโs wait listย is available to join online. There is also aย do-it-yourself workshopย being heldย in conjunction with Walking Mountains and the Climate Action Collaborative at 5:30 p.m., Thursday, April 16…
If not exactly a turf war, water officialsโ war on turf could gain significant new teeth as Eagle County reworks its land-use codes, according to Snyder, which currently allow for anywhere between 3,000 and 6,500 square feet of irrigated turf for new homes.
โWe think thatโs excessive,โ Snyder said. โ(So weโre) putting forward recommendations to narrow that down to 500 square feet, which is still a nice backyard. The hope would be that with new builds, the county and others would pursue land-use code changes that actually would say, โthis is reasonable.โ And then it gets really hard to overwater 500 square feet.โ
Old land-use codes that allowed up to 12,000 square feet of non-native turf have led to people using 60,000 gallons a month (extreme tier five). That kind of water use reduces the shared supply for everything from drinking water to fighting wildfires, and district officials say massively overwatered yards are not any more fire-resistant.
Click the link to read the article on the Pagosa Springs Sun website (Clayton Chaney and Randi Pierce). Here’s an excerpt:
March 19, 2026
Shawn Prochazka is also predicting more record high temperatures to have been set Wednes- day, March 18 (the high temperature reached was not available by press time that day); today, Thursday, March 19; and tomorrow, Friday, March 20. Prochazka predicted temperatures being 25 degrees above normal. Prochazka also notes that the record high for the month of March is 73 degrees, which was set March 19, 1907, and March 23 and 25, 1940. Warm and dry weather is expected to stick around throughout the weekend and into next week, with Prochazka indicating the next chance for precipitation possibly starting around March 25…Temperatures are expected to stay above freezing throughout the weekend in Pagosa Springs as a high of 82 degrees is forecast for Friday, March 20, with a low of 37 degrees and clear skies in the evening…
The drought conditions in the area have also worsened, with the U.S. Drought Monitor showing that 100 percent of Archuleta County was in moderate drought as of March 10, up from 47.89 percent of the county being in moderate drought and 100 percent of the county being abnormally dry the previous week…Snowpack also continues to fall below median levels in the region and across the state. As of Wednesday, the San Miguel, Dolores, Animas and San Juan river basins sat at 45 percent of the March 18 median. The Wolf Creek summit SNOTEL site, which sits at an elevation of 10,930 feet, was at 56 percent of the dayโs median, while the Upper San Juan site, which sits at 10,140 feet, was at 49 percent of the dayโs median.
On Tuesday, due to the recordbreaking warm temperatures and low snowpack across Colorado, Governor Jared Polis activated the stateโs Drought Task Force and Phase 2 of Coloradoโs Drought Response Plan. Acting on recommendations from the stateโs Water Conditions Monitoring Committee and partner agencies, the task force will help the state bet- ter understand and elevate the local, regional and sector-specific impacts of worsening drought conditions, a press release from the state explains.
โColorado is experiencing thewarmest year so far in our 131-year record, and one of the driest,โ Polis said. โActivating the Drought Task Force will help ensure we are protecting one of our most precious resources by closely tracking impacts, supporting communities and coordinating better as we prepare for the year ahead.โ
The Drought Task Force, last activated in 2020, brings together senior leadership from key state agencies, including the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, Colorado Department of Agriculture, Department of Local Affairs, and the Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, according to the press release. It further explains that the group assesses drought conditions statewide, elevates local impacts to state leadership, and can convene regional or sector-specific workgroups to gather information and share resources…
As of noon on Wednesday, March 18, the San Juan River at Pagosa Springs was running at a flow of 286 cubic feet per second (cfs), above the median flow for March 18 The median flow for March 18 sits at 121.5 cfs, with a historical low for the date being 39 cfs and the historical high being 1,040 cfs.
Carbon capture has moved from niche demonstrations to early commercial deployment, with rapid progress in new materials, direct air capture plants, and conversion of COโ into products. But unfortunately its high cost and the challenge of upscaling it restricts its large-scale implementation.
Carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) covers technologies that trap COโ from large sources (power plants, cement, steel), move it, then either store it underground or use it in products. It complements cutting emissions at the source rather than replacing them; most climate scenarios that hit netโzero use some CCUS for hardโtoโabate sectors.
Bar graph of global carbon capture and storage, by RCraig09 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0
Main types of capture
Postโcombustion: COโ is removed from exhaust gases after fuel is burned, typically using chemical solvents; it is the main option for retrofitting existing plants and factories.
Preโcombustion: fuel is converted to a mixture of hydrogen and COโ before burning, and the COโ is separated at high pressure; more common in new industrial or power processes.
Oxyโfuel combustion: fuel burns in nearly pure oxygen, producing a flue gas that is mostly COโ and water, which makes capture easier but requires expensive oxygen production.
Direct air capture (DAC): large fans pull ambient air through filters or solvents that bind COโ; the captured COโ is then concentrated and stored or used.
New materials and efficiency gains
New sorbents such as metalโorganic frameworks (MOFs) act like highly porous โspongesโ for COโ and have enabled lab systems that reach around 99% capture while cutting energy use versus traditional solvents. Recent MOFโbased systems report about a 17% reduction in energy requirements and roughly 19% lower operating costs compared with older capture setups, mainly by improving how COโ is adsorbed and released.โ Solid sorbents and adsorption processes are gaining patent share as industry shifts away from classic liquid amine systems that have higher energy penalties.โ
Nanotechnology is a hot area: experimental nanomaterials and membranes promise lowerโpressure, lowerโenergy capture, and one new nanofiltration membrane platform has been reported to make certain carbon capture steps several times more efficient and up to about 30% cheaper.
Where the captured COโ goes
Geological storage: COโ is compressed and injected deep underground into depleted oil and gas reservoirs or saline formations, where it is intended to remain trapped for centuries or longer.
Utilization: captured COโ can be used to make synthetic fuels, chemicals, and building materials, or for enhanced oil recovery; there is growing focus on converting COโ electrochemically into carbon monoxide, methane, or other feedstocks using renewable electricity.
Emerging processes link capture directly with conversion (for example, โpowerโtoโgasโ that turns COโ and hydrogen into methane), offering energy storage and product value but still facing efficiency and cost hurdles.โ
2026: the Promise vs. the Reality
Activity is accelerating: patent analyses show strong growth in CCUS and DAC, with particular emphasis on new materials, electrochemical processes, and better heat and massโtransfer engineering to cut costs.โ Direct air capture is operating at small but growing scales; it attracts attention because it can reduce atmospheric COโ directly, but it remains energyโintensive and expensive per ton compared with capturing from large point sources.
Policy incentives, such as tax credits and industrial decarbonization mandates, are driving more projects in heavy industry, especially in countries like the United States and Canada. But key concerns remain: high capital and operating costs, the need for extensive COโ transport and storage infrastructure, and uncertainties about the integrity of long-term storage.
As the American West gets hotter, farmers will need more water to irrigate the same amount of crops1. More water will also be required to cool the generators that will supply energy to an ever-increasing number of air conditioning systems in hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses2.
Why hotter air means thirstier crops
Warmer air has a higher vapor pressure deficit, so it โpullsโ more moisture out of soil and plant leaves, increasing evapotranspiration.โ This means that to get the same crop yield, farmers must apply more water per acre because a larger fraction of applied water is lost to the atmosphere rather than staying in the root zone.
Earlier snowmelt and reduced snowpack in Western mountains expose soils sooner to heat and sun, drying them out faster and further increasing irrigation needs. The same corn field will need more irrigation in 2050 than it did in 1980 just to achieve the same yield, because the atmosphere is โthirstier.โ
Why hotter days use more electricity
Steam rising from cooling towers at the CalEnergy JM Leathers Geothermal Plant at California’s Salton Sea. Photo by Robert Marcos
Higher temperatures drive up electricity demand because homes, offices, and industry run air conditioners and refrigeration harder and for longer periods.โ Much of that electricity still comes from thermoelectric power plants (coal, gas, nuclear) that use large volumes of freshwater for cooling, either withdrawing it and returning it warmer or consuming a portion through evaporation3.
As air and water warm, these plants run less efficiently and may need even more cooling water per unit of electricity generated, increasing water use just when rivers and reservoirs are under stress.โ In very hot, dry years, this can create a feedback: heat raises AC demand, AC demand raises power plant water demand, low flows and high water temperatures then constrain power plants, risking reliability problems4.
Warming reduces the share of precipitation that reaches reservoirs and aquifers: more evaporates or is soaked up by drier soils before it becomes runoff. Western water systems and legal allocations were designed assuming a more stable climate and more reliable snowpack; under warming, those assumptions are breaking down, reducing dependable supplies for both farms and power plants. The result is a tightening water budget: less water coming into the system at the same time that crops, cities, and energy systems are all asking for more.
The seven U.S. states that make up the Colorado River basin are struggling to agree on how best to manage the riverโs water as its supply dwindles due to climate change and a period of prolonged drought. Their negotiations, which are not open to the public, missed a Feb. 14, 2026, deadline the federal government had established, after which federal officials said they would impose their own plan.
The federal government has not yet done so, but the prospect of such an action is not good news for the nearly 40 million people who depend on the Colorado River for water, energy, agriculture and recreation, nor for the estimated US$1.4 trillion in economic activity the river supports.
But compromise on Colorado River management is possible and, in fact, was achieved to curb Californiaโs water use in the 2000s, to negotiate an interim agreement to coordinate operations at the Lake Mead and Lake Powell reservoirs in 2007, and to enact contingency plans to manage drought in 2019. But this time around, circumstances are different.
The negotiators for the states had long-standing relationships and built trust by frequently communicating outside formal meetings and seeking to listen to and understand other statesโ perspectives, even if they didnโt agree.
The states also agreed to use the bureauโs computer model for analyzing scenarios of climate change and management decisions. That meant all the negotiators were looking at the same data when delving into possible options. And the political and social environment was less polarized than today.
The current situation
In this round of negotiations, federal leadership has been lagging. The Department of the Interior has not made clear what the consequences might be for the states if they fail to agree. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has been without a permanent commissioner since President Donald Trump retook office in January 2025.
The states are fractured into subgroups, according to whether they are in the riverโs Upper Basin โ Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico โ or the Lower Basin, which includes Arizona, Nevada and California. Each basin group holds strong positions and has generally been unwilling to shift.
Each basin group is using a different set of assumptions for the bureauโs computer model to explore options. And the discussion often gets stuck on details, which prevents progress toward broader agreements.
But those relatively new challenges to Colorado River compromise are not an excuse for failure.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, center between flags, meets with governors and representatives of the seven Colorado River basin states in January 2026. U.S. Department of the Interior via X
A way forward?
The current negotiations have all been done behind closed doors. From talking with people involved in the negotiations, we understand the negotiators have been left to set their own agendas and meeting plans and conduct their own communications and follow-up, with no formal facilitators.
Itโs reasonable to expect the negotiators to be ready to represent their statesโ interests, working through an incredibly complicated landscape of hydrology, climate and management scenario modeling, water law and administration, and politics. But we believe itโs unreasonable โ and unrealistic and unfair โ to expect them to also be experts at designing and facilitating an effective process for sorting out their differences.
Federal officials are not necessarily the best people to run the process either. And if the agency that ultimately needs to approve any deal is the one leading the process, real or perceived biases about the states or key issues in the agreement could further complicate the discussions.
We believe that agreement between the seven states is still possible. It may be less effective to bring in a third-party facilitator at this stage in the negotiation process, though, because of the degraded trust, hardened positions and shortage of time.
A more hopeful possibility is that the bureau adopts short-term rules that would give the states another chance to negotiate a longer-term deal โ ideally with an unbiased third-party facilitator for support.
A collaborative and consensus-based planning process in the Yakima River Basin in Washington state in the early 2010s is evidence that while nobody gets everything they want in a negotiated agreement, โif they can (all) get something, thatโs really the basis of the plan,โ as a Washington state official told The New York Times.
We are two and a half decades into the Southwestโs most severe drought of the last 1,200 years, and this winterโs snow dearth is one of the most extreme on record.
Without an April-May miracle, human-caused climate change likely will finally catch up with the Colorado Riverโand the 40 million people who rely on itโin the form of a full-blown crisis later this year.
โDroughtโ may be too hopeful a word, since it implies an eventual end. Most climate scientists refer to the phenomenon as โlong-term aridification,โ caused by a lack of rain and snow and warming temperatures.
The West has just experienced its warmest winter since record-keeping began in 1895. The average October-through-December temperature in some parts of the region has been more than 8ยฐ F warmer than the 20th-century mean. This is a huge anomaly.
In Gunnison County, Colorado, one of the colder places in the nation, the average minimum temperature for that four-month stretch was about 19ยฐ F. That doesnโt seem so bad until you realize that back in 1990, another dry, warm winter, the corresponding measure was 13.6ยฐ F. For the Upper Colorado River Basin, the average minimum temperature for that four-month stretch was about 26ยฐ F, the warmest on record.
The warmer temperatures tinker with the health of the watershed.
This water year, which began Oct. 1, started out with record-high precipitation in some areas, most of which fell as rain. That helped fend off severe drought conditions. But what really counts is the mountain snowpack, which serves as a giant natural reservoir that supplies at least 70% of the Colorado Riverโs water each year. Warm temperatures have left some areas snow-free even in parts of Wyoming, where the white stuff normally would be piled high in March.
The diminishing snow has, in turn, shrunk the Colorado River. The โnaturalโ flowโor an estimate of how much water the river would carry without upstream diversions or human consumptionโhas been below 15 million acre-feet (MAF) at Lees Ferry during 20 of the last 26 years, with an average flow of 12.25 MAF during that time.
This matters, because when the Colorado River Compact of 1922 parceled out the riverโs waters, the river was assumed to carry an average annual flow of at least 16.5 MAF. Demand has significantly exceeded supply for the last 26 years, forcing the drawdown of the watershedโs big savings accounts, Lake Powell and Lake Mead, to about one-third of their capacity.
Meanwhile, to comply with the Colorado River Compact of 1922โthe document that serves as the Ten Commandments for the management of the riverโs watersโthe Upper Basin States must release, on average, at least 7.5 MAF from Glen Canyon Dam each year.
Given that the Upper Basin states need a bunch of water to keep their cities and farms from drying up, and that an additional 800,000 acre-feet evaporates or seeps into the underlying rocks at Lake Powell each year, you can see how the warming climate wreaks havoc on the math of the Colorado River.
The entire river system now teeters on the brink, and this yearโs snow drought may be what pushes it over the edge.
The back of Glen Canyon Dam circa 1964, not long after the reservoir had begun filling up. Here the water level is above dead pool, meaning water can be released via the river outlets, but it is below minimum power pool, so water cannot yet enter the penstocks to generate electricity. Bureau of Reclamation photo. Annotations: Jonathan P. Thompson
The Bureau of Reclamationโs latest forecast says Lake Powellโs surface level is likely to drop below the minimum level needed for power production later this year. This so-called โdeadpoolโ would not only mean the end of hydropower production, it would also force all of the damโs releases to go through the riverโs 8-foot-wide, steel outlet tubes, which were not made for sustained use. This could compromise the tubes and the dam itself.
Itโs possible that the dam would even be shifted to a run-of-the-river operation, in which releases equal the amount of water flowing into the reservoir, minus evaporation and seepage. That would almost certainly result in water shortages downstream, at the very least for the Central Arizona Project, which serves the Phoenix metro area.
This quandary didnโt sneak up on us.
The seven Colorado River states and the federal water managers canโt agree on who should make what cuts in consumption. The feds, meanwhile, havenโt gotten around to re-engineering Glen Canyon Dam or creating a bypass around it that would enable the water to keep flowing. Itโs almost as if theyโve been paralyzed by the belief that dry winters were just a minor glitch.
Now, as the spring runoff gets underway, it has become clear that nature wonโt save us: We have no choice but to live within increasingly meager limits.
Jonathan Thompson is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. He is a longtime journalist and author about the West.
Click the link to read the article on the NOAA website:
March 20, 2026
Drought conditions are forecast to worsen or develop for many areas in the West and south-central Plains, according to NOAAโs Spring Outlook released today for April through June. Forecasters from NOAAโs National Weather Service also predict above-normal temperatures for the majority of the U.S.
โFactors influencing NOAAโs Spring Outlook include the El Niรฑo-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), low snowpack in the West and soil moisture content throughout the lower 48 states,โ said Ken Graham, director of NOAAโs National Weather Service. โThis spring will also feature a transition from La Niรฑa to ENSO-neutral conditions, meaning neither El Niรฑo nor La Niรฑa.โ
This map depicts where drought persistence, development or improvement is the most likely outcome based on short- and long-range statistical and dynamical forecasts from March 19 through June 30, 2026.ย (Image credit: NOAA) Download Image
As of mid-March, moderate to exceptional drought conditions exist across 55% of the continental United States.
โDrought conditions worsened or developed for much of the Great Plains, Lower Mississippi Valley, and Southeast U.S. due to warmer and drier than normal conditions this winter,โ said Jon Gottschalck, chief of the Operational Prediction Branch, NOAAโs Climate Prediction Center. “Drought is likely to persist across much of the West while developing in parts of the Pacific Northwest, Great Basin, central Rockies and Southwest. Dry conditions are expected to improve for some areas in the Midwest and Atlantic seaboard.โ
The temperature outlook for April through June shows above-normal temperatures are favoredย across the majority of the western U.S. eastward to include much of the Plains, the lower and middle Mississippi Valley, the Ohio Valley, the Tennessee Valley, the Southeast and the southern Mid-Atlantic. The highest likelihood of enhanced warmth ranges from the Southwest to the Inter-Mountain West. Below-normal temperatures are forecast for east central Alaska.Theย precipitation outlook favors below-average precipitation for the Pacific Northwest, parts of the Great Basin, Southwest, central High Plains and most of the Rockies. The greatest likelihood of below-average precipitation is forecast from the Pacific Northwest to the central Rockies. While above-normal precipitation is forecast for western Alaska, the eastern Great Lakes, mid-Atlantic and parts of the Southeast.ย
Spring flood risk
This map depicts the locations where there is a greater than 50% chance of minor, moderate or major flooding from April through June, 2026.(Image credit: NOAA) Download Image
NOAAโs National Hydrologic Assessment, issued by NOAAโs National Water Center, evaluates a number of factors, including current conditions of snowpack, drought, soil saturation levels, frost depth, streamflow and precipitation.
The overall flood risk across most of the continental U.S. for Spring 2026 is currently assessed as normal to below normal. This risk determination was made primarily because of a dry and warm winter that resulted in dry soils over much of the eastern U.S., mitigating the threat of rainfall-driven flooding. Additionally, a well-below-normal snowpack across most of the country will reduce the risk of snowmelt-driven flooding.
However, the Red River of the North and the lower Ohio Valley typically experience flooding annually; therefore, flooding is anticipated in these basins this year as well.
โWe anticipate typical spring flooding this year over portions of the Greater Mississippi River Basin, but the risk for widespread significant flooding is low,โ said Ed Clark, director of NOAAโs National Water Center. โHowever, it is crucial to remember that heavy rainfall has the potential to lead to a major flooding event.โ
Flooding can occur rapidly from intense rainfall, even in regions with a generally low risk. Rainfall intensity and location can only be accurately forecast days in the future, and flood risk can change rapidly. Stay current on flood risks in your area with the latest official watches and warnings at weather.gov. For detailed hydrologic conditions and forecasts, please visit water.noaa.gov.
Lake Powell, on the Colorado River, is seen from the air in 2019. The Upper Basin states are planning how to potentially fill a dedicated pool in the nationโs second largest reservoir. CREDIT: ECOFLIGHT
With a Lake Powell conservation pool nearly guaranteed for the future of Colorado River management, the four Upper Basin states are exploring and refining the ways they could fill it.
Conservation by those states (Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming) could be one of the keys to reaching a deal among the seven states that share the Colorado River and an important part of the framework for managing the drought-stricken river after this year. The water saved by the Upper Basin states could be stored in Lake Powell as a means of maintaining higher water levels and as an insurance policy against drastic cuts.
This type of pool isnโt yet being used in Lake Powell; it would have to be established by an agreement among the seven states. An agreement in the 2019 Drought Contingency Plan allowed for a 500,000 acre-foot Upper Basin storage pool in Lake Powell, but so far, the states have not utilized this and the agreement expires this year.
The Upper Basin and Lower Basin (California, Arizona and Nevada) have been at an impasse for more than two years about how the nationโs two largest reservoirs โ Lake Powell and Lake Mead โ will be managed and shortages shared in the future. The situation has never been more dire: The current guidelines for river management expire at the end of the year, while record-low snowpack is expected to push reservoir levels below critical thresholds. The seven states have blown past two deadlines to come up with a plan, and the federal government is gearing up for emergency actions to manage reservoirs.
The crux of the disagreement between the two basins has been over who should take shortages in drought years. The Lower Basin hasย committed to 1.5 million acre-feetย of reductions annually and wants cuts beyond that to beย shared by the Upper Basin. The Upper Basin says its water users already take cuts in some years because streams run dry by midsummer and any contributions they make must be voluntary.
TThe main boat ramp at Wahweap Marina was unusable due to low water levels in Lake Powell in December 2021. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is projecting that the reservoir will fall below critical thresholds later this year.ย CREDIT:ย HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM
Contribution not conservation
Some Upper Basin officials have made a slight shift in the way they now talk about a pool in Lake Powell. No longer referred to as a conservation pool, it is called a โcontributionโ pool, reflecting the different methods โ not only conservation of agricultural water โ of contributing water to a Lake Powell pool.
Traditionally, the Colorado River basin states have turned to programs that pay irrigators to voluntarily leave fields dry for a season or two as the primary way to cut water use. With agriculture representing the majority of water use in the Upper Basin, itโs often the low-hanging fruit when it comes to water savings.
But at least two Upper Basin states are turning to other methods to contribute water to a Lake Powell pool.
For example, New Mexico can contribute water from Navajo Reservoir that it leases from a tribe. In Colorado, the method is less straightforward, but officials say the state is prioritizing and expanding existing programs and projects that save water.
โWhen you talk about things like turf removal, water-loss prevention, watershed restoration, forest-health efforts that are happening on the ground, those are benefits not only to Colorado but to the entire system,โ said Becky Mitchell, Coloradoโs lead negotiator in talks among the seven states that share the Colorado River. โSo weโre trying to figure out: How do we acknowledge all of that work?โ
Raymond Langstaff, a rancher and president of the Bookcliff Conservation District, irrigates a parcel north of Rifle. The state of Colorado explored the feasibility of a demand management program that would pay irrigators to cut back, but did not implement one. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM
Utah touts pragmatic approach
Over its run in 2023 and 2024, the federally funded System Conservation Pilot Programdoled out $45 million to Upper Basin irrigators to cut their use by about 100,000 acre-feet. Utah water users received about $15 million of that in exchange for temporarily forgoing about 37,000 acre-feet of Colorado River water. The state put lessons learned with SCPP to use and is now in the second year of its own demand management pilot program, funded by $5 million from the state legislature and run by the Colorado River Authority of Utah.
The pilot program lets water users temporarily participate in a conservation program, and pays them $390 an acre-foot of water to do it. In 2025, Utah sent about 8,000 acre-feet downstream to Lake Powell under this pilot program, according to Marc Stilson, deputy director and principal engineer of the authority. There are a couple industrial water users and one municipal water user among the participants, but the majority are agricultural, he said.
โThe pilot program is trying to iron out all these issues so that if we end up with some type of post-2026 commitment to do these types of voluntary conservation programs, weโre ready to do it,โ Stilson said. โThere is a very pragmatic approach in Utah looking at the big picture, and I think generally there is a sense that we have to adapt to changing conditions.โ
Whether the program will continue after this year is unclear and could depend on whether the states reach a deal.
โWe were anticipating that weโd have an agreement and that these types of programs would be part of that agreement,โ Stilson said. โI think we just have to take a wait-and-see approach.โ
Wyoming is also looking to traditional programs: State lawmakers are establishing a voluntary water conservation program. Wyoming state engineer and lead negotiator Brandon Gebhart did not respond to phone calls, emails or a list of questions from Aspen Journalism.
Boater on the San Juan River in May 2023. New Mexico officials say they can contribute water to a pool in Lake Powell through releasing water they lease in Navajo Reservoir. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM
New Mexico seeks โmore diverseโ ways to contribute water
The state of New Mexico plans to contribute to a Powell pool mostly through 20,000 acre-feet of Navajo Reservoir water, which it leases from the Jicarilla Apache Nation and can be released down the San Juan River. Along the way to Lake Powell, it boosts flows for endangered fish. Officials say because they can control when they release the water, it can be tracked with certainty to the reservoir.
โWe all need to focus on more diverse ways of contributions, not just the classic conserved consumptive use,โ said Ali Effati, Colorado River basin bureau chief for the New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission.
Water managers say that automatically turning to agricultural water isnโt always reliable because as climate change continues to rob rivers of flows, even if senior water users want to participate in these types of conservation programs, they may not have any water to spare in dry years.
โThat doesnโt mean that we have shied away from those sorts of activities, but to the extent that we can do our part without having to ask our agricultural community to cut water where they already take significant cuts almost annually, thatโs just a preferable perspective,โ said Estevan Lopez, lead negotiator for New Mexico.
Lopez said the likelihood of seeing a future Upper Basin contribution pool in Lake Powell is nearly 100% and that New Mexico will be ready, willing and able to contribute its share of water when the time comes.
โWe have our percentage easily covered, plus a significant amount more,โ he said.โWe have our percentage easily covered, plus a significant amount more,โ he said.
TThese hay bales stand ready to be collected on a ranch outside of Carbondale in July 2024. ย Upper Basin states have traditionally looked to agricultural to conserve water, but some are now turning to other ways to contribute water.ย CREDIT:ย HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM
Colorado points to programs already in place
Colorado water users participated in both years of SCPP, but the state has been reluctant to take the leap into setting up its own program, despite being an early leader of the conservation conversation among the Upper Basin states.
In 2019, Colorado convened nine workgroups to explore the feasibility of a demand management program. The process included Colorado River water users from across the state and in multiple water-use sectors, who looked at how to set up a temporary, voluntary, compensated state program. But in 2022, the state water board shelved the studies without implementing a program, in favor of focusing on drought-resiliency initiatives.
Mitchell said the demand management feasibility investigation was an incredibly valuable exercise, but that there are still a number of open questions. Inaction on a demand management program doesnโt mean inaction on conservation overall, she said.
โThe CWCB board voted to pause that investigation until there was clarity about whether any such program would be achievable, worthwhile and advisable and until thereโs evidence that a demand management-esque program would benefit Colorado,โ Mitchell said.
In 2023, Colorado lawmakers created a task force to again examine how the state could implement demand reduction and conservation programs. Water managers punted the issue again, failing to make recommendations to lawmakers on this topic, with some members saying conservation programs were โpremature.โ
The state still does not seem to have the policies in place to implement a large-scale, traditional conservation program in the near future. Mitchell said Coloradoโs plan to contribute water to a Lake Powell pool is through the programs and projects already in place, many of which are funded through the stateโs Water Plan grants.
At its March meeting, the CWCB approved more than $13 million for 38 projects across the state, according to a press release. They include things like urban turf replacement, creek and wetland restoration, outdoor water budgeting and wildfire ready action plans.
โOur strategy is to continue on with the programs that are already in existence, continue to fund conservation efforts that benefit all Coloradans as well as the entire system, continue to live within the means of the river and adapt our uses to align with available supply,โ Mitchell said. โBecause of all those programs already set up, we believe we have the majority of the structure in place.โ
But Mitchell would not put a number on the amount of water that Colorado could contribute.
โWe want to be a part of the solution when and how we are able to, but no, Iโm not going to say we can do 100,000 acre-feet in a year like this,โ she said.
Colorado River watchers may soon get some clarity around exactly how โ and how much โ Upper Basin states plan to contribute to a Lake Powell pool. On March 24, the Upper Colorado River Commission plans to consider projects to include in a โprovisional accountingโ memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, according to UCRC Director Chuck Cullom.
Some Upper Basin projects that are not traditional agricultural conservation programs may be counted under the MOU, allowing the states to โget creditโ for the water they save through unconventional means. Cullom said the UCRC and Bureau of Reclamation will also soon have an accounting report of water-saving activities undertaken in 2025.
Mitchell said Colorado is still committed to a seven-state consensus agreement and wants to avoid litigation. But acknowledgement of what the Upper Basin is already doing to cut back on water use will be important.
โThe MOU is one component where we would like to see some sort of real acknowledgement of what is occurring in terms of the way that we live within the means of the river and what our strict administration is doing,โ Mitchell said. โAs long as we are not acknowledged in whatโs happening on the ground, I think weโre going to have struggles.โ
Map of the Colorado River drainage basin, created using USGS data. By Shannon1 Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0
Denver Water depends on mountain snowpack for 90% of its water supply, which serves 1.5 million people in Denver and surrounding suburbs.
Snowpack as of March 16, 2026, was at or near record lows: The Colorado River Basin within Denver Waterโs collection system was at 71% of normal. The South Platte River Basin within Denver Waterโs collection area was 54% of normal. In Denver Waterโs decades of records for its watershed collection areas, as of March 16, Colorado River snowpack ranked the third-worst on record, and the South Platte River snowpack remains ranked at the worst.
No matter what, Denver Waterโs annual summer watering rules will always be in place during the irrigation season. And, it is likely that we will need to implement additional drought response measures this year. Denver Waterโs response to drought conditions uses a layered approach, including the potential for additional watering restrictions, in order to preserve water supplies. Denver Water is developing recommendations on a potential drought response for the Board of Water Commissioners to consider over the next several weeks.
Since 2000, Denver Waterโs response to dry conditions in previous years included issuing a Drought Watch (voluntary restrictions) in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2012 and 2013. In some of those years (2002, 2003, 2004, 2013), Denver Water levied additional drought restrictions as part of declaring a Stage 1 level response, which required mandatory reductions in outdoor water use.
Denver Water snowpack update for March 16, 2026
Conditions remain highly concerning. Poor snowfall combined with warm temperatures have left us roughly 3 feet to 4 feet of snow short of where weโd prefer to be in the Denver Water collection area at this time. To reach the normal spring snowpack peak, which typically occurs in April, we need to see an additional 7 feet to 7.5 feet of snow this spring.
Reservoir storage conditions are below average, but in reasonably good shape: as of March 16, 2026, the reservoirs were 80% full versus an average of 85% full for this time. Those levels are also temporarily affected by the need to keep Gross Reservoir low duringย construction to raise the dam, a project designed to increase the storage capacity of the reservoir.ย
Denver Water has been here several times over roughly 50 years of reliable records. On the positive side, we have experienced years that started dry and conditions dramatically improved in March, April and May. This year, however, we are running out of time to build the snowpack.
No matter what, Denver Waterโsย annual summer watering rulesย will always be in place during the irrigation season.ย Additional drought restrictions, voluntary or mandatory, will depend in part on how the rest of the snow season shapes up and will be aimed at preserving water supplies in case this unusually dry stretch deepens into a multiyear drought. ย
Comment from Greg Fisher, Denver Water’s manager of demand planning:ย
โAnother weekend snowstorm was welcome, though it mainly benefited lower elevations along the Front Range. Unfortunately, mountain regions didnโt receive significant snow. The good news is that moisture we get in the Denver region should give our yards and landscapes a good dose of moisture, limiting the need for any watering this week,โ said Greg Fisher, Denver Water’s manager of demand planning.
โOverall, weโve had an extremely dry winter, and that continues this week โ the last week of winter โ with unusually warm temperatures expected across the region. That could lead to snow melt even at high elevations and highlights the need to conserve water and limit the pull on our reservoir storage. We continue to emphasize the need to keep irrigation systems off until mid-to-late May at the earliest, and to be prepared for outdoor watering restrictions this spring.
โItโs a good time to consider landscape changes to your yard, with plants and grasses that require far less water and are far more adapted to Coloradoโs dry stretches. Such landscapes, once established, can get through dry stretches like this far easier, and with far less water, and still give your yard a colorful and vibrant look.โ
Denver Water has many resources for homeowners looking for inspiration and information about landscapes that fit naturally into our dry climate. Click here forย conservation and efficiency tipsย for outdoor irrigation and toย get more details on ways to ColoradoScapeย your property, including through rebates for turf removal and a DIY guide for landscape changes, among many other potential water-saving steps.ย
This chart shows the cumulative snowpack on March 16, 2026, in the area of the Colorado River Basin where Denver Water captures its water supply. The snowpack is 71% of normal, which ranks third-lowest on record for March 16. Image credit: Denver Water.
This chart shows the cumulative snowpack on March 16, 2026, in the area of the South Platte River Basin where Denver Water captures its water supply. The snowpack is 54% of normal, which ranks as the lowest on record for March 16. Image credit: Denver Water.
To learn more about the work Denver Water employees do to monitor the snowpack, read this TAP story about Denver Water employees snowshoeing into the forest near the top of Vail Pass in late February 2026 to conduct a monthly โsnow survey.โ
Additional information on Denver Waterโs drought planning can be found here. Additional information on Denver Water reservoir levels, customer water use and snowpack can be found in the Water Watch Report, which is updated regularly during winter, spring and summer.
Novedades de Denver Water sobre el deshielo de la montaรฑa y el suministro de agua
Novedades sobre el deshielo de la montaรฑa del 16 de marzo de 2026 para el รกrea de recolecciรณn de agua de Denver Water.
Denver Water depende del deshielo de la montaรฑa para el 90โฏ% de su suministro de agua, el cual da servicio a 1.5โฏmillones de personas en Denver y en los suburbios de alrededor.
En 16 de marzo de 2026, el deshielo de la montaรฑa se encontraba cerca de niveles histรณricamente bajos: La cuenca del rรญo Colorado dentro del sistema de recolecciรณn de Denver Water estaba al 71โฏ% de lo normal. La cuenca del rรญo South Platte dentro del รกrea de recolecciรณn de agua de Denver Water estaba al 54โฏ% de lo normal. En las dรฉcadas de registros de Denver Water sobre sus cuencas hidrogrรกficas de recolecciรณn, al 16 de marzo el deshielo de la montaรฑa en la cuenca del rรญo Colorado ocupaba el tercer peor lugar y el deshielo de la montaรฑa en la cuenca del rรญo South Platte ocupaba el peor de todos.
Pase lo que pase, lasโฏreglas anuales de riego en veranoโฏde Denver Water siempre estarรกn vigentes durante la temporada de riego.โฏAdemรกs, es probable que este aรฑo sea necesario implementar medidas adicionales de respuesta ante una sequรญa. La respuesta de Denver Water a condiciones de sequรญa utiliza un enfoque por niveles, que incluye la posibilidad de aplicar restricciones adicionales de riego para preservar el suministro de agua.
Denver Water estรก preparando recomendaciones para la Junta de Comisionados del Agua de Denver sobre una posible respuesta a la sequรญa en las siguientes semanas.
Desde 2000, la respuesta de Denver Water a condiciones secas en aรฑos anteriores incluyรณ la emisiรณn de una alerta de sequรญa (restricciones voluntarias) en 2002, 2003, 2004, 2012 y 2013. En algunos de esos aรฑos (2002, 2003, 2004 y 2013), Denver Water impuso restricciones adicionales por sequรญa como parte de la declaraciรณn de una respuesta de Nivelโฏ1, la cual exigรญa reducciones obligatorias en el uso de agua en exteriores.
Novedades sobre el deshielo de la montaรฑa de Denver Water al 16 de marzo de 2026
Las condiciones siguen siendo motivo de gran preocupaciรณn. Las escasas nevadas, combinadas con temperaturas cรกlidas, han dejado aproximadamente entre 3 y 4โฏpies de nieve por debajo de lo que serรญa deseable en el รกrea de recolecciรณn de Denver Water para esta รฉpoca. ย Para alcanzar el pico normal de deshielo de la montaรฑa en primavera, que por lo general se produce en abril, necesitamos ver entre 7 y 7.5โฏpies adicionales de nieve esta primavera.
Las condiciones de almacenamiento en los embalses estรกn por debajo del promedio, pero razonablemente en buen estado: al 16 de marzo de 2026, los embalses estaban llenos al 80โฏ%, frente a un promedio del 85โฏ% para esta รฉpoca. Estos niveles tambiรฉn se ven afectados temporalmente por la necesidad de mantener bajo el nivel del embalse Gross durante laโฏconstrucciรณn para elevar la presa, un proyecto diseรฑado para aumentar la capacidad de almacenamiento del embalse.โฏ
Pase lo que pase, lasโฏreglas anuales de riego en veranoโฏde Denver Water siempre estarรกn vigentes durante la temporada de riego.โฏLas restricciones adicionales por sequรญa, voluntarias u obligatorias, dependerรกn en parte de cรณmo evolucione el resto de la temporada de nieve y estarรกn orientadas a preservar el suministro de agua en caso de que este perรญodo inusualmente seco se convierta en una sequรญa de varios aรฑos.
Comentario de Greg Fisher, gerente de planificaciรณn de la demanda de DenverโฏWater:
“Le dimos la bienvenida a otra tormenta invernal este pasado fin de semana, aunque solo beneficiaron รกreas con elevaciรณn bajas en el Front Range. Desafortunadamente, las regiones montaรฑosas no recibieron cantidades de nieve significativas. Las buenas noticias es que la humedad que recibimos en la regiรณn de Denver le dio a nuestros jardines y paisajismos una buena dosis de humedad y asรญ limitar el riego esta semana.
“Hemos tenido un invierno muy seco y estas condiciones continuaran esta semana, la รบltima semana de invierno, con temperaturas inusualmente altas anticipadas a travรฉs de la regiรณn. Continuamos enfatizando la importancia de mantener sus sistemas de riego apagados hasta mediados o finales de mayo y estar preparados para posibles restricciones de riego esta primavera.”
Denver Water cuenta con muchos recursos para propietarios de viviendas que buscan inspiraciรณn e informaciรณn sobre paisajes que se integren de forma natural en nuestro clima seco. Haga clic aquรญ paraโฏobtener consejos de conservaciรณn y eficienciaโฏpara el riego exterior yโฏconocer mรกs detalles sobre maneras de aplicar ColoradoScapesโฏen su propiedad, lo que incluye reembolsos por la eliminaciรณn de cรฉsped y una guรญa para realizar cambios en el paisajismo por cuenta propia, entre muchas otras medidas para ahorrar agua.
Puede encontrar informaciรณn adicional sobre laโฏplanificaciรณn ante sequรญas de Denver Water aquรญ (en inglรฉs). Puede encontrar informaciรณn adicional sobre los niveles de los embalses de Denver Water, el uso de agua de los clientes y el deshielo de la montaรฑa en el informeโฏWater Watch Report (en inglรฉs), que se actualiza con regularidad durante el invierno, la primavera y el verano.
City water officials are sounding increasingly urgent alarms about Auroraโs water supply, warning that worsening drought conditions and poor snowpack could force early and potentially escalating restrictions this year. Aurora Water General Manager Marshall Brown told city leaders yesterday that the situation has deteriorated enough that staff will likely recommend a formal Stage 1 drought declaration as early as April 6, nearly a month ahead of the cityโs typical seasonal watering restrictions. If approved by the City Council, new limits on water use would take effect April 7, officials said.
โOur water supply situation is actually bleak enough that, if things donโt improve, and we donโt get a community response that we need during a Stage 1 restriction, the forecast indicates we may be in a Stage 2 restriction by the end of the year,โ Brown said. โThat would be really dramatic.โ
Aurora breaks water supply and restrictions into four categories:
Normal: Current permanent rules limit landscape irrigation from 10 a.m. โ 6 p.m. for a maximum of three days per week.
Stage I: Considered when reservoir levels are lower, often reducing outdoor irrigation to two days per week.
Stage II: More stringent, potentially reducing irrigation to one day per week.
Stage III: Emergency conditions with severe restrictions, including no landscape irrigation.
The warningย marks a notable shift from just weeks ago, when city leaders said conditions were concerning but not yet dire. Now, officials say a combination of record warmth, minimal precipitation and dwindling snowpack has pushed the system closer to critical thresholds. According to the latest Aurora Water report, conditions across Colorado remain deeply dry. More than 75% of the state is classified as abnormally dry, with over half in moderate drought and significant portions in severe to extreme drought. February and March so far have offered little relief, statewide water officials reported. Those trends are expected to continue. Long-range forecasts from federal agencies indicate warmer and drier-than-normal conditions through the spring, further reducing the likelihood of meaningful runoff to replenish reservoirs.
Henry Muรฑoz, a former miner and resident of Superior, Arizona, overlooks a portion of Oak Flatโpart of Tonto National Forest and a sacred site for the San Carlos Apache. Credit: Wyatt Myskow/Inside Climate News
Click the link to read the article on the AZCentral website (Debra Utacia Krol). Here’s an excerpt:
March 16, 2026
Key Points
A U.S. Court of Appeals denied a request to halt a land exchange at Oak Flat, clearing the way for mining work to begin.
Resolution Copper now owns the land, which is sacred to the Apache people, and plans to begin exploratory drilling.
Opponents, including the San Carlos Apache Tribe, have appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, citing religious freedom.
Resolution Copper told the U.S. Supreme Court it would begin exploratory drilling in the Oak Flat area on March 16 after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals turned down a bid from a coalition of environmentalists, the San Carlos Apache Tribe and a group of Apache women to halt a contentious land exchange. The three-judge panelย issued its decisionย late Friday, March 13. Resolutionย relayed documentsย to the high court affirming the land exchange occurred shortly after the court rendered its decision. Resolution now owns Oak Flat, a location sacred to the Apaches and other Native people. The Forest Service issued theย final record of decisionย March 16 finalizing the land exchange.
โThe national security of America depends on our ability to harness the abundant natural resources we are blessed with in this country,” said Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins in a statement. “The Resolution Copper project is a prime example of bureaucratic and legal chokeholds preventing our rural communities, supply chains, and defense industry from producing the minerals we need right here in America.โ
The appeals court denied an injunction in three cases, blocking a legal move that could have halted progress on the handover of the 2,200-acre site and another 211 acres currently within Tonto National Forest to Resolution, the British-Australian mining company, while the lawsuits continue to make their way through the court system. Miles Coleman, one of the attorneys representing the Brown-Lopez family and other Apache women, said the firm filed anย appealย with the U.S. Supreme Court over the weekend.
“The transfer and destruction of Oak Flat would be a tragic departure from our nationโs founding promise of religious freedom,” Coleman told The Arizona Republic. He said the emergency application with the Supreme Court asked to preserve the status quo and protect Oak Flat.
The ruling came more than two months after the judges heard the three cases on Jan. 8. The judges turned the three down because they said the cases were “unlikely to succeed on the merits.”
Lamar Fields, a tribal member, gathers blue corn to sample. With increasingly unreliable access to water, flexible crops like corn have become integral to the farmโs survival. To increase revenue, the farm built a mill to process crops like blue corn. Caitlin Ochs
For a century, the Colorado River has been managed in pieces. Legally and politically, itโs divided into two basins, with each state and community focused on securing its respective water supply. But that is not how a river functions. The Colorado River is an interconnected system, sustained by Rocky Mountain snowpack, rainfall and groundwater.
It is fragile, and under increasing stress. Two and a half decades into this century, the river that built the modern West has 20% less water flowing through it than it did on average in the last century. As heat and drought intensify, so do the stakes: Failure to recognize the severity of changing conditions, managing the river in parts without considering needs of the whole and inadequate planning for long-term shortages put the future of all the basin at risk.
For the last five years, I have documented how the Colorado River Basinโs farmers are navigating water shortages and uncertainty amid deep political divisions about the riverโs future. This project, called American Adaptation, examines three agricultural communities whose survival is threatened by a shrinking river, examining what happens to people when policies and water management struggle to keep pace with a changing climate.
In one of the riverโs northern watersheds, the Ute Mountain Farm and Ranch Enterprise is adapting its management as the water it relies on becomes less dependable. In central Arizona, farmers have returned to well water after becoming the first communities to have their supply cut off completely due to the basin-wide shortage. And in Californiaโs Imperial Valley, the farms that receive the riverโs largest water allocation are under growing pressure to share the burden of shortage.
Together, their stories illustrate the stakes โ and rising tensions โ of the current negotiations over the riverโs future management. States, tribal nations and the federal government are reckoning with 100 years of developing water infrastructure based on assumptions of continuing abundance and expansion. These ideas โ and the legal frameworks built around them โ are colliding with the reality of a river with much less water than expected, raising complex questions about what the Colorado can sustain, how its water should be used and who will shoulder the necessary cuts.
The Dolores Project, located in the Dolores and San Juan River Basins in southwestern Colorado, develops water from the Dolores River for irrigation, municipal and industrial users, recreation, fish and wildlife, and hydroelectric power. It also provides vital water to the Dove Creek area, central Montezuma Valley area, and to the Towaoc area on the Ute Mountain Ute Indian Reservation. McPhee Dam and Reservoir is the principle storage feature of the Dolores Project which includes a system of canals, tunnels, and laterals to deliver water to over 61,000 acres of land. Photo credit: Kenny Browning/Flickr
When Water is Uncertain
On 7,600 acres painstakingly carved out of desert brush, the Ute Mountain Farm and Ranch, a tribally run enterprise of the Ute Mountain Ute nation, produces cattle, alfalfa, corn and wheat. Its operations are led by Simon Martinez, Eric Whyte and Michael Vicente, who have deep personal connections to the enterprise. Martinez helped build the dam for the reservoir that provides the farmโs water, while Whyte cleared desert brush and mapped where the fields would go. Vicente, as the lead irrigator, can account for every drop of water thatโs used.
In good years, the farmโs circular fields flourish in brilliant green bursts. But the past decade has brought increasingly erratic access to water. Each spring, the local irrigation district announces potential cuts after assessing snowpack runoff and the available water stored in nearby McPhee Reservoir. In 2021, the farm received just 10% of its water allocation and was forced to leave 6,000 acres unplanted. In 2022, 30% of the water came in, and last year, 34%, which the farm was able to increase to 50% after leasing shares from other water users.
To survive, they adapted. Every year, the farmโs leadership creates numerous plans for different water scenarios. They have applied for grants, implemented low-flow nozzles in the irrigation system, installed small-scale hydropower generators. They joined a Land Institute pilot program to test crops that use less water.
On a day in late May [2022] when wildfire smoke obscured the throat of an ancient volcano called Shiprock in the distance, I visited the Ute Mountain Ute farming and ranching operation in the southwestern corner of Colorado. Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots
โWe still havenโt thrown the towel in,โ said Simon Martinez. โNobody ever thought, when the reservoir was built, that there wouldnโt be enough water to supply the farms that have been put out here. Itโs not only us; itโs happening all through southwestern Colorado.โ
Low-water years leave their mark. Brush and scrub quickly reclaim unplanted fields. Employees laid off during dry years are hard to replace. During consecutive years of heat and drought, farms that rely on the basinโs many smaller reservoirs become even more vulnerable. As the number of dry years grows, it is increasingly uncertain how much shortage the Ute Mountain Farm and Ranch Enterprise can sustain in the long term, despite the farmersโ determination to adapt.
โWe still havenโt thrown the towel in,โ said Simon Martinez. โNobody ever thought, when the reservoir was built, that there wouldnโt be enough water to supply the farms that have been put out here. Itโs not only us; itโs happening all through southwestern Colorado.โ
Low-water years leave their mark. Brush and scrub quickly reclaim unplanted fields. Employees laid off during dry years are hard to replace. During consecutive years of heat and drought, farms that rely on the basinโs many smaller reservoirs become even more vulnerable. As the number of dry years grows, it is increasingly uncertain how much shortage the Ute Mountain Farm and Ranch Enterprise can sustain in the long term, despite the farmersโ determination to adapt.
Arizona Rivers Map via Geology.com.
When Water Disappears
Hundreds of miles south, Will Clemens manages his uncleโs 2,100-acre farm, cultivating cotton, alfalfa and Bermuda grass. Farmers in this region operate with a year-round growing season punctuated by dust storms and summer monsoons.
In this intense environment, wells were the only water source before Colorado River water became available. Until the 1980s, farmers drew their water from deep underground, contributing to fissures, land subsidence and drying wells. The completion of the Central Arizona Project alleviated the pressure, delivering farmers cheap imported river water that was classified as lower priority and the first to be cut during shortages. Deliveries continued until 2022, when low water levels at Lake Mead triggered federal cuts, and central Arizona farms lost access. In response, Clemensโ local irrigation district drilled a dozen new wells.
Without the river, Clemens and his neighbors have seen the canalsโ water drop. At times, their irrigation district will cut off water before a field is fully irrigated, or struggle to keep up with the farmersโ water orders. More pressure on groundwater raises questions about what is sustainable in the future. Large parts of Arizona have no legal limits on pumping water from the ground. Even areas with legally protected groundwater have failed to meet a safe yield goal set in the 1980s to balance groundwater taken each year with naturally replenished water by 2025.
Some central Arizona farmers are selling or leasing their farmland to solar developers, as water dwindles and energy demands grow. Miles up the road from where Clemens farms, sleek black grids of solar panels gleam next to green alfalfa. For years, Arnold Burruel, Clemensโ uncle, has been in talks with a solar developer about selling the land.
โIโve been asking myself: Does America really need to be in the agriculture industry?โ Burruel said. โAmerica is not totally enamored with agriculture when it comes to pesticides, herbicides, groundwater, GMOs โ all of the above. We are at a crossroads. Are we going to continue to farm the way we are farming and heavily subsidize growers that canโt make ends meet? Society has to come up with an answer.โ
California uses the most water of any state in the Colorado River Basin, partly for its cities along the Pacific Coast but a substantial amount for agriculture in the Imperial Valley. Photo December 2015/Allen Best
When Water is Abundant
From above,the All American Canal forms a stark blue line, slicing through the Algodones Dunes. One of the worldโs largest canals, it is fed by the Imperial Dam, which diverts up to 6.8 million gallons of water each minute from the Colorado River.
This is the only water source for 500,000 acres of Imperial Valley farmland. Farms here are protected by senior rights at low risk of cuts and receive regular releases from Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States. During summer months, the sun looms over the valleyโs dusty, flat horizon, and temperatures often climb above 100 degrees. Despite decades of drought and growing water shortage, water has flowed uninterrupted to the Imperial Valley.
Fourth-generation family farmer Jack Vessey, who oversees a 10,000-acre produce operation, knows the canal system well. Growing up, he searched for places to swim on hot summer days.
โWe take water seriously,โ said Vessey, who added sprinkler systems, which are more efficient than flood irrigation. In recent years, the Imperial Irrigation District joined other communities throughout the basin in voluntarily cutting water through 2026 in exchange for federal funds. The districtโs compensation was several hundred dollars more per acre-foot than other participants. But as funding set aside for Western water by the Biden administration is drawn down, it is unclear how much will be available to pay for future voluntary cuts.
Vessey is aware of the growing pressure on the river and the valleyโs farms, but he emphasizes that the community has helped with shortages and is protective of its water.
โI have a responsibility for the people who work here to make sure we survive,โ he said. โI have to be a little selfish at some point and say, โKeep giving us the water we need.โ I know weโve got to do our part, but I can look in the mirror and say we are not wasting water, we are growing food people need.
โIf it wasnโt for that canal coming off the Colorado River, this would just turn to desert.โ
This project was supported by the National Geographic Societyโs World Freshwater Initiative.
Click the link to read the release on the CWCB website:
March 19, 2026
Yesterday, at itsย March Board Meeting, the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB) approved more than $13 million in funding for 48 water projects across the state through itsย Water Plan Grant andย Water Supply Reserve Fund programs, bringing the totals for the fiscal year to more than $40 million for 136 locally-driven projects across the state. These advance critical efforts to help communities be more prepared for drought and wildfires, improve water resilience, and secure Coloradoโs water future.
โOrganizations across the state are implementing these projects to do their part in moving Coloradoโs Water Plan Partner Actions forward,โ said CWCB Director Lauren Ris. โThese locally driven effortsโfrom agricultural producers to municipalities to watershed groupsโdemonstrate a collective commitment to building a resilient, and water-wise future. The importance of this work is underscored by worsening drought conditions. We are putting efforts to protect water resources front and center.โ
The funding reflects both the urgency of Coloradoโs current water challenges and the overwhelming demand for resources. Funding requests far exceeded available dollars, highlighting the volume of high-impact projects ready for implementation across the state.
These investments are made possible through sports betting taxes in Colorado, a funding stream that continues to play a critical role in advancing Coloradoโs water priorities.
โThis level of demand for our Water Plan Grants shows just how much water users across Colorado rely on these investments,โ said Colorado Department of Natural Resources Executive Director Dan Gibbs. โIt also speaks to the incredible work happening on the ground to conserve water and build more resilient systems that will serve communities and our water resources for generations to come.โ
Funded projects reflect key priorities of the Colorado Water Plan, including water conservation, wildfire resilience, and water storage. This includes projects focused on conserving water and improving efficiency, such as funding for new Water Efficiency Plansโan essential tool for long-term water supply planningโas well as initiatives like urban turf replacement, resilient school landscapes with smart irrigation, and comprehensive outdoor water budgeting.
The CWCB also continues to invest in projects that help communities prepare for wildfire impacts through watershed restoration and implementation of Wildfire Ready Action Plans, helping protect critical water resources from post-fire risks.
And in Coloradoโs current warm, low-snowpack water year, investments in water storage are critical. Funding this grant cycle supports projects that increase or evaluate storage capacityโan essential strategy for capturing and managing water when supplies are limited. These efforts include feasibility studies and improvements to reservoirs and dams in communities across the state.
Finally, the Water Supply Reserve Fund grant investments this grant cycle includes projects such as post-fire diversion infrastructure improvements in Rio Blanco County and enhanced groundwater monitoring efforts in the South Platte Basinโboth of which strengthen local water resilience and inform long-term water management.
This week, a powerful storm system crossed from the Great Plains into the Great Lakes, bringing widespread rain and thunderstorms to parts of the Midwest, and a historic blizzard to portions of the Upper Midwest, especially in northern Wisconsin and Michigan near Lake Superior. Total precipitation amounts exceeded 2 inches in a large area of the western Great Lakes, while lighter amounts, mostly 0.5-3 inches of precipitation, fell across parts of the southern and eastern Contiguous U.S. Improvements to ongoing drought and dryness occurred across large portions of the Midwest, parts of the lower Mississippi River Valley, and in the Northeast outside of northern New England. Heavy rain and, in some areas, mountain snow, fell across parts of the Northwest, locally improving drought conditions. However, significant deficits in snow still exist in many parts of the West, including the Pacific Northwest, which limited the longer-term benefits of the precipitation that fell. Much of the Southwest, and the central and southern Great Plains, missed out on precipitation, and instead dealt with a dry, warm and windy week. Precipitation deficits, and lack of snowpack in the mountains, continued to worsen amid high evaporative demand, leading to widespread worsening of abnormal dryness and drought, especially in South Dakota and Nebraska, southwest Kansas, southern Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and parts of Oregon that missed out on precipitation. A kona low delivered heavy precipitation to all of Hawaii this week, leading to widespread 1- and local 2-category improvements to ongoing drought conditions from Molokai eastward…
In the southern half of the High Plains region, warmer-than-normal weather continued this week amid mainly dry and frequently windy conditions. Degradation in drought conditions was widespread across Nebraska and southern parts of South Dakota. A deadly wildfire in western Nebraska, the Morrill Fire, has burned a record amount of land for Nebraska wildfires. This fire, and others across Nebraska, occurred amid weather conditions favorable for fire growth and a background of worsening drought conditions. The Great Plains of southwest Kansas and southeast Colorado also saw worsening drought and abnormal dryness this week, as precipitation deficits continued to mount along with warmer-than-normal temperatures this winter and early spring. Large precipitation deficits and above-normal evaporative demand over the last several months led to extreme drought development in parts of the Black Hills in southwest South Dakota. Colder temperatures and some precipitation kept conditions unchanged (and mostly free of drought or abnormal dryness) in North Dakota and northern South Dakota…
Colorado Drought Monitor one week change map ending March 17, 2026.
Current drought conditions in the West continued to be headlined by snow drought this week. The Sangre de Cristo Mountains and portions of the San Juan Mountains in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico saw widespread worsening conditions this week. Overall dry and warm conditions worsened both precipitation deficits and snowpack conditions in these areas. Some snow-water monitoring sites in the region have seen near-full or full melting of snowpack. Degradations to ongoing drought and dryness were also widespread in Arizona this week, where warmer-than-normal temperatures combined with dry weather to worsen short-term precipitation deficits, increase evaporative demand and support low streamflow levels. High-elevation parts of Arizona that usually have snow on the ground in mid-March are also suffering from snow drought. This combination of drier- and warmer-than-normal weather and snow drought may set the state for drought conditions to worsen in the coming weeks if weather conditions remain warm and dry. Warmer-than-normal and dry weather occurred this week in Nevada, worsening conditions in some areas, especially in the north, where impacts are being reported as a result of unusually warm and dry weather over the last several months and meagre mountain snow. Due to locally heavy precipitation or lack thereof, a mix of small-scale improvements and degradations occurred in Oregon. Amid the snow drought, localized degradations occurred in southwest Idaho, while heavier mountain snows improved snowpack in some mountain ranges in parts of western Montana, leading to localized improvements. The effectiveness of this locally renewed snowpack in improving soil moisture will be analyzed further in the weeks ahead…
This week, parts of east Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee benefitted from localized rains of at least 2 inches. Elsewhere, deep south Texas, western Texas, and northern and western Oklahoma were mostly dry this week. Temperatures across the region were warmer than normal, with readings varying widely from a degree or two above normal to 9-12 degrees above normal. Soil moisture levels improved and precipitation shortfalls lessened in parts of east-central Texas, Louisiana and southeast Arkansas, leading to localized improvements to drought conditions in these areas. Despite heavier rains, a small area of extreme drought shifted northeast in southeast Tennessee due to very large precipitation deficits that continued this week. Growing short-term precipitation deficits led to the development of severe drought in a small area of northwest Tennessee. Heavy rain in Dallas improved local conditions. Warm, dry and windy conditions were the rule elsewhere in the southern Great Plains and deep south Texas, leading to localized degradations in central and northern Texas, deep south Texas, south-central and northwest Oklahoma, and the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles…
Looking Ahead
Through the evening of Monday, March 23, the National Weather Service Weather Prediction Centerโs forecast depicts mostly dry weather across a large swath of the Contiguous U.S. Precipitation totaling 0.5-1 inch may fall from West Virginia into New York, and in spots in New England. Similar precipitation amounts are forecast in parts of northwest Montana and the Idaho Panhandle. Western Washington is forecast to receive widespread precipitation amounts of at least 1 inch, with some favored mountainous areas forecast to receive 2.5-5 inches of precipitation (or locally more). Elsewhere, the forecast calls for precipitation amounts to remain at or below 0.5 inches, with most of the Great Plains, Mississippi and Lower Ohio River Valleys, and the Gulf Coast states likely to remain completely dry.
Looking ahead from March 24-28, the National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center forecast strongly favors warmer-than-normal temperatures in most of the West, especially in the Southwest, and across much of the Great Plains and South. Near- or below-normal temperatures are favored from northern North Dakota eastward through the Great Lakes into much of the Northeast. Above-normal precipitation is favored in Washington, northern Oregon, the Idaho Panhandle and northwest Montana, and from northern Michigan eastward across the northern half of the Northeast. Wetter-than-normal weather is also forecast in central and southern Florida. Elsewhere in the contiguous United States, below-normal precipitation is more likely, especially from the Great Plains to Utah, Nevada, the Desert Southwest and California.
US Drought Monitor one week change map ending March 17, 2026.
The U.S. Forest Service late last week completed the transfer of 2,422 acres of emory oak-studded and boulder strewn public land in central Arizona to Resolution Copper, a subsidiary of global mining corporations BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto. The newly privatized land includes Chรญchสผil Biล Dagoteel, or Oak Flat, a 760-acre parcel that President Dwight D. Eisenhower withdrew from mineral entry in 1955. The land transfer removes one of the biggest regulatory obstacles blocking the companyโs bid to mine a massive copper deposit that lies about one mile below the surface of Oak Flat.
Some conservation groups initiallyย withheld oppositionย to the land swap because of the ecological value of the land Resolution was giving up, some of which lies along the San Pedro River, anย important corridor for migratory birds. In 2015 Congress passed a bill, with bipartisan support, allowing the swap to proceed. But the company and its politician enablers failed to recognize the significance of Oak Flat to the San Carlos Apache and other tribes in the regionโand underestimated the fierceness of theirย resistance.
Over the ensuing decade, completion of the land exchange has been held up by legal challenges and widespread opposition from Indigenous and environmental groups. Apache Stronghold, a non-profit devoted to protecting sacred sites, took its case up the legal ladder, calling on federal courtsย to halt the land exchangeย on the grounds that privatizing and destroying Oak Flat with mining and resulting subsidence would violate the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Ultimately the Supreme Court refused to take up the case, and other legal challenges also were shot down by the courts.
The fight is not over, however. Shortly after the transfer was announced, a group of Apache womenย appealedย to Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan to intervene and block the exchange. Even if that fails, Resolution will still need to obtain numerous permits before it can proceed. The land exchange removes most of the project from USFS jurisdiction, leaving it in the hands of state regulators.
Because of the depth of the deposit, the mine would be underground rather than open pit, and would use the cave panel method. This may make it less visible initially, but the magnitude of the endeavor will ultimately have significant impacts on a large swath of public and private lands. As material is removed from underground, the surface will sink, or subside, creating a huge crater and destroying Chรญchสผil Biล Dagoteel. Dewatering the mine workings will affect the regionโs hydrology, diminishing or drying up springs and โgroundwater dependent ecosystems.โ And the tailings pile is expected to cover thousands of acres in Dripping Springs Wash, basically filling a desert waterway with a mountain of acid-generating, metal-laden waste.
Mining, ore processing, and slurrying operations would require large amounts of additional water. The company plans to acquire at least some of that from the Central Arizona Project, which is currently facing potentially significant cutbacks due to Colorado River water shortages.
Map showing the locations of the mine and associated facilities, along with the tailings depository (the teal and gray blob on the right side, which will totally fill in the Dripping Springs Wash valley. Source: USFS EIS.
Here are some data from the Environmental Impact Statement for Alternative 6, which was chosen in the record of decision:
1.8 billion metric tons: Estimated size of the copper ore deposit under Oak Flat, one of the worldโs largest.
The subsidence crater at Oak Flat will eventually be about 1.8 miles across and between 800 and 1,115 feet deep.
1.37 billion tons: Estimated volume of tailings produced over the life of the mine
20 miles: Length of slurry pipeline that would carry tailings from the ore processing facility to the Dripping Springs Wash tailings depository.
4,002 acres; 490 feet: Area and height of the proposed tailings depository.
9,900 to 17,000: acres of soil and vegetation expected to be disturbed. The analysis notes: โโฆ impacts to soil health and productivity may last centuries to millennia โฆ โ
377: Number of National Register of Historic Places-eligible sites directly affected by the project.
The project would result in the reduction ofย 13,781 acresย of livestock grazing leases andย 2,797 animal unit monthsย overย 9 allotments, andย 14 grazing-related facilitiesย (water sources) would be lost along with infrastructure at the Slash S headquarters.
87,000 acre-feet: Estimated volume of water that would be pumped from the mine (dewatering) over the projectโs life. (Some hydrologists have questioned this estimate, saying it is too low).
Dewatering would affectย 18 to 20 groundwater dependent ecosystems, i.e. springs.
540,000 acre-feet:ย Estimated amount of water that would be pumped from the Desert Wellfield in the East Salt River valley for mining and processing operations over the life of the project.
1,400; $149 million: Estimated number of full-time workers at the peak of the project and total annual employee compensation.
On a related note,ย Iโm looking into water use at existing Arizona mines for a futureย Land Deskย dispatch. Stay tuned. And in the meantime, if yโall have any good, reliable sources for this sort of information, Iโd appreciate you sending it along to me.
๐ฅต Aridification Watch ๐ซ
Typically I wouldnโt depress you all with any snowpack/water news until early April, when mountain snowpacks typically peak, and when we should have a fairly clear picture of what weโre facing as far as spring runoff. But the Bureau of Reclamation released their projections for Lake Powell on Friday, and the heat wave thatโs bearing down on the Southwest is threatening to melt whatever snow is still remaining. Without some cooler weather combined with big snows, a lot of areas may have already seen their peak snowpack, which would mean spring runoff is beginning now.
Yikes!
First, the Lake Powell projections. Notice that the probable minimum inflow (the red line) reaches 3,500 feet in July. Dam engineers really donโt want it going below that level (3,510 feet would be safer). And even the green line, or the most probable inflow, would drop to that point in September. Keep in mind that these projections are often over-estimates, meaning we could hit that critical level even earlier โ especially given this frigginโ heat wave. And yet, the general public still has no idea how the Bureau of Reclamation might handle the situation.
One thing you can probably bet on: The Bureau will try to buoy Lake Powellโs levels by drawing down the Upper Basin reservoirs that are in the Colorado River Storage Project. That would be Flaming Gorge on the Green River, Navajo Reservoir on the San Juan, and the Wayne Aspinall Unit (Blue Mesa, Crystal, and Morrow Point) on the Gunnison. This will, of course, affect recreation on those reservoirs as well as downstream irrigators.
And on to the heat wave. Here are some forecasts for the next few days.ย
The earliest 100ยฐF day on record in Phoenix was on March 26. That record will fall this week, along with many others, Iโm sure. I mean, extreme heat warnings in March? Come on!
Then thereโs the far-less blistering, but equally concerning temperatures in the mountains. Silverton, at 9,318 feet in elevation and near the headwaters of both Colorado River and Rio Grande tributaries, is looking to have a full-on March thaw โ even at night. Look at those lows for Wednesday through Friday: All above freezing. No bueno.
Oak Flat, Arizona features groves of Emory oak trees, canyons, and springs. This is sacred land for the San Carlos Apache tribe. Resolution Copper (Rio Tinto subsidiary) lobbied politicians to deliver this National Forest land to the company with the intent to build a destructive copper mine. By SinaguaWiki – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=98967960
The hard news about the Colorado River since my last post here is not good; we had a storm that dropped around two feet of snow above the 8,000-foot elevation โ well, maybe the 9,000-foot elevation. But that was followed by a couple weeks of ridiculously warm weather for February and early March, with more 50-degree weather forecast into the near future, and overnight lows often in the 20s, rather than down around zero. Forecasts for the runoff this year range around a third of the โhistoric normal,โ which is an increasingly meaningless number โ and dangerous too, MAGA-thinking, keeping alive the hope that eventually the Colorado River will be great again if we just wait it out, or close our eyes and wish real hard, with real violence toward realistsโฆ.
The Bureau bases its โaveragesโ on the recent 30-year average going by decades โ so now the โlong-term averageโ is based on 1991-2020. Back as recently as 2019, it was based on the average from 1981-2010, which was more than a million acre-feet per year higher than the current 30-year average. God help us when weโre figuring in the decade of the 2020s into a 2001-2030 average โ the new average would probably make this years runoff look better than it looks by the 1991-2020 average, but thereโs certainly an element of delusion in that.
The โsoft newsโ about the Colorado River recently has been a declaration of โpersonhoodโ for the river by the Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT). This is a lovely gesture by people who have been struggling for โpersonhoodโ themselves for 150 years in the riverโs region, and still are not quite at the table in negotiating over the riverโs future, even though they have โusedโ the river, often in fairly โcivilizedโ ways, for many hundreds if not thousands of years more than the white masters of the river.
But it seemed naive (or maybe just cynical) for the โlamestream mediaโ to ask if this declaration of personhood was going to โhelp save the river.โ We probably need to face the fact that, until we get serious about slowing down the warming of the planet, we can do nothing by way of nomenclatter to โhelp save the riverโ โ and even then, the best we could do would be to maintain the river where it is now, or at least not a whole lot worse โ which is whatโs going to happen if every year we continue to put more new greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than we did the year before. I do not see how considering the river a โpersonโ is going to change that much.
I think we should also consider that granting โpersonhoodโ to another set of living ecosystems might be kind of anthropocentric. I can barely contemplate what goes into โriverhood,โ for example, but watching a stream one sees a system very much engaged in interaction with its whole neighborhood โ giving water to the surrounding land when the landโs water table is low, and taking on water the land canโt hold when it is wet. โRiverhood,โ I infer, has aspects of sharing, giving and receiving, that might have things to teach us about improving โpersonhood,โ rather than operating on the assumption that all life on the planet would love to be reduced to โpersonhoodโโฆ. Just thinking out loud, sorry.
Graphic via Holly McClelland/High Country News.
Our real question today is whether we can โsave the river systemโ โ the structure for storage and distribution we have laid over the river โ a question with which we need to actually spend some constructive time. And that kind of leads into the second part of my second โeraโ in updating Fred Dellenbaughโs 1903 Romance of the Colorado River: the โEra of Conquest.โ (First, remember, was the โEra of Exploration and Discovery.โ)
World War II, where I left the story last post, is a natural break in the Era of Conquering the Colorado River. Prior to World War II, we saw the Bureau do its greatest work: overseeing the construction of Hoover Dam, Imperial Dam and the All-American Canal under the Boulder Canyon Project, as well as Parker Dam to back up water for the 250-mile Colorado River Aqueduct to the West Coast cities. It is hard not to call it a masterpiece of regional urban-industrial development. In our six or eight thousand-year history of humans trying to create โcivilizationsโ to constructively deal with exploding populations, the Boulder Canyon Act stands tall as a public work, fitting for a state struggling to become a mass-society democracy (possible?) rather than putting people to work on massive tombs for the self-proclaimed โGod of the Sunโ or maybe โThe Son of God.โ
Advocates for private-sector industry will be quick to say it could not have been done without the private contractors, โthe Six Companiesโ and most notably Henry J. Kaiser. Critics of private-sector industry will be as quick to say that the private sector has not produced very many large-scale industrial organizers like Henry J โ who demonstrated than you can do big work and also take good care of the people doing it. He did not rest on his laurels but capitalized on that regional system with his Fontana steel and aluminum plants and Liberty Shipyards up the West Coast.
Green Mountain Reservoir, on the Blue River between Kremmling and and Silverthorne, was built for Western Slope interests. Photo/Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District via The Mountain Town News.
The war effort cut off most domestic development โ but the Bureau of Reclamation did complete two dams on the Colorado River during the war years. One was the Green Mountain Dam and Powerplant on the Blue River high in the riverโs headwaters, part of the equally massive Colorado-Big Thompson Project. More about this in the next post.
The other was a modest diversion dam below Parker Dam on the Lower Colorado: Headgate Rock Dam โ for the Colorado River Indian Tribes! With all the tribes in the Colorado Basin feeling โ righteously โ left out of river development, one might think the Bureau would make a bit of a big deal about the fact that their first Colorado River project completed after the Boulder Canyon Project was a diversion dam for irrigating Indian agriculture. Yet I can find none of the usual historical and statistic evidence in the Bureau websites about the Headgate Rock Dam, like they have for all of the other Colorado River projects, each getting its own website. Possibly this is because the operation of the dam was turned over to the Bureau of Indian Affairs Office after construction was finished.
It is, however, an interesting story. The tribes along the river were farming like Nile Valley Egyptians, planting in the new layer of silt laid down annually by the snowmelt floods, crops that needed little further irrigation. That worked until the federal Indian agents started moving Hopi and Navajo bands onto their reservation in the 1860s โ the reservations truly were โconcentration camps,โ forcing the move to โcivilizedโ agriculture. This had moved the Indian agents to acquire some pumps round the turn of the century, to water land beyond the riparian floodplain. But when the gates on Hoover Dam were closed in the mid-1930s, that ended the annual snowmelt floods, also ending the traditional agricultural economy.
So the Bureau plotted out a gravity-flow diversion dam and canal in 1938, and began construction. But construction did not really accelerate until 1941, when in one of Americaโs most shamefully hysteric events 17,000 Japanese-Americans were โrelocatedโ to the Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT) reservation โ undeniably a concentration camp at that point, if only for the concentration of people. But that added not just a lot of hungry mouths, but a proven workforce that joined the First People in working on the Headgate Rock Diversion Dam and the canal works to carry the water.
It would be both insensitive and naive to speak of a โhappy ending,โ but as the interred Japanese did in many of the desert places they were sent to, their concentration camp became a very livable village system; some stayed on after the war, and today there is a memorial monument and periodic celebration commemorating the positive relationship that developed between two โunwanted peoplesโ โ the uprooted Japanese and the Indians who forcibly shared their homeland. A story that, for some reason, the Bureau is not interested in tellingโฆ.
Meanwhile, however, the Bureau was not lying dormant. Immediately after the warโs end, the Bureau released what amounted to a smorgasbord of opportunities, under the title The Colorado River: A Natural Menace Becomes a National Resource. This proposed 134 possible projects for the development of the entire river basin for human uses โ cautioning that there was not enough water in the river to build them all, thereby intruding the good old all-American element of interstate competition. Fifty-eight of those proposed projects were for the Lower Basin states, but the other 88 were for the Upper Basin states. If the pre-war Colorado River development had all been about the Compactโs Lower Basin states, the post-war development would begin with controlling the โnatural menaceโ in the Upper Basin states and putting the water to work.
The 1946 Bureau report divided the Upper Basin into three different divisions, based on the Riverโs three main tributaries above the canyons: there were 33 projects for the Green River Division out of Wyoming and Colorado but flowing mostly (but not entirely) through eastern Utah; 35 projects for the โGrand Divisionโ (the Upper Colorado-Gunnison Rivers, originating in Colorado but flowing into Utah (using the older name for the Upper Colorado); and 20 projects for the San Juan Division, most of whose tributary waters flowed out of Coloradoโs San Juan Mountains but the river itself flowed mostly through northern New Mexico and southern Utah.
The Little Snake River is about to join the Yampa River on Oct. 8, 2020. Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots
An obvious challenge lay in the absence of any coordination between those natural divisions of the Upper Basin and the geographically-irrelevant state boundaries. Every major tributary except for the Gunnison River crossed at least one state boundary. The Little Snake River in the Yampa River Basin is the extreme example, crossing the Colorado-Wyoming border seven times.
Grand River Ditch in Rocky Mountain National Park. Photo credit: Greg Hobbs
Nonetheless, the first task for the Upper Basin, before the Bureau could go to work, was to divide the use of the waters among the states in an Upper Colorado River Basin Compact. This task was made the more difficult because the state boundaries bundled the relatively water-rich Upper Colorado River Basin with other drier river basins โ the Platte, Arkansas and Rio Grande rivers in Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico; and the Great Basin in Utah. And water law โ plus fervent belief in big-project technology โ accommodated the notion of moving water from one river basin to another. The Grand Ditch from high on Coloradoโs West Slope to the Poudre River on the East Slope was already being dug by the turn of the century. Unlike water for either agricultural or municipal uses within a basin, nothing flows back into the basin of origin from a transmountain diversion โ a total depletion.
The task of dividing the use of the Upper Basin waters was also complicated by vague writing in the Colorado River Compact โ Article III(d), stating that โthe States of the Upper Division will noteย (sic)ย cause the flow of the river at Lee Ferry to be depleted below an aggregate of 75,000,000 acre feet for any period of ten consecutive years.โ Was this aย cautionย to the Upper Basin states to make sure their uses did not start cutting into the Lower Basinโs shares? Or was it aย mandateย to those states to deliver that much water even if it meant cutting their own uses โ essentially turning the Compact into a โsenior water rightโ to the Lower Basin?
This was not really foreseen as an issue in 1922, with a river that early 20th-century optimism assumed would run at around 18 million acre-feet (maf) forever. But after the drought of the 1930s and the middling flows of early 40s, plus the mid-war treaty with Mexico to deliver 1.5 maf across that border every year, it was evident to the Upper Basin state negotiators, who gathered in 1946 to work on an Upper Basin Compact, that the river might not always produce the 7.5 maf the Compact promised to them.ย Theirย preferred interpretation of the Compactโs Article III(d) would obviously be the โcautionaryโ interpretation โ donโt be the cause of the river flow declining. But they also knew that California and Arizona would interpret it as a โmandateโ โ and since Congress would have to ratify their Compact, they chose to not โwaken the bear,โ as Californiaโs current governor would put it.
So rather than dividing the use of the Upper Riverโs hoped-for allotment of 7.5 maf in four set figures, like the Lower Basin has, they chose to divide it into percentages: 51.75% for Colorado (which provides around 70% of the riverโs water), 23% for Utah, 13% for Wyoming, and 11.25% for New Mexico. They also chose to calculate their usage by their depletions of a streamโs flow rather than adding up consumptive uses, as the Lower Basin does. I will not pretend to know exactly how this works โ except to note that a measure of depletions by users also includes evaporation and transpiration, while the Lower Basinโs measures allows such considerations to get lost in their calculations of usage. (The Bureau calculates Lower Basin evaporation and transpiration on a separate spreadsheet from recorded uses.)
Meanwhile, however -โฆ Donโt you just love it when a writer intrudes โMeanwhile, howeverโ into an already complicated mess? This is my secondmeanwhile in this post, so it is probably time to give you a break, with only a teaser about the next step in this growing ganglia of complexity.
While the still somewhat beloved Bureau of Reclamation, creator of Hoover Dam and the New West, was just cranking up the mill for the development of the rest of the Colorado River Basin waters, the Upper Basin states had already been working out their separate peace over the transmountain diversion issue between the wet Colorado River basins of origin with low populations, and drier basins of destination with large populations across the mountains. This is a story that goes back to the 1930s, with the โNew Dealโ federal government putting out large amounts of funding for public projects in all the states โ but with the caveat that for any state to tap into that funding, theย wholeย state had to want the projectโฆ. Stay tuned for the next thrilling episode in The Westโs Romance with Conquest.
Colorado transmountain diversions via the State Engineer’s office
Nations around the world are restoring their over-taxed river systems by establishing basinโwide flow targets, by reserving large quantities of water to maintain riverine environments, by making major cuts in consumptive use, and by removing man-made infrastructure that impeded the natural flow of water.
Australiaโs response to the “Millennium Drought” is often cited as a blueprint for the recovery of America’s Colorado River. The Water Act 2007 was Australia’s primary federal legislation for managing the MurrayโDarling Basin. Enacted during the Millennium Drought, it shifted water management from a state-by-state approach to a centralized federal framework to ensure long-term water security and environmental sustainability.
Australia’s Water Act 2007 included –
Water Buybacks: The government spent billions to “buy back” water entitlements from willing farmers to return them to the environment, thereby restoring river health.
Water Markets: Australia pioneered “unbundling” water from land, allowing it to be traded as a commodity. This incentivized a shift from low-value, water-heavy crops like rice to high-value ones like almonds.
Legal and remedial reforms: Basinโwide laws or plans that set enforceable extraction limits and prioritize maintaining minimum environmental flows. Explicit recognition of ecological flow requirements in allocation agreements, sometimes including reserved environmental flow shares in international draft treaties.
Reducing consumptive use: Cutting irrigation diversions and changing crop patterns or technologies so that more water remains in the channel, as highlighted for the BaakaโDarling. Using pricing, buyโbacks of water rights, and efficiency programs to retire or shrink highโimpact uses while compensating users.
Restoring environmental flows and reโoperating infrastructure. Dedicating a defined volume of water each year as environmental water and delivering it strategically to key river reaches and wetlands.
Reโoperating reservoir cascades to mimic aspects of natural flow regimes (e.g., Yellow River WSRS using coordinated reservoir releases and artificial flood waves for sediment and flow objectives).
Ecological and landโuse restoration: Largeโscale reโvegetation and landโuse change in upper basins to reduce erosion, improve infiltration, and stabilize hydrology. Floodplain, marsh, and wetland restoration to increase โspongeโ capacity, store water during high flows, and sustain baseflows, as in Rhine marsh and broader European river projects.
Infrastructure removal and natureโbased solutions: Removing or modifying barriers (small and large dams, weirs) to reconnect fragmented river sections, restore sediment and fish passage, and improve overall river health; the EU has set a goal to reconnect 25,000 km of rivers by 2030 through such measures.
Implementing local, lowโtech retention structures (e.g., โbeaver damsโ), to enhance groundwater recharge, moderate extremes, and empower communityโbased management.
An otherwise dismal snow year in Colorado has one clear upside: At least the snow that has fallen on the state isnโt dusty.
Each year, storms pick up dust from across the Southwest and drop it on Coloradoโs mountain snowpack, where it can hasten melting. Earlier snowmelt has ripple effects on water supplies, forecasts, irrigators and ecosystems. But this year, the snow is white and clean all the way through, at least at the test locations observed by Jeff Derryโs team at the Center for Snow and Avalanche Studies.
What gives? Derry chuckled. Itโs storms that bring dust โ and snow, he said.
โWe havenโt had the dust because we havenโt had the storms,โ Derry said. โThey kind of come hand in hand.โ
Since mid-January, Colorado has experienced its lowest snowpack since 1987. The winter storms that have dumped snow on the mountains have been quickly followed by warm temperatures, leaving a relatively shallow layer of snow at higher elevations. The snowpack is scarce, if present at all, at lower elevations.
Derry, executive director of the centerโs Dust-on-Snow Program, spent early March traveling around the state, digging pits in the snow, and looking for rusty, brownish layers of dust.
The programโs snow monitoring sites are close to other data collection sites that are part of the federal snow telemetry, or SNOTEL, network. These stations, basically sheds outfitted with antennae and an array of scientific instruments, help track precipitation, temperature and other climate information across the West.
โThis tour so far, after doing three sites, has been easy on my back,โ he said. โSNOTEL stations arenโt lying. Itโs a skimpy snowpack.โ
The dust that typically mars Coloradoโs snowpack is dropped by winter storms, which carry it from arid regions in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. Some of that dust was loosened by human actions, like overgrazing and developing land.
Dark dust layers on the snowโs surface absorb more solar radiation, which causes the snow to melt faster and earlier in the season. When that happens, it changes how plants use water. They send more moisture into the air, which reduces the amount of water entering streams and rivers, according to researchers.
In some years since 2003, these dust events, as scientists call them, have blown over Colorado as early as October or November. Scientists observed 12 dust events in 2009 and in 2012, the most per year since 2003
But what Derry saw on his tour this year โ from Rabbit Ears Pass near Steamboat Springs to Red Mountain Pass in southwestern Colorado โ was a layer of white, even after a storm Friday cast a new layer of snow over much of Colorado.
Derry hoped the recent storm will help keep the snowpack from melting too early. Or, this year could offer something new, he said: A dust-free, albeit โskimpy,โ snowpack.
But after 20 years of tracking dust-on-snow events, researchers have found that there are no seasons without dust. Derry will be watching out in March, April and May when about 80% of dust events typically happen, he said.
โEven though things might be looking good now. It just takes one nasty storm to change everything. With the shallow snowpack, weโll see early melt anyway,โ he said. โAdd some dust and it could make it even worse.โ
An early spring melt
Derryโs team started checking their snow monitoring sites seven to 10 days earlier than usual. Theyโre expecting an early spring melt, Derry said.
Coloradoโs statewide snowpack typically reaches its peak around April 8, although the peaks typically occur earlier or later, depending on the watershed.
The melt starts soon after. Reservoirs help pace the flow of water as it rushes out of the mountains, storing water that becomes vital to farmers and ranchers later in the summer.
Coloradoโs 2026 snowpack, depicted by the black line, continues to be the lowest on record since 1987, according to federal data. The snowpack normally peaks around April 8 as marked by the green โx.โ It is measured as the snow-water equivalent, or the amount of liquid water in snow. (Natural Resources Conservation Service, Contributed)
Dust can accelerate that melt by two to four weeks or 50 days in more extreme years. (Scientists are still trying to understand what factors cause extreme years and whether dust events can be better predicted.)
So can warmer temperatures, like the exceptional heat wave in the forecast for Colorado starting March 16. Some areas are pushing 20 degrees above normal this week and next week, according to the National Weather Service in Grand Junction.
โThis heatwave may be the final nail in the coffin for any hope of snowpack recovery this season in Coloradoโs Rockies and elsewhere across the West,โ Bouldercast Weather, a team of Denver and Boulder weather experts, said on social media Monday.
A weekend storm could bring up to 6 inches of snow to the northern Rockies in Colorado, said David Byers, a meteorologist for the weather service in Grand Junction.
The water that runs out of Coloradoโs mountains serves communities in 19 states before it eventually reaches the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean.
Not much snow translates into very little water, Derry said. That could affect fire season, forest health and water resources for everyone in all the basins that Colorado serves.
When there are too many low-snow years in a row, reservoirs can struggle to keep up their water storage. Between 2020 and 2025, Colorado has had three below-average winters, two average winters and one above-average winter, according to federal data from SNOTEL stations.
Much of the region experienced its warmest February on record, and Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming ended the season with the warmest December-February on record. As temperatures were much above average throughout the region, precipitation was below to much below average for much of the region, with record-dry conditions along the Front Range, as well as pockets in southeastern Colorado and southern Wyoming. As of March 1, snow drought continues to persist as below to much below normal snow-water equivalent (SWE) was observed for Colorado, Utah, and eastern Wyoming. Seasonal streamflow volume forecasts for regional river basins are below to much below average, except in northern Wyoming where there are near to above average forecasts. Regional drought coverage increased to 76% by early March. The NOAA Seasonal Outlooks for March-May suggest below average precipitation and above average temperatures.
Regional precipitation was below to much below average in February, particularly in northeastern Colorado, with a large pocket of less than 2% of average conditions in Denver, Arapahoe, Adams, Washington, and Weld Counties. Another large pocket of less than 2% of average conditions occurred in southeastern Colorado in Baca County. In contrast, scattered pockets of above average precipitation occurred in each state, with two large pockets of 150-200% of average precipitation in southeastern Colorado and western Wyoming. One small pocket of 200-400% of average precipitation occurred in southeastern Colorado in Kiowa and Bent Counties, and a pocket of 400-800% of average precipitation occurred in western Wyoming in Fremont County. Record-dry February precipitation occurred in many counties along the Front Range in Colorado, including Denver, Boulder, Larimer, Jefferson, Douglas, Adams, Arapahoe, Broomfield, El Paso, Weld, and Park Counties, as well as Baca County in southeastern Colorado. Record-dry conditions also occurred in Carbon and Albany Counties in southern Wyoming, and Tooele County in western Utah.
Regional temperatures were much above average to record-warm in February. Large swaths of 9 to 12ยฐF above average temperatures occurred in each state, particularly in Wyoming and Colorado, and a large pocket of 12-15ยฐF above average temperatures occurred in southwestern Wyoming. Colorado and Wyoming experienced the warmest February on record, and Utah experienced the third warmest February on record.ย All three states experienced the warmest meteorological winter (December-February) on record.ย These records are ranked by NOAA NCEI from 1895-2026.
Below to much below normal snow-water equivalent (SWE) continues in Colorado, Utah, and eastern Wyoming as of March 1. River basins with 50% or less of normal SWE include the Upper Arkansas (45%) in Colorado, and the Lower Colorado-Lake Mead (50%), Upper Colorado-Dirty Devil (47%), Escalante Desert-Sevier Lake (46%), and Lower San Juan (23%) in Utah. In contrast, western Wyoming river basins have near normal SWE, including the Snake Headwaters (96%), Upper Yellowstone (95%), Big Horn (94%), and the Upper Green (91%). Due to record-warm temperatures and below average precipitation for most of the region this winter, snow drought continues to persist.
Seasonal streamflow volume forecasts for river basins in Colorado, Utah, and southeastern Wyoming are below to much below average. Near to above average seasonal streamflow volumes are forecasted for northern Wyoming. In Colorado, seasonal streamflow forecasts suggest 45-60% of average runoff for all major river basins. Runoff in most major Utah river basins is forecasted at 35-55% of average, except for the Bear River Basin (72%). Wyoming has a mix of streamflow forecasts, with below average forecasts in the Little Snake (46%), North Platte (52%), Cheyenne (57%), Upper Green (64%), and Laramie (69%) River Basins, near average forecasts in the Tongue (93%), Wind (93%), Powder (95%), and Yellowstone (108%) River Basins, and above average forecasts in the Shoshone (113%) and Big Horn (123%) River Basins. Below average inflow is forecasted for many regional reservoirs, including Lake Powell (36%), Navajo (44%), McPhee (47%), Blue Mesa (50%), Guernsey (52%), Deer Creek (53%), Scofield (56%), Deerfield (57%), and Flaming Gorge (64%) Reservoirs.
Dry and warm conditions during February caused regional drought coverage to increase to 76% by March 3 (drought covered 63% of the region on February 3). Drought conditions especially deteriorated in Wyoming, where moderate (D1) drought coverage increased by 33%, severe (D2) drought coverage increased by 14%, and extreme (D3) drought emerged in southwestern and southeastern Wyoming. In Colorado, D2 drought coverage increased by 11%, and D3 drought coverage increased by 3%, emerging in the Denver Metro region and northwestern Colorado. Utah drought coverage remained the same, with an emergence of D3 drought in northeastern Utah.
As of mid-February, La Niรฑa conditions are declining and there is a 90% probability of transitioning to ENSO-neutral conditions during March-May. The NOAA March Precipitation Outlook suggests equal chances while the March Temperature Outlook suggests an increased probability of above average temperatures throughout the region. The NOAA Seasonal Precipitation Outlook for March-May suggests an increased probability of below average precipitation in Colorado, Utah, and southern Wyoming, and particularly in the Four Corners region. The NOAA Seasonal Temperature Outlook for March-May suggests an increased probability of above average temperatures in Colorado, Utah, and southern and western Wyoming, and particularly in southern Utah and southwestern Colorado.
Significant weather event: Extremely warm and dry winter for the Front Range.ย Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming experienced the warmest meteorological winter (December-February) on record, and Colorado and Wyoming experienced the warmest February on record. Coloradoโs statewide average temperature for December-February was 33.6ยฐF, surpassing the previous record of 32.0ยฐF during the 1980-1981 winter season. Coloradoโs Front Range had a particularly warm and dry February, causing extreme (D3) drought to emerge in the Denver Metro region. Denver, Adams, and Arapahoe Counties experienced their driest February on record. Denver experienced its second warmest winter on record, with an average temperature of 39.6ยฐF, just short of the 40.1ยฐF record from the 1933-1934 winter season. For context, the average winter temperature for Denver is 31.9ยฐF, which this winter season significantly exceeds. Denver also experienced its driest winter, with only 13.4 inches of snow recorded by the end of February, well below the average of about 35 inches of snow for December-February. These warm and dry conditions were due to many factors, but the persistent high-pressure ridge that stayed over the western U.S. coupled with La Niรฑa conditions was particularly notable in keeping moisture and cold temperatures out of the region.
Snowpack in the Roaring Fork Valley basin is at 65% of normal as of March 13 โ the lowest level recorded since the modern snowpack telemetric system started collecting data in 1981. The North Star Nature Preserve east of Aspen, typically snowcovered in March, was nearly bare on March 12. CREDIT: LAURINE LASSALLE/ASPEN JOURNALISM
Temperature and precipitation data in the Roaring Fork Valley shows that most of this winter has experienced above-average temperatures with below-average precipitation, making this season one of the hottest and driest on record.
โWe notice [the lack of snow] because [itโs visible], but we keep on having these crazy-warm years, and at the end of the day, thatโs whatโs going to be the driver of change,โ said Adam McCurdy, forest and climate director at Aspen Center for Environmental Studies (ACES). He predicts that big snow years will return, but that the long-term warming trend will continue in a way thatโs โgoing to move spring runoff, itโs going to change water availability even if we, say, keep the same snowpack.โ
According to NOAAโs Climate at a Glance tool, Pitkin County experienced its second warmest and 10th driest winter on record, with data going back as far as 1895, as average daily temperatures from November through February reached 26.9 degrees this winter, or four degrees above normal, behind the winter of 1906-07โs record high of 27.5 degrees. The county received 6.9 inches of precipitation, including rain and snow, behind 1903-04โs 3.55 inches, 1980-81โs 5.16 inches and 1976-77โs 5.21 inches.
February average temperatures at the Aspen-Pitkin County Airport reached a record high this year, at 31.6 degrees Fahrenheit, which is about six degrees above normal, according to data from the local National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) station, which began collecting climate data in 1998.
Although this winterโs lack of snow is striking, with measured levels reaching record lows, rising temperatures might be cause of greater concern as part of a larger trend, impacting spring runoff and local forests. Experts hope that precipitation this spring and summer can still bring the necessary moisture to mitigate current drought conditions.
Snowpack in the Roaring Fork Valley basin is at 65% of normal as of March 13, according to SNOTEL, which is the U.S. Department of Agricultureโs automated mountain weather network, and Aspen Journalismโs snowpack dashboard. Itโs the lowest level recorded since the modern snowpack telemetric system started collecting data in 1981. At Independence Pass, snowpack reached 56% of normal on March 13, but state climatologist Russ Schumacher told Summit Daily on March 4 that monthly hand measurements, which go back nearly a century, show that this yearโs snowpack at Independence Pass was among the lowest 3% of the 88 years on record.
The SNOTEL station at McClure Pass in 2023, when snowpack held 23.6 inches of snow water equivalent on March 13, well above the 8.3 inches on March 13, 2026. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM
According to a climate sensor located at the city of Aspenโs water department in the Castle Creek Valley, where snowfall, temperature and precipitation data has been tracked since 1934, a total of 71.5 inches of snow fell from November through February, making this winter the driest in the past 30 years and the 12th driest on record, behind the winter of 1976-77, which received 47.5 inches of snow from November through February, and the 1980-81 season, when city records recorded 40.9 inches of snow. Itโs worth noting that the station at the cityโs water plant has moved locations over the years and changed its equipment in the 1980s, so comparisons using data collected before those changes may be skewed.
A total of 6 inches of precipitation, including rain and snow, fell on the Roaring Fork Valley between November and February, according to Gridded Surface Meteorological (or gridMET) data that goes back to 1979. Thatโs below last yearโs 8.5 inches and represents 55% of the 30-year average, making the 2025-26 winter season the second driest, after 1980-81. Although precipitation has been below average, McCurdy said wide variations in rain and snow totals year over year are expected. โWhile this is an exceptionally dry winter precipitationwise, itโs not outside of the range of historic variability,โ McCurdy said. โWhat weโre seeing temperaturewise is โฆ certainly where weโre heading and weโve seen it again and again. So I think thatโs not just one data point, itโs another data point in a long-term trend.โ
While this winterโs lack of snow is striking, rising temperatures might be cause of greater concern as part of a larger trend, impacting spring runoff and local forests. CREDIT: LAURINE LASSALLE/ASPEN JOURNALISM
Above-average temperatures are becoming more common
NOAAโs 2018 modeling trend shows that average daily temperatures from November through February in Pitkin County have increased by 0.3 degrees every 10 years, mostly driven by rising low temperatures that have gone up by 0.5 degrees every decade. According to the 2024 Colorado Climate Change Report from the Colorado Climate Center, annual average temperatures across the state warmed by 2.3 degrees from 1980 to 2022 and are expected to keep rising due to climate change. By 2050, statewide annual temperatures are projected to increase by 2.5 to 5.5 degrees compared with 1971-2000, and between 1 degree and 4 degrees compared with 2022, under a medium-low emissions scenario.
Colorado statewide annual temperature anomaly (ยฐF) with respect to the 1901-2000 average. Graphic credit: Colorado Climate Center
โColorado has warmed at a faster rate than the global average and is expected to continue to warm,โ Peter Goble, assistant state climatologist at Colorado State Universityโs Colorado Climate Center, told Aspen Journalism. โHaving said that, not every winter going forward is going to be as warm as this winter. And, in fact, I think this winter was so unusual that I think this winter will be considered a much-warmer-than-normal winter for some time to come.โ
The impact of this warm and dry winter will be seen in the spring runoff as a much-lower-than-average peak runoff is to be expected, but summer conditions are still uncertain as experts hope for spring and summer precipitation that would lessen drought conditions. CREDIT: LAURINE LASSALLE/ASPEN JOURNALISM
The NOAA sensor at ASE recorded 94 days with above-average minimum temperatures out of the 120 days from November to February, and 89 days with above-average maximum temperatures, for a total of 81 days with both above-average minimum and maximum temperatures. In other words, about three-fourths of the days were warmer than normal. In comparison, November 2024-February 2025 had 54 days with above-normal temperatures.
Looking at the Roaring Fork Valley as a whole, gridMET data shows that this winter counted 92 days with above-average daily temperatures, above 2005โs 85 days. The GridMET dataset from scientists at the University of California Merced combines data from weather stations in a given area and uses modeling to generate surface climate datasets instead of relying on one specific weather station.
The data also shows that warm winters have become more frequent since the mid-1990s. According to gridMET data, which goes back to 1979, winters in the dataset in prior years with the highest number of days with above-average temperatures include 2018 and 1981, but 1981 was followed by a decade of mostly cooler temperatures and above-average precipitation. โOn the other hand, 2018 and 2026 are both part of consistently hotter-than-average winters and, more recently, drier starts to the season,โ according toย ACES.
Although the entire state of Colorado is experiencing drought conditions, the upper Roaring Fork Valley has been experiencing โexceptionalโ drought conditions since Dec. 23, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, with about 28% of Pitkin County and 19% of Eagle County experiencing such conditions as of March 10. (โExceptionalโ is the most severe level.) The Roaring Fork watershed is one of the only two places throughout the entire West to experience this level of drought.
Colorado Drought Monitor map March 10, 2026.
โOne of the main reasons that, when you look at the U.S. Drought Monitor, the Roaring Fork Valley stands out is because of the mix of both short- and long-term drought conditions in place,โ Goble said, adding that the Roaring Fork Valley was very hot and dry last summer, while other areas around the Colorado Rockies received some decent moisture. โThe Roaring Fork Valley was already en route [to drought] going into this winter season,โ he said.
Average daily temperatures, or the average of high and low temperatures, in the Roaring Fork River watershed have been 5 degrees above 1991-2020 historical average this winter (November-February), surpassing the previous record year of 1981, when temperatures were 4 degrees above normal. For February, average temperatures for the Roaring Fork Valley were the fourth highest on record, at 27.6 degrees.
Maximum and minimum temperatures are getting closer
On average, maximum and minimum temperatures recorded at ASE have both been approximately 6 degrees higher than normal in February. From November through February, maximum and minimum temperatures have also been roughly 6 degrees above normal. Last winter, maximum and minimum temperatures were, on average, 1 degree below normal.
GridMET data shows that, on average, maximum and minimum temperatures are getting closer, a trend that has been particularly noticeable in the past five to six years. The gap for November through February reached an average of 19.7 degrees for the Roaring Fork Valley, the lowest reading on record.
Rising low temperatures can affect the ability to make snow at ski resorts, as reported byAspen Journalism in 2019 and The Sopris Sun in January, while the need to rely on snowmaking to compensate for the lack of snow increases.
McCurdy explained that snowpack maintains and accumulates โcold contentโ during the winter and that low nighttime temperatures allow this thermal buffer to form and keep snowpack colder longer, preventing it from melting too fast.
โBefore the snow starts to rapidly melt, the snowpack needs to become isothermic; in other words, the entire [snowpack] column is about 0 degrees Celsius [32 degrees Fahrenheit] and ready to melt,โ he said. โBecause of the warm winter [and the rising low temperatures], the snowpack is entering spring closer to isothermic, which could result in a pretty rapid melt-off.โ
Historically, the gap between high and low temperatures averages 22.6 degrees. According to NOAA, 25.5 degrees separate high temperatures from low temperatures at ASE for this winter, lower than last yearโs 26 degrees but higher than the nearly 25 degrees recorded in the winters of 2023-24 and 2022-23.
Possible impacts
โThe real impact of this warm, dry weather will be seen in the spring runoff,โ McCurdy said, adding that a much-lower-than-average peak runoff is to be expected.
He said most trees are dormant during the winter until spring runoff, when they pull up a lot of water to use for the rest of the summer, but if their water supply is low, theyโre not going to be able to grow as much or be able to produce resins and chemical defenses to fend off things such as bark beetles and other invasive insects.
โTrees have a long hydrologic memory,โ he said. โOne year isnโt as impactful to them as some other species where theyโll build up water. They have deep roots. They can pull up groundwater, but by the same token, multiple years of drought is a hard hole for them to get out of.โ
McCurdy said the aspen population, for example, has declined and dry winters tend to negatively affect them. โAssuming we donโt get more precipitation, we could lose more aspens.โ
Pitkin County experienced its second warmest and 10th driest winter on record, with data going back as far as 1895, as average daily temperatures from November through February reached 26.9 degrees this winter. A sensor on Castle Creek recorded a total of 71.5 inches of snowfall from November through February, making this winter the driest in the past 30 years. While most of the terrain on Aspen Mountain is still covered enough for skiing, some slopes have begun to melt out. CREDIT: CURTIS WACKERLE/ASPEN JOURNALISM
Goble said the lack of snow will probably lead to below-normal water supplies and impact river recreation, and it could lead to higher fire danger. Major factors that contribute to a large wildfire season in Colorado are low snowpack, early snowmelt and a hot summer. As of early March, snowpack is certainly low and early spring runoff is expected, but the severity of summer conditions is still uncertain.
โJust because things have been dry recently doesnโt mean that weโll continue to be dry in summer,โ Goble said. โLarge wildfires are not a guarantee yet at this point, but I do think that with the very low snowpack numbers that we have in place now, itโs a higher probability than a normal year.โ
Although the entire state of Colorado is experiencing drought conditions, the upper Roaring Fork Valley has been experiencing โexceptionalโ drought conditions since Dec. 23. The Roaring Fork watershed is one of the only two places throughout the entire West to experience this level of drought. An almost snow-free south-facing hillside above the North Star Nature Preserve is shown here on March 12. CREDIT: LAURINE LASSALLE/ASPEN JOURNALISM
Although a change in the weather that would bring precipitation levels closer to average would not be unprecedented, it is also statistically unlikely.
โIn our 47-year record, there is only a single year that had enough precipitation to dig us out of the hole weโre currently in. In 1995, from this point in February until the end of May, there were 22 inches of precipitation; thatโs about double the average precipitation that normally falls over that period,โ according to an ACES blog post. โBased on a model of total precipitation for this period, we have a roughly 1% chance of ending the year with a normal amount of precipitation.โ
Goble agrees that the chances to get back to normal snowpack this year are slim. โWe just donโt have enough winter left to make up the deficits that are already in place. It would take a record kind of mid-to-late March through April in order to get us back up to normal,โ he said. โBut that doesnโt mean that spring and summer precipitation isnโt important. If we have a wet spring or and we have a wet or cooler-than-normal summer, those types of things could mitigate some of the drought impact that we might otherwise see this summer.โ
Udall/Overpeck 4-panel Figure Colorado River temperature/precipitation/natural flows with trend. Lake Mead and Lake Powell storage. Updated through Water Year 2025. Note the tiny points on the annual data so that you can flyspeck the individual years. Credit: Brad Udall
Click the link to read the article on the Tucson.com website (Tony Davis). Here’s an excerpt:
March 14, 2026
The record-breaking heat in this month’s forecastย is likely to help push the Colorado River Basin to the edge of “disaster,” in which drastic cuts in water use will be necessary next year, experts say.ย The heat is almost certain to slash river flows even more than already expected after the snowpack in key sites above Lake Powell hit record lows this winter. The upshot: Lake Powell is likely to get less than one-third the water from the river that it would in an average April to July. The unusually low flows won’t be bad enough to push the basin into immediate disaster this year. But several experts said it is virtually inevitable that major cuts in river water use will be needed next year in Arizona and other Western states โ unless the winter of 2026-27 is far cooler and wetter than the current one.
“We can survive this year, no problem. What’ll be interesting to see is if this year puts enough scare into the states to begin real serious rethinking about how we manage water,” said David Wegner, a retired U.S. Bureau of Reclamation planner and congressional staffer who now sits on a National Academy of Sciences board that reviews water issues.
The Bureau ofย Reclamation already projected, in February, that Lake Powell is likely to fall below the level at which the turbinesย at adjoining Glen Canyon Dam can generate electricityย โ 3,490 feetย โ by December 2026. Given the trend toward lower snowpack, higher temperatures and less runoff of water into the river, it’s very possible if not likely, thatย future forecasts will show the lake falling below 3,490 feet sooner than December. But most observers, including Kuhn and Wegner expect the bureau to try to forestall that possibility in advance by releasing extra water from reservoirs upstream of Lake Powell, led by Flaming Gorge reservoir at the Utah-Wyoming border. Powell is at the Arizona-Utah border.
Click the link to read the article on the Big Pivots website (Allen Best):
March 6, 2026
Might the Colorado River runoff be as bad as 2002? March could bring snow and rain. Almost certainly it will bring warm temperatures.
What if March brings temperatures suitable for flip flops in places like Steamboat, Vail and Telluride? And what if the snow that does fall on the headwaters of the Colorado River is average or less?
Things could get much more grim in the Colorado River Basin this year, conceivably as bad as 2002. That year was memorable for the pitiful runoff, the peak barely discernible in Glenwood Canyon in April and May. Worse came in June when three fires erupted at very nearly the same time.
The Hayman Fire (2002) was the stateโs largest recorded wildfire. Smoke from the massive blaze could be seen and smelled across the state. Photo credit to Nathan Bobbin, Flickr Creative Commons.
Bill Owens, who was then Coloradoโs governor, toured the state by plane, visiting the Hayman fire that started near Colorado Springs, the Coal Seam Fire at Glenwood Springs, and the Missionary Ridge Fire north of Durango. โAll of Colorado is on fire,โ he said, a remark that some, concerned about impacts to tourism, derided as an overstatement. But within that statement was a certain truth.
This week, NOAAโs Colorado River Basin Forecast Center released its projected flows into Lake Powell. It doesnโt look pretty. Jeff Lukas, the principle at Lukas Climate Research and Consulting, assembled this graphic that shows how the projections visually compare to other years since 1991.
โDespite better snowfall in February, the most probable forecast remains bleak at 36% of average,โ he said on LinkedIn. That, he added, would put runoff in the observed flows into Powell in 2012, 2013, 2018, 2021, and 2025. โIn other words, a bad neighborhood,โ he said.
An unusually wet and cool March through May would only get the inflow to 65% of average. On the other hand, it could go in the other direction. A warm and dry March could eviscerate the existing snowpack.
James Eklund, a water attorney and former director of the Colorado Water Conservation Board, pointed out that the long-term average has been 6.7 million acre-feet. The March forecast projected runoff of around 2.3 million ace-feet.
Colorado transmountain diversions via the State Engineer’s office
โThe river cares not about our legal arguments,โ he said in a LinkedIn post, a reference to the intense squabbling about how to share a river that has been rapidly diminishing in average volume in the 21st century. Even in places like Arvada, people who donโt realize that they are watering their lawns and taking their showers with water imported from a Colorado River tributary do realize the Colorado River has problems.
The runoff could conceivably be worse than 2002. Thereโs a big difference, though. In 2002, the reservoirs held a great deal of water. Not completely full, but within a good water year of being full. Total runoff that year was 25% of average. Most years since then have been below average, leaving water levels of Powell within striking distance of deadpool.
From his post in the Glenwood Springs area, Eric Kuhn sees March storms having potential to bump up the runoff numbers. โThis is one of those years where March could make a big difference. But when I look at the outlook for three or four weeks, it looks like March will definitely be above average in temperatures, which is not good news. I think itโs too soon to tell whether we will have average or below average precipitation. But warm temperatures will not be good to the snowpack.โ [ed. emphasis mine]
This yearโs runoff will add tension to the already fraught situation in the Colorado River Basin. Kuhn, a former manager of the Colorado River Water Conservation District, said he wouldnโt be surprised if the Bureau of Reclamation โ an agency within the Department of Interior that oversees operation of the federal dams โ finds it must release one million acre-feet less than the base 7.5 million acre-feet release.
This could trigger a legal fight. The Colorado River Compact imposes a requirement upon the upper Colorado River Basin states to deliver 75 million acre-feet on a rolling 10-year average. This would take the upper-basin states below that threshold.
That provision in the compact has been debated almost since Congress approved it in 1929. But, under the most aggressive interpretation by lower-basin states, this could put the upper-basin out of compliance. As such, this could be the year that puts the basin states on long road to a U.S. Supreme Court review.
A meager runoff this year will also put the Department of Interior into an uncomfortable position of having to make decisions. Kuhn says the federal agencyโs water officials have traditionally tried to mediate disputes among the seven basin states. This year the agency might have to make decisions that leave people upstream and down unhappy.
โThey could sit back (in former days) and say we are not going to take a position because we donโt want to upset either side. We have to work with both sides. Those days have come to an end, unfortunately.โ
Map of the Colorado River drainage basin, created using USGS data. By Shannon1 Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0
Colorado snowpack basin-filled map March 15, 2026.
Note that the NRCS graphs have not updated since Saturday, March 14, 2026 and that many of the graphs are showing an early melt-out or sublimation from the warm and windy weather.
Click the link to read the article on The Denver Post website (John Aguilar). Here’s an excerpt:
March 15, 2026
Thornton is first to adopt restrictions; Denver Water, others prepare similar measures
When Thornton enacted a Stage 1 drought declaration last week, it became the first city in metro Denver to place a mandatory twice-weekly limit on outdoor watering for the upcoming hot season. But the northern suburb likely wonโt be the last. Metro cities and utilities are starting to lay out various defensive strategies against what has become a crispy-dry 2026, starting with anย alarmingly warm and dry winter in Coloradoย thatโs been marked byย one of the worst snowpacks in recorded state history. Denver Water, which serves 1.5 million people, could follow a similar track to Thorntonโs by monthโs end. Aurora Water, which is relied upon by 400,000 people, may be right behind with its own Stage 1 drought declaration in early April…Locally, that also translates to abysmal conditions in the Clear Creek basin, where Westminster gets most of its water. Last week, the Westminster City Council discussed enacting a drought watch โ a less severe step than a Stage 1 declaration that would rely on voluntary cutbacks.
…theย latest monthly bulletin from the National Weather Serviceย painted a grim weather picture based on conditions in Denver. Last month was the third-warmest and second-driest February in the city, while it was the least-snowiest February on record for Denver, tying 2009โs equally snow-starved February…
What water managers can control sits on the demand side of the water ledger. Thornton gets the bulk of its water from the Upper South Platte River and Clear Creek watersheds, which are both at โrecord low levels,โ according to a memo accompanying last Tuesdayโs council meeting. Emily Hunt, Thorntonโs interim infrastructure director, says the concern lies not so much with the summer ahead but with the summers to follow, assuming precipitation stays meager. Coloradoโs sixth-largest city is presently at 83% of storage capacityย across the 19 reservoirs that hold its water. It stores a large portion of the water it consumes in Standley Lake, which is also a water source for Westminster and Northglenn.
โWeโre going into the summer with good storage, but with this snowpack, weโre not going to be able to top off our reservoirs the way we normally would,โ Hunt said. โWeโre basically trying to keep the year in balance so that if the drought continues into next year, weโll be in pretty good shape.โ
Colorado snowpack basin-filled map March 15, 2026.
An early start to the irrigation season in the San Luis Valley is coinciding with the arrival of springโs first heat wave.
Craig Cotten, Division 3 engineer for Colorado Division of Water Resources, announced a staged approach to opening the water year for producers in the Upper Rio Grande Basin.
The water season will begin on March 16 for surface and groundwater irrigators in the Conejos River area (Water District 22), the Culebra Creek area (Water District 24), the Trinchera Creek area (Water District 35) and the La Jara Creek area. The irrigation season will begin on March 23 for all surface and groundwater irrigation structures in the Rio Grande area (Water District 20).
โI decided to start the irrigation season earlier than the presumptive April 1 date for many valley areas due to the very warm, dry spring and the low current snowpack. We are already seeing an increase in streamflows due to the warmer weather, and it is beneficial for water rights holders to be able to use this water while it is available,โ Cotten said in an email exchange with Alamosa Citizen. [ed. emphasis mine]
On the Conejos River and Rio Grande, another reason is that Colorado is projected to meet its compact obligation without needing to deliver water during the irrigation season, Cotten said.
โIn order to avoid a significant over-delivery of water to the stateline, I have decided to begin the irrigation season on these rivers prior to April 1.โ
The coming week of March 16 could see record-setting temperatures to the official start of spring. The forecast calls for midweek daytime highs in the low- to mid-70s. March has seen 21 of its 31 days establish new record high temperatures since 2004, a heating trend that accentuates the warming winters and spring months.
This March opened with back-to-back days of new daily high records. More heat records could fall in the coming week. The irrigation season canโt open soon enough.
Upper Rio Grande SWE March 14, 2026. Note the early melt-out.
Chart showing water use trends in US and Mexico. Credit: Overconsumption gravely threatens water security in the binational Rio Grande-Bravo basin. Map via Springer Nature.
Oh dear. Youโd best get your skiing in now, because it looks like the spring melt will hit a lot earlier than usual. A big heat wave is on its way to the West, with the most unseasonably warm temperatures occurring in the Southwest and Four Corners regions, further dimming hopes for a spring snowpack-bolstering miracle. This could mean that mountain snowpack in the Colorado River Basin has already peaked, which would be dire for streamflows.
My apologies for bringing you more doom and gloom climate news. At least itโs cold in Alaska, though.
And thatโs topping off the warmest winter on record in the Upper Colorado River Basin.
โ๏ธ Annals of Alfalfa ๐
As the Colorado River shrinks, the โsimpleโ and โobviousโ solutions to the crisis seem to multiply.
You know, itโs a lot of: โWhatchya gotta do is โฆ. โ
โโฆย stop watering them golf courses.โ
โโฆย stop population growth.โ
โโฆย keep people from moving to deserts.โ
โโฆ shut down dem data centers!โ
And then, the most common one: โ โฆ stop raising cattle and hay in the desert.โ
Kenny Torrella, who writes for Vox, brought up that last one on the social media platform Blue Sky recently:
While this fix holds more water (so to speak) than the preceding ones, it is not actually a solution โ at least not a workable one.
There is only one obvious remedy for the Colorado River crisis, and that is for its collective users to consume less of the riverโs water. Since irrigating alfalfa takes up a larger share of the riverโs water than any other single use, it seems to follow that growing less of the crop would leave more water in the river. But this does not account for the way water law works.
Letโs imagine that California could designate alfalfa as an illicit crop and ban cultivation of it and other livestock forage crops. That would force a bunch of big farmers in the Imperial Valley โ home of the largest single water user on the entire river โ to tear up about 200,000 acres of water-guzzling alfalfa.
Problem solved? Not quite.
The Salton Sea (pictured above ) straddles the Imperial and Coachella valleys. (Source: Water Education Foundation)
The Imperial Irrigation District has senior rights to use a buttload of Colorado River water for โbeneficial use,โ which in this case means agriculture. Specific farmers may decide that without alfalfa, theyโll simply throw in the towel and stop irrigating altogether. But thereโs no way the irrigation district as a whole is going to stop diverting that water without some sort of compensation, because while farmers pay the irrigation district a negligible amount for water, the irrigation district gets it virtually for free. That means the district is incentivized to continue using all of the water to which it has rights, and rather than leaving it in the river, they would most likely sell it to another farmer growing another crop. The result: No net reduction in water consumption.
Torrellaโs claim that alfalfaโs water use gets โalmost no air timeโ is a little off. Iโve written about it at least a zillion times at the Land Desk and at High Country News, but many a mainstream news outlet has done the same. Even the Paris Review had a pieceon it. The reason โgrowing less alfalfaโ doesnโt show up in talks about negotiations over the Colorado River, or as an alternative in the fedsโ proposed operating plan, is not because of โagricultural exceptionalism,โ but because these arenโt crop-level negotiations.
The two Colorado River basins and the feds are currently looking at the macro level, and trying to hash out which basin will take what level of cuts, how those cuts will be determined, and what if anything will be done to fend off dead pool at Glen Canyon Dam. Only when all of that is settled can the individual states in each basin duke it out over respective consumption cuts, followed by the biggest users within each state. Finally, those users can make decisions about how to use their now smaller share of water, and really just about anything goes so long as it fits the definition of โbeneficial use.โ
Maybe theyโll continue to grow alfalfa using less water via deficit irrigation, maybe theyโll opt for a higher-value, less water-intensive crop like broccoli, maybe theyโll use it to grow cacti, but what counts is that theyโll be taking less water out of the Colorado River, regardless.
Itโs not that the alfalfaphobes are wrong; it probably is a good idea to grow less alfalfa and fewer cows in the desert. For that matter, we should fallow golf courses, restrict urban growth, and take other steps to live within our means. But whatโs needed now is an agreement on drastic and immediate cuts in water consumption. What that means for alfalfa or golf courses or Arizona suburbs will be dealt with later.
Now for a little data dump re alfalfa and other irrigated crops in Imperial County, California1:
$238,752,000: Gross value of alfalfa hay harvested in Imperial County, California, in 2024.
183,252: Harvested acres of alfalfa hay in 2024.
$1,300/acre: Per-acre value of alfalfa hay harvested in 2024.ย
6 acre-feet: Approximate amount of water required to irrigate one acre of alfalfa in the Imperial Valley for a year.
$20/acre-foot: Amount Imperial Valley farmers pay for water.
$134,822,000: Gross value of broccoli harvested in Imperial County in 2024.
$12,136/acre: Per-acre value of broccoli harvested in 2024.
3 acre-feet: Approximate amount of water required to irrigate one acre of broccoli in the Imperial Valley.
$259,861,000: Gross value of head and leaf lettuce harvested in 2024.
$9,012/acre:ย Per-acre value of head and leaf lettuce harvested in 2024.ย
2-3 acre-feet:ย Approximate amount of water required to irrigate one acre of lettuce in the Imperial Valley.
๐ Colorado River Chronicles ๐ง
Todayโs vocabulary term is: Present Perfected Rights, a term you may be hearing a lot more of in coming months.
Article VIII of the Colorado River Compact states:
Later, the Boulder Canyon Project Act of 1928 decreed that the โdam and reservoirโ of the title (which would become Hoover Dam and Lake Mead) shall be used for the โsatisfaction of present perfected rights โฆ .โ
Thatโs fine and good, but what are present perfected rights, or PPRs? The Compact never says what that term means. In fact, it wasnโt clearly defined until the Supreme Court laid it out in its 1964 Arizona v. California decision, a key document in the Law of the River:
Clear as mud, right?
Generally speaking, PPRs are the most senior rights on the Colorado River, they predate the Colorado River Compact, and are the last rights subject to curtailment in times of shortage. They are the โfirstโ in the โfirst in time, first in rightโ summation of the prior appropriation doctrine, which is the foundation of Western water law.
Arizona v. California goes on to say that โin any year where there is fewer than 7.5 million acre-feet available for use in California, Nevada, and Arizona, the Secretary of the Interior must first supply water to the PPRs in order of priority, regardless of state lines.โ Similarly, the Upper Basinโs PPRs will be the last to be cut if curtailments are necessary to meet its non-depletion/minimum-delivery obligation to the Lower Basin.
The Supreme Court required the Lower Basin to submit a list of its PPRs, and here they are from the document itself as submitted in 1967. Some of these, especially the tribal rights, were updated and added to later on.
The first set is for tribal nations in the Lower Basin only:
These are the top six non-tribal PPRs in the Lower Basin by order of size of diversion. There are many more smaller PPRs that are not listed here:
๐บ๏ธ Messing with Maps ๐งญ
Iโm not sure if Iโve featured this one before, but if so, itโs worth re-upping due to its heightened relevance this year. Itโs the Open ET mapping tool, with ET standing for evapotranspiration. It uses satellite imagery to calculate evapotranspiration from individual fields, which is an indicator of how much irrigation is being used and what crop is being grown. Hovering over a field will bring up a chart showing ET for each month, the acreage, and the crop type.
The Navajo Mine, which supplies coal to the Four Corners Generating Station; aerial view looking west. Wikimedia Commons: User Dicklyon licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
Residents of the Navajo community of Burnham, New Mexico, have raised concerns about the expansion of a coal mine, including its environmental impact and a lack of transparency .
The Navajo Transitional Energy Company has proposed expanding the Navajo Mine, potentially extending its life by 110 years.
Opponents question the need for a 110-year expansion, as the mine’s only customer is a power plant set to close in 2031.
Dailan Long, with his relatives and other members of the Navajo community in Burnham, New Mexico, has long worked to defend their community from coal industry efforts to expand access to the areaโan ongoing struggle that has led him to ask, โAre we always going to keep fighting?โ The latest threat is a proposed expansion of the Navajo Mine by theย Navajo Transitional Energy Company, a plan that could keep the operation running for 110 years, even though the only coal-fired power plant in the area is set to close in 2031. Long, his relative Joni Lapahie, and other community members are working to raise awareness about the proposal, which they say surfaced only recently despite assurances from their chapter administration. NTEC has submitted an application for the โNo Name Permit,โ after the No Name arroyo runs through the permit area. It would expand coal mining operations across about 11,526 acres. NTEC proposes to mine 9,042 acres of the area, with a maximum annual production rate of 5 million tons of coal per year, starting in 2031. The total mined coal would be approximately 503 million tons, extending the mineโs life to 2136. In late January, the Office of Surface Mining held a scoping meeting at the Burnham Chapter House, where members of the community, environmental justice groups and employees voiced their concerns or support for the expansion. The office said during the meeting that it intends to prepare a draft environmental impact statement by August less than a year after NTEC submitted its permit application package application. Many critics of the expansion say that’s too quick of a turn around.
While the Four Corners Country uranium mining โrenaissanceโ advances in starts and fits and hyped up press releases, copper and critical mineral extraction in southern Arizona moves forward in more substantial ways.
Last week, the U.S. Forest Service published the final environmental impact statement for South32โs proposal to re-open and expand the Hermosa Mine in southern Arizona to extract battery materials such as manganese and zinc, along with silver and lead. This opened the 45-day objection period.
The mine is on patented claims (private land), but would be expanded onto unpatented claims (public land) in the Coronado National Forest in southern Arizonaโs Patagonia Mountains, an area long inhabited by the Sobaipuri Oโodham and Hohokam people. The mountains occupy the nexus of several different biological provinces and are home to hundreds of species of birds, bees, bats, and butterflies, as well as the unique Madrean Pine-Oak Woodlands.
The proposed action, an underground mine, would play out on about 442 surface acres and would restrict access to about 578 acres of public lands. Mining would be done by the long-hole open stope method.
Area residents and advocates worry this sort of industrialization will harm the delicate and unique ecosystem and the diverse array of wildlife that depends on it. As is often the case with underground hardrock mining, a primary concern is for its effects on water quality and quantity.
Under South32โs proposed action, it would pump about 2,790 acre-feet of groundwater per year to dewater the mine, which would draw down the aquifer and water levels of area wells. Some of this water would be used for other mining purposes, some would be discharged into area streams, and some would be discharged into rapid infill basins in order to slow the aquiferโs drawdown.
Acid mine drainage is expected to occur in the sulfide ore body, which, if not treated properly, could contaminate groundwater or streams in the arid region.
Canada-based Faraday Copper has signed a letter of intent to acquire the shuttered San Manuel copper mine in southern Arizona from BHP Group Limited. The San Manuel mine, just outside Mammoth, Arizona, was once the nationโs largest underground copper mine and a significant producer up to its closure in 1999.
Faraday hopes to reopen the mine and associated infrastructure and pair it up with its proposed Copper Creek venture nearby.
The proposed Copper Creek mine covers about 78 square kilometers in the Galiuro Mountains about 9 miles east of Mammoth. Last June, the Bureau of Land Management approved Faradayโs plan to construct 67 drill pads, along with associated roads and infrastructure.
The development has sparked pushback from residents, advocates, and tribal nations, who worry about the drillingโs potential impacts to water quantity and quality in the Lower San Pedro River, which flows nearby, not to mention the prospect of a giant open pit mine in the biodiverse mountain range. The proposed mine site is also near the Aravaipa Wilderness Area, a stunning canyon and desert riparian zone.
***
Mining company press releases tend to be vapid pronouncements about purportedly successful prospecting efforts. But every once in a while, they say something interesting. Such was the case with a bulletin sent out with this header:
American Atomics Bets $18 Million on Utah Uranium: Will It Break Free from Coloradoโs Regulatory Grip and Capitalize on the Nuclear Surge?
What the heck is this about? American Atomics, nรฉe Great Northern Energy Metals, is looking to acquire an 80% interest in 217 mining claims in the Lisbon Valley in Utah. In the process, they are apparently abandoning a project near Slick Rock, in San Miguel County, Colorado, because the county recently implemented new mining regulations.
I knew that San Miguel County was working on mining regulations โ which were adopted this January โ but Iโm honestly a bit surprised that they chased this company away from a viable project. Which could indicate that the project wasnโt actually all that viable in the first place.
American Atomics would acquire the Lisbon Valley claims from Big Indian Prospecting LLC, which is run by none other than Mark Steen, the son of Moabโs uranium king Charles Steen.
My first impulse upon seeing the faded and tattered windsocks as I motored along a southeastern Utah backroad in early November was to look for the landing strip. There was none. Then I saw the distinctive infrastructure of an oil and gas well surrounded by WARNING POISON GAS KEEP OUT sโฆ
๐ Colorado River Chronicles ๐ง
The incredible shrinking Lake Powell is having a tough time of it lately. First, itโs growing smaller and smaller, thanks to acidification and folks pulling more water out of the Colorado River than it carries, which is causing some boat launch ramps to be unusable. As the reservoir subsides, it leaves big sand and mudflats behind, which leads to nasty quicksand that can suck in unsuspecting beachgoers. The National Park Service is warning visitors about those two hazards, and now thereโs a new one: harmful algal blooms containing cyanotoxins have been detected at dangerously high concentrations in parts of the reservoir. The NPS recommends avoiding water that has algal blooms.
โ๏ธ Annals of Alfalfa ๐
For those of you interested in the alfalfa, irrigation, and Colorado River issues, I recommend going back and checking out the comment thread on Tuesdayโs โAlfalfa Fallacyโ dispatch. At last count there were 26 comments, all of which add context and insight to this tangled issue.
Anyone can read the comments, but only paid subscribers can contribute to the comment section and become part of this smart community. So sign up now!
Thereโs a lot of press on Sen. Mike Leeโs and Rep. Celeste Maloyโs attempts to use the Congressional Review Act to axe Grand Staircase Escalanteโs management plan. Thereโs a good reason for all of the attention: Itโs another bid by the senator to diminish public lands protections, which seems to be his primary mission and the consequences could be far-reaching.
That said, it seems that a lot of the coverage is slightly overblown, and maybe gives the wrong idea of what, exactly, this might mean for the national monument if it is successful. So Iโm going to try to offer some clarity here. Iโm not doing this to criticize these media outlets โ which I do respect โ but hopefully to explain what a national monument designation does and the role its management plan plays.
Inside Climate News headlined their story on the move like this:
“A Little-Used Maneuver Could Mean More Drilling and Mining in Southern Utahโs Redrock Country“
“The monument would still exist on paper. But the framework governing what happens on 1.87 million acres of southern Utah canyon country would be gone. Camping, grazing, road access, mineral extraction, cultural site protections. All of it. And BLM would be legally prohibited from replacing it with anything substantially similar.
“A monument without a management plan is a legal shell. A name on a map with no rules governing what happens on the ground.“
Okay, this move could mean a lot of things somewhere down the road, including perhaps more mining and drilling somewhere, and it would set a scary precedent. But eliminating the management plan for the national monument will not by itself lead to more drilling and mining within the national monument. Thatโs because even without a management plan, a national monument does have meaning and certain restrictions that are inherent in its national monument-ness. It is not, as MTJPs puts it, merely a โlegal shell.โ
When a president designates a national monument under the authority of the Antiquities Act, they typically withdraw all federal land within the boundaries from new mining claims and energy leases. When re-establishing GSENM after it had been shrunken by Trump, President Biden proclaimed that the land would be withdrawn โfrom all forms of entry, location, selection, sale, or other disposition under the public land laws, from location, entry, and patent under the mining laws, and from disposition under all laws relating to mineral and geothermal leasing.โ
Existing, valid leases and claims are grandfathered in, but in the case of GSENM, the feds bought out the only existing lease โ for a coal mine on the Kaiparowitz Plateau โ shortly after the original designation in 1996.The proclamation designating the national monument also contains other, overarching guidelines. For example, when Biden restored GSENM and Bears Ears in 2021, he added this to the proclamations:
โThe Secretary shall โฆ ensure the protection of sacred sites and cultural properties and sites in the monument and provide access to Tribal members for traditional cultural, spiritual, and customary uses โฆ including collection of medicines, berries and other vegetation, forest products โฆ .โ
And he added this:
โShould grazing permits or leases be voluntarily relinquished by existing holders, the Secretary shall retire from livestock grazing the lands covered by such permits or leases โฆ Forage shall not be reallocated for livestock grazing purposes.โ
These things are baked into the national monument from the beginning, and stand apart from any management plan. They canโt be altered without revoking the proclamation or replacing it with another one.
The management plan then zooms in and develops a more detailed regulatory framework, such as which areas of the monument might be off limits to grazing, or if and where recreational target shooting is allowed, or which roads are designated for motorized use. While they are usually more restrictive than the pre-monument resource management plans, this isnโt always the case. And they typically donโt address oil and gas drilling or mining because those uses are prohibited by the national monumentโs proclamation.
Lee and Maloy are looking to revoke the management plan, not the national monument itself (although Iโm sure theyโd like that, too). If they succeed, they will not clear the way for drilling or mining within the monumentโs boundaries. Nor will it create some kind of anarchic free-for-all in the canyons of southern Utah.
Most likely the monument would revert back to the previous management plan, which was developed under Trump I for a significantly diminished national monument. This is problematic because that plan was more lax, sought to reinstate suspended grazing leases, and allowed extractive uses in the removed parts of the monument. If nothing else, it will cause confusion and leave some parts of the national monument in regulatory limbo.
However, all of the land will still be overseen by the BLM, and would still be subject to federal environmental and historic preservation laws. Camping, grazing, and road access rules and cultural site protections wouldnโt just vanish. And, of course, new mining claims and energy leases would continue to be banned within the monument, because those withdrawals supersede the management plan.
That said, the prospect of eliminating this management plan is alarming. The agencies spent years developing it in consultation with tribal nations, they incorporated oodles of public comments and concerns, and ended up with a solid, compromise blueprint for overseeing a vast and varied and spectacular landscape. Lee would just be tossing all of that effort and all of the resources that went into making it into the trash, while sowing confusion for both the national monument managers and its many visitors. And all for what?
Iโm guessing Leeโs just trying to score points with his base. But also, it seems that his long-term agenda is to force public land management into a state of utter dysfunction in hopes of gaining support for his mission to turn over public lands to private hands.
On a related note, one reader asked how the Congressional Review Act could be applied to a management plan that was finalized over a year ago. After all, the CRA is intended to be used on new rules, and has a set time limit. Great question! For an answer, I consulted an explainer by Sarah Hart-Curran of the Harvard Law Schoolโs Environmental & Energy Law Program.
Hart-Curran writes: โFor 60 legislative days after Congress receives a rule, Congress can use โfast trackโ procedures to issue a joint resolution of disapproval, meaning Congress needs only a simple majority in the Senate to veto the rule.โ
Obviously, it has been more than 60 days since the plan was finalized. So what gives? Well, like all such plans, this one was not submitted to Congress, simply because these plans have not been considered โrulesโ in the past. So really, they shouldnโt be subject to the CRA at all, time limit or no. Hart-Curran explains:
โIf an agency does not submit a rule that Congress thinks should be subject to CRA review, congressional practice is to request an opinion from the GAO. If the GAO finds the action is subject to the CRA, the GAO opinion serves as submission of a rule, beginning the 60-legislative-day clock.โ
Yeah, so Lee and Maloy submitted this to the GAO, the GAO said it was a rule, and so the 60-day clock is now ticking.
๐ธย Parting Shotย ๐๏ธ
The now defunct Hatch Trading Post back when it was still running. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
The Colorado River passing Grand Junction, Colorado. Photo by Robert Marcos.
The summer-like heat in the American West is being caused by a combination of persistent highโpressure systems, longโterm warming from climate change, and an ever-worsening drought.1
The main condition behind the current weather is the development of strong, stagnant highโpressure ridges, often called โheat domes,โ over the western United States. In these patterns, air sinks over the region, compresses, and warms (adiabatic warming), while clear skies allow intense solar heating of the surface. Because the high pressure suppresses cloud formation and storm systems, the hot air remains parked in place for days or weeks, letting temperatures climb far above normal.2
These weather patterns are occurring on top of a background of humanโdriven climate warming, which raises the baseline temperature so that heat waves start from a hotter average and break records more easily. Studies of recent western and Pacific Northwest heat waves show that such extremes would have been virtually impossible, or far less intense, without anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Warmer air also increases โevaporative demand,โ meaning the atmosphere pulls more moisture from soils, vegetation, and water bodies, further drying the landscape.3
At the same time, much of the West has been in a longโrunning drought or โmegadrought,โ with declining rain and snowpack, especially in the Southwest and Colorado River basin. Low snowpack and early melt remove a natural cooling reservoir, so land surfaces heat up faster and earlier in the warm season. With drier soils and sparse vegetation, more of the sunโs energy goes directly into raising air temperature rather than evaporating water, amplifying surface heat and extending fire season.4
Finally, oceanโatmosphere patterns over the Pacific, such as persistent ridging and a positive phase of broader circulation patterns, help steer and reinforce these highโpressure systems over the West in summer. Together, these intertwined conditionsโblocking high pressure, climateโdriven warming, deepening drought, and altered atmospheric circulationโhave produced the unusually intense and frequent summertime heat now characterizing the American West.5
February 2026 was the worldโs fifth-warmest February in analyses of global weather data going back to 1850, NOAAโsย National Centers for Environmental Information, or NCEI, reported March 11. The Europeanย Copernicus Climate Change Serviceย also rated February 2026 as the fifth-warmest February on record, while NASAย had it tied for fourth-warmest. The global-average temperature for December 2025 to February 2026 was the fifth-highest on record.
Figure 1. Departure of temperature from average for February 2026, the worldโs fifth-warmest February since record-keeping began in 1850. Record-high February temperatures covered 5.1% of the Earthโs surface. No land or ocean areas observed record-cold February temperatures. (Image credit: NOAA/NCEI)
Global land areas had their sixth-warmest February on record in 2026, while global oceans had their second-warmest February, falling just 0.16 degrees Celsius (0.29ยฐF) shy of the record set in 2024, NOAA said. Africa had its second-warmest February, and South America and Asia experienced their seventh- and eighth-warmest February, respectively. While North America, Europe, Oceania, the Arctic, and the Antarctic all experienced above-average February temperatures, none ranked among the top 10.
Snow cover in February was well below average over the Western U.S. and much of Asia and Europe. Overall, Northern Hemisphere snow cover during February 2026 was the third-lowest since records began in 1967.
Remember all that snow that fell from the Carolinas to Boston? I bet you assume this has been quite a snow season overall. Well, for the Lower 48, this is the least snowy season (through February) for any year since at least 1940-41 when looking at all years through February. Thanks humans!
As detailed in our post from Tuesday, in the contiguous U.S., winter 2025-26 was the second-warmest and fifth-driest in records going back to 1895. February was the fourth-warmest and fifth-driest February on record. According to the March 5 U.S. Drought Monitor report, about 55% of the continental U.S. was in drought at the beginning of March, up from the 43% coverage at the beginning of the year. Snow-covered area across the Western United States was 38% of the average for February, ranking last in the 26-year satellite record. It was the second month in a row to reach a record low.
Folks still thawing out might be wondering: How bad a U.S. winter was it overall? Very bad โ that is, if youโre concerned about long-term warming and intensified drought impacts. (2nd warmest and 5th driest on record.) @climateconnections.bsky.socialyaleclimateconnections.org/2026/03/we-j…
An El Niรฑo event looking more likely to develop this year
A weak La Niรฑa event continues in the Eastern Pacific, NOAA reported in its February monthly discussion of the state of the El Niรฑo/Southern Oscillation, or ENSO (the next discussion is scheduled for March 12). La Niรฑa conditions are expected to end in the February-April 2026 period (60% chance), with ENSO-neutral conditions then persisting through August (56% chance). An increasing chance of El Niรฑo conditions is predicted as 2026 progresses, according to the Columbia University International Research Institute for Climate and Society forecast issued February 19. Update: On March 12, in its monthly ENSO discussion, NOAA issued an El Niรฑo Watch; they noted that if El Niรฑo does materialize later this year, there is now a 1-in-3 chance that the event will be a strong one.
The forecast for the August-September-October peak of hurricane season called for a 61% chance of El Niรฑo, a 34% chance of ENSO-neutral, and a 5% chance of La Niรฑa. NOAA is giving a 35% chance of moderate or stronger El Niรฑo conditions if an El Niรฑo event develops. El Niรฑo conditions tend to suppress Atlantic hurricane activity through an increase in wind shear, but La Niรฑa conditions tend to have the opposite effect. The most recent ENSO forecast from the European model was very bullish on a significant El Niรฑo event developing by late spring or summer and continuing through at least fall 2026.
Seeing this ENSO forecast shared a bit. Let me put my ENSO hat on for a sec to say a couple things.1. This uses a 1981-2010 climo which will boost the anomaly numbers.2. This doesn't use the Relative Oceanic Nino index (RONI), which would slash these anomaly numbers by, my guess, 0.5C1/2
Last month, NOAA switched to using the Relative Oceanic Niรฑo Index, or RONI, as its standard ENSO monitoring tool. This tool uses sea surface temperatures across the tropics to adjust the Oceanic Niรฑo Index, making it a better gauge of how ENSO is expressed in a warming climate.
Arctic sea ice: third-lowest February extent on record
Arctic sea ice extent during February 2026 was virtually tied with February 2017 as the third-lowest in the 48-year satellite record, behind only February 2025 and February 2018, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Overtopping this depleted ice was an atmosphere more frigid than the recent norm, as the Arctic had its 45th warmest February since 1850 โ but the coldest since 2009.
Antarctic sea ice extent in February 2026 was near the long-term average, ranking as the 21st-lowest in the 48-year record. The Antarctic had above-average temperatures in February, ranking as the 13th-warmest since 1850. Antarctic sea ice reached its minimum extent for the year, at 2.58 million square kilometers (996,000 square miles) on February 26, 2026, ranking 16th-lowest in the 48-year satellite record.
ENSO Alert System Status:ย La Niรฑa Advisoryย /ย El Niรฑo Watch
Synopsis: A transition from La Niรฑa to ENSO-neutral is expected in the next month, withENSO-neutral favored through May-July 2026 (55% chance). In June-August 2026, ElNiรฑo is likely to emerge (62% chance) and persist through at least the end of 2026.
La Niรฑa continued in February 2026, with below-average sea surface temperatures (SSTs) persisting in the east-central equatorial Pacific Ocean. The latest weekly Niรฑo-3.4 index value was -0.5ยฐC, with the westernmost (Niรฑo-4) and easternmost (Niรฑo-1+2) indices at -0.2ยฐC and +0.6ยฐC, respectively. The equatorial subsurface temperature index (average from 180 -100ยฐW) continued to increase, reflecting the strengthening of above-average subsurface temperatures across the Pacific. Over the east-central equatorial Pacific, low-level wind anomalies were easterly, while upper-level wind anomalies were westerly. Convection was suppressed over the Date Line and convection was enhanced over Indonesia. The traditional and equatorial Southern Oscillation indices were positive. Collectively, the coupled ocean-atmosphere system remained consistent with La Niรฑa.
The North American Multi-Model Ensemble (NMME) average, including the NCEP CFSv2, points toward ENSO-neutral through the late Northern Hemisphere Spring 2026, with a transition to El Niรฑo thereafter. Even though model forecasts are relatively less accurate this time of year, the increasing odds of El Niรฑo are supported by the large amount of heat in the subsurface ocean and the expected weakening of the low-level trade winds. If El Niรฑo forms, the potential strength remains very uncertain,ย with a 1-in-3 chanceย that it would be โstrongโ during October-December 2026 (Niรฑo-3.4 โฅย +1.5ยฐC). In summary, a transition from La Niรฑa to ENSO-neutral is expected in the next month, with ENSO-neutral favored through May-July 2026 (55% chance). In June-August 2026, El Niรฑo is likely to emerge (62% chance) and persist through at least the end of 2026.
Fewer families are booking spring break vacations to Colorado resort destinations, as weaker-than-normal ski conditionsย cause drops in reservationsย made later in the season. Amid the potential for a lower-revenue spring break tourism season, some Western Slope ski towns are focusing on promoting off-mountain activities for families. For most resort towns across Coloradoโs western mountains, spring break is a strong period for tourism. Travelers from both in and out of state book trips to the mountains in hopes of hitting the slopes before the end of ski season, and businesses organize seasonal events to draw in visitors. This yearโs near historically dry conditions, however, have meantย fewer winter bookings to Coloradoโs resort destinationsย โ and spring break bookings are seeing the impacts…Coloradoโs spring break season, though still bringing in bookings, will likely end with lower revenue for mountain destinations compared to previous years, Foley said. Soard added that the considerable decrease in bookings will likely also lead to impacts for the townโs sales tax collections.
Due to the increasing severity of the ongoing drought, and in an effort to conserve as much water as possible, the Bureau of Reclamation will decrease the release from Navajo Dam to 250 cubic feet per second (cfs) on Monday, March 16, at 8:00 AM.
West Drought Monitor map March 10, 2026.
This change provides an opportunity to conserve approximately 1,500 acre-feet of stored water during the remainder of March while downstream targets are being met by side inflows.
Releases from Navajo Dam are made for the authorized purposes of the Navajo Unit and to support base flows through the endangered fish critical habitat reach of the San Juan River (Farmington to Lake Powell). The San Juan River Basin Recovery Implementation Program recommends a target base flow of between 500 cfs and 1,000 cfs through the critical habitat area. The target base flow is calculated as the weekly average of gaged flows throughout the critical habitat reach from Farmington to Lake Powell.
This scheduled release change is subject to adjustment based on river flows and weather conditions.
Map of the San Juan River, a tributary of the Colorado River, in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah, USA. Made using USGS National Map data. By Shannon1 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47456307
Click the link to read the update on the NIDIS website. Here’s an excerpt:
March 12, 2026
Record Snowpack Deficits Worsen in February; Conditions Expected to Deteriorate Further with Chances for Record Heat
Key Points
Snow drought worsened from February into early March due to record warmth, despite near-normal precipitation across much of the West. Some locations, such as the central and northern Cascades in Washington, were also drier than normal during this period. Every major river basin and state in the West is experiencing aย snow drought.
Record-breaking high temperatures are forecasted for large parts of the West. Further, theย 6-10ย andย 8-14 dayย outlooks from NOAAโs Climate Prediction Center lean toward drier-than-normal conditions for almost all of the West along with a strong probability of warmer-than-normal temperatures through March. Record-breaking snow drought conditions are expected to further deteriorate as snow melt begins much earlier for some.ย
Every major river basin in the West experienced its first or second warmest winter (December, January, and February) on record. The Great Basin, Rio Grande, Arkansas-White-Red, and Upper and Lower Colorado River Basins experienced their warmest winter on record, while the Missouri and Columbia River Basins recorded their second warmest.
As of March 8, Colorado reported record-low statewide snowpack. Stations in the Cascade Range in Oregon and Washington are reporting the greatest snowpack deficits in the West. Some states, such as California, are already experiencing an early melt out of snow.
The Colorado River Basin reports record-low snow water equivalent (SWE).ย
Basins like the Deschutes, Humboldt, Yakima, and Rio Grande continue to see snow drought conditions deteriorate.ย
Snow drought impacts are occurring and are expected to worsen. Municipal and agricultural water supply concerns and restrictions are increasing.
The Bureau of Reclamation’s most probableย forecastย for Lake Powell shows minimum power pool elevation being reached by December 2026. If the water drops below this point, the Glen Canyon Dam may no longer generate hydroelectricity.
The Bureau of Reclamationโs initial AprilโSeptember water supplyย forecastย for the Yakima Basin has those with pro-ratable water rights only receiving 44% of their full water allotments.ย
The North Platte River Basin is underย priority administration issued by theย Wyoming State Engineerโs Officeย based on the Modified North Platte Decree.
Snow Drought Conditions Summary
This update is based on data available as of Monday, March 9, 2026 at 12:00 a.m. PT. We acknowledge that conditions are evolving.
Quantifying snow drought values is an ongoing research effort. Here, we define snow drought as snow water equivalent (SWE) at or below the 20th percentile, which is a baseline guided by partner expertise and research. Note that reporting of SWE by Snow Telemetry (SNOTEL) stations may be unavailable or delayed due to technical, weather or other issues, which may affect snow drought depiction in this update.
Current Conditions
The last three months (December, January, and February) were the warmest or tied the warmest winter on record dating back to 1895 for Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming. Arizona and New Mexico broke their previous records set in 2015 and 1907, respectively, by over 2ยฐF. California, Idaho, and Montana experienced their second warmest winter on record; Washington experienced its fourth warmest.
Coming off of a record-dry January, near-normal precipitation fell over most, but not all, of the West in February and early March. Precipitation deficits are increasing in parts of Colorado, the Washington Cascades, New Mexico, Arizona, and the plains of Wyoming and Montana.
This winter brought record flooding, rain-on-snow events, record-warm temperatures, and record dryness across the West. Because of these conditions, snow melted early in many places and failed to accumulate in middle and lower elevations. Snow fell and is currently present at higher elevations where temperatures were cold enough to produce snow, but high-elevation snow does not offset overall deficits from the absence of middle and low-elevation snowpack. As a result, snowpack remains extremely low across the West. Some minor improvements occurred in some basins over the last month, but there was not enough snow to offset the substantial deficits.
If Precipitation Fell, It Fell as Rain for Many
February 1โMarch 9, 2026 precipitation for Hydrologic Unit Code (HUC) 6 basins across the West, shown as a percentage of the 1991-2020 median. Red hues indicate basins that received less than 50% of normal precipitation for this period. Only stations with at least 20 years of data are included in the station percentiles. Values are averages of high-elevation precipitation at SNOTEL stations and are not representative of all portions of the HUC, which extend to lower-elevation valleys. For an interactive version of this map, please visit the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). Source: USDA NRCS.
Winter Concludes as the Record Warmest for Much of the West
December-February mean temperature percentiles based on an 1895-2026 period of record. Red hues indicate temperatures in the top third (warmest) of historical conditions, while blue hues indicate temperatures in the lowest third (coldest) of historical conditions. Graphic is from the Western Regional Climate Centerโs Westwide Drought Tracker and the source data are from the PRISM Climate Group.
Winter Ends With More Record-Low Snow
SNOTEL and Cooperator Snow Sensor sites in the Western U.S. with snow water equivalent (SWE) values at or below the 30th percentile as of March 8, 2026. Stations above the 30th percentile are shown with a black โx.โ We define snow drought as SWE below the 20th percentile (red, orange, and tan hues). This analysis only used stations with at least 20 years of data. This map does not show stations where the median SWE value for the date is zero. Data source: USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service.
Snow drought conditions continue to be widespread across the region. Lower to mid-elevation and plains snowpack is almost non-existent across Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. February precipitation was near-to-above normal, except over northern Montana, as well as central and eastern Wyoming, which saw substantial precipitation deficits. Record-breaking warm temperatures in February worsened snow drought as precipitation that fell did so as rain. Snow accumulated mostly at the highest elevations across the Northern Rocky Mountains.
Snow water equivalent (SWE) in Idaho is 58-87% of median, with many SNOTEL stations in southwestern Idaho reporting record-low values. Record-low SWE is occurring at many SNOTEL stations across Wyomingโs Big Horn and Laramie Mountains. In western Montana, SWE is 78-95% of median, with several stations reporting record-low SWE values across the state.
Central Rocky Mountains
74% of stations in Utah are in snow drought
97% of stations in Colorado are in snow drought
Despite snowfall in February, snow drought continued across the Central Rocky Mountains of Colorado and Utah. Colorado experienced its warmest February on record, and Utah its third warmest on record. Though snow water equivalent (SWE) as a percent of median improved over the last month, seasonal deficits are so great that snow drought and record-low SWE persists in much of the region. For example, from February 10-20 several snow storms brought substantial, needed snow across the state of Colorado. However, the snow was not enough to alleviate deficits, and statewide average SWE remained at a record low.
Both the Upper and Lower Colorado River Basin are reporting record-low SWE. USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service’s SWE projections for the Upper Colorado River Basin indicate that the most likely scenario peak SWE is around 10-30% of normal. These values could change depending on how conditions evolve. In Colorado, SWE in 1977 and 1981 was lower than in 2026, according to long-term snow course records with at least 50 years of data. However, this was due to less precipitation. Winter 2026 was much warmer than the winters of 1977 and 1981, while those years were much drier than this year.
Colorado statewide average SWE is at its record low, 63% of median. Utah statewide average SWE is the second lowest on record at 65% of median. All basins in the Central Rocky Mountains are below 70% of median SWE, except small portions of the Green River Basin in northeast Utah.
Record-Low Snow Water Equivalent Since Mid-January in the Upper Colorado River Basin
Water year observed (black line) and projected (dashed red line) accumulated snow water equivalent (SWE, in inches) in the Upper Colorado Region HUC 2 watershed. Water Year 2026 conditions are compared to the 1990-2020 median (gray line) and to the bottom 10th percentile of historical conditions (red), 10th-30th percentile (yellow), 30th-70th percentile (green), 70th-90th percentile (light blue), and 90th-100th percentile (dark blue). Valid March 9, 2026. SWE projections are based on historical observations and do not include future forecast data. The 50th percentile SWE projection is indicated by the dashed red line and the likely (30th-70th percentile) range by gray shading. Source: USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS).
Looking Ahead
Temperature and Precipitation Outlooks
Record-breaking high temperatures are forecasted for large parts of the West next week. Further, theย 6-10ย andย 8-14 dayย outlooks from NOAAโs Climate Prediction Center lean toward drier-than-normal conditions for almost all of the West along with a strong probability of warmer-than-normal temperatures through March. Record-breaking snow drought conditions are expected to further deteriorate as snowmelt begins much earlier for some. Additional, early snow loss at middle- and low-elevation stations is likely to occur over the next two weeks. Some basins may melt completely weeks earlier than normal. These forecasted conditions would increase already critical water supply concerns across the West…
Water Supply Forecasts
Many regions are likely to see earlier and lower than usual runoff. Water supply forecasts from the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center are well-below average, with most sites forecasted to see less than 70% of average season runoff. The forecasted unregulated inflow into Lake Powell is only 35% of average, which would be the fifth driest over the historical record. Seasonal water supply forecasted volumes from the California-Nevada River Forecast Center dropped significantly after the late February snowmelt event in the Sierra Nevada, and most locations are forecasted to receive less than 70% of median AprilโJuly runoff. In the Northwest, AprilโSeptember runoff volume forecasts are mostly near to below normal, according to the Northwest River Forecast Center. Forecasts from the Missouri Basin River Forecast Center range around 78% of average for the Missouri Basin above Fort Peck, Montana.
Wildfire
Without the presence of snow across the landscape, soils and plants may begin to dry out earlier than usual. Due to the record-breaking warmth this year, high temperatures can lead to increased and rapid dry down of the landscape, again leading to an early start to the fire season. An extended fire season is a critical concern but does not guarantee large fires, as ignitions would still be required to generate large wildfires.
For More Information, Contact:
Dan McEvoy Desert Research Institute, Western Regional Climate Center daniel.mcevoy@dri.edu
Jason Gerlich University of Colorado Boulder Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences / NOAAโs National Integrated Drought Information System jason.gerlich@noaa.gov
Amanda Sheffield University of Colorado Boulder Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences / NOAAโs National Integrated Drought Information System amanda.sheffield@noaa.gov
More than a year after a landmark $100 million environmental settlement designed to improve the Poudre River was OKโd, little progress has been made to put the agreement into action.
The settlement, signed last February, came after Save The Poudre sued to stop the $2.7 billion Northern Integrated Supply Project (NISP). The deal was crafted to allow NISP to move forward while paying to improve the Poudre and protect it from any harm the project could cause.
The Northern Integrated Supply Project, currently estimated at $2 billion, would create two new reservoirs and a system of pipelines to capture more drinking water for 15 community water suppliers. An environmental group is now suing the Army Corps of Engineers over a key permit for Northern Waterโs proposal. (Save the Poudre lawsuit, from Northern Water project pages)
NISP is designed to serve roughly one dozen fast-growing cities along the Northern Front Range and will include two reservoirs and a pipeline.
The Community Foundation of Northern Colorado is leading the effort to implement the settlement, which includes projects that will make the river healthier for fish and aquatic habitat, improve water flows and water quality, and increase recreational opportunities.
The foundation is overseeing a six-member committee that began meeting last August. The committee will decide how to implement the ambitious environmental projects outlined in the settlement.
โWe are taking time to be intentional,โ said Jodie Riesenberger, the foundationโs vice president for community impact.
But work has also been slow because key payments from NISP participants to the foundation are tied to benchmarks in building the massive reservoir and pipeline system. The committee received its first $5 million payment last year when the settlement was signed and is supposed to get its next $5 million payment when construction begins, something that could have happened later this year but has since been delayed. The full $100 million is to be paid out over a 20-year period, Riesenberger said.
Since the settlement was approved, though, the projectโs largest customer, the Fort Collins-Loveland Water District, has dropped out of NISP. A handful of other cities, including Evans, have also dropped out, citing concerns about soaring design and construction costs, as well as the cost of the environmental settlement.
In response, Northern Water, which is overseeing project construction, temporarily halted design work as it re-examined NISPโs size.
Now, construction isnโt likely to begin until 2027 or later, according to Northern Water spokesman Jeff Stahla.
โWe did slow things down,โ Stahla said, โbut there is still a chance we can start in mid-2027.โ
Save The Poudre River President Gary Wockner said the delays arenโt surprising.
The committee has โbeen moving slow because there is a lot to learn. If you want to fix problems on the river, you have to understand the river and know what the problems are,โ he said.
Since the river committee began meeting in August, Riesenberger said work has focused on analyzing what the issues are and trying to figure out how and whether to spend the money they have on hand now.
The delays โdonโt impact what weโre doing yet, but it could if it drags on longer. The dream is that these dollars could do transformational things for the river,โ Riesenberger said.
The Colorado River flows beneath Navajo Bridge in Arizona on Dec. 27, 2019. Three tribes in Arizona are pushing for a settlement that would solidify their access to the River’s water and provide billions of dollars for water infrastructure. Photo credit: Mitch Tobin/The Water Desk
Click the link to read the article on the KJZZ website (Alex Hager). Here’s an excerpt:
March 11, 2026
Coverage of tribal natural resources is supported in part byย Catena Foundation
Tribal leaders and U.S. senators spoke out in support of a measure that would solidify access to water for three tribes with land in Arizona during a Wednesday [March 11, 2026] hearing at the Senate Indian Affairs Committee.ย The Northeastern Arizona Indian Water Rights Settlement, or NAIWRSA, would settle claims to water by the Navajo, Hopi and San Juan Southern Paiute tribes, and provide $5 billion to build new water delivery systems and help the tribes access their water. The settlement would need to be authorized by congress to go into effect. At Wednesdayโs Senate committee hearing, impassioned pleas to bring water to tribal communities ran up against federal concerns about the cost of a settlement, and talks of hesitation from some states that use the Colorado River.
โThis settlement is more than a legal agreement,โ said Lamar Keevama, chairman of the Hopi Tribe. โIt is a path forward. It allows the Hopi tribe to remain and protect our homeland, supports economic development and ensures that our communities have the basic resources necessary to thrive.โ
An official with the Interior Department said he was supportive of the settlementโs aims, but was concerned with the cost.
โ$5 billion is a lot of money,โ said Scott Cameron, Interiorโs principal deputy assistant secretary for water and science. โWe look forward to working with the committee and with the three tribes and the other interested parties, of which there are quite a few, to see if we can’t creatively come up with some ideas to still satisfy the purposes of the bill at somewhat less cost.โ
Lamar Keevama, chairman of the Hopi Tribe, testifies in front of a U.S. Senate Committee on March 11, 2026. โThis settlement is more than a legal agreement,โ he said. โIt is a path forward.” Photo credit: U.S. Senate Committee On Indian Affairs
NAIWRSA has partially been hung up by a unique geographical challenge and longstanding tensions between states that share the Colorado River. The river, which is at the heart of settlement talks, is divided into two regions โ the Upper Basin and the Lower Basin. Its water is managed by the seven states that use it, and they have been deeply split about new policies to share water. They generally fall into two camps โ the Upper Basin states of Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico, and the Lower Basin states of Arizona, California and Nevada. The Navajo Nation straddles both basins, with land in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. Some of its land falls within a portion of Arizona that is technically part of the Upper Basin. Some Upper Basin states worry that the settlement would allow the Navajo Nation to take water from the Upper Basin and lease it for use in the Lower Basin, creating a precedent that could open the door to more transfers out of the Upper Basin. Buu Nygren, president of the Navajo Nation, pushed back on that suggestion.
โIt is hard to imagine that any Upper Basin state would object to my people being able to use water that they have used for decades simply because of the fear of a potential precedent,โ he said.
From the 2018 Tribal Water Study, this graphic shows the location of the 29 federally-recognized tribes in the Colorado River Basin. Map credit: USBR
Coloradoโs snowpack is at its lowest in over 40 years this winter, raising alarms not only for skiers but for the many communities whose economies depend on outdoor recreation. While the lack of snow is highly visible on ski slopes, its effects stretch far beyond lift lines and even beyond Coloradoโs borders.
Natalie Ooi. Photo credit: University of Colorado at Boulder
Natalie Ooi, a teaching professor who is the director of the Masters of the Environment (MENV) program andย leads theย Sustainability in the Outdoor Industryย specialization, studies sustainable tourism and recreation economies.ย CU Boulder Today recently spoke with Ooi about why this season stands out, how towns built around outdoor recreation can adapt, and what longer-term conversations communities across the Mountain West and beyond should be having.
How unusual is this winterโs snowpack, and what makes it significant?
Mountain and recreation-dependent communities are seasonal by nature, so they expect some year-to-year variation and understand that weather influences visitation. But as Russ Schumacher, the state climatologist at Colorado State University, has reported, this winterโs lack of snow is the most severe since SNOTEL data began in the early-mid 1980s. (SNOTEL, which stands for snowpack telemetry, is a network of backcountry weather stations that gather and transmit snowfall data.)
One of the challenges in talking about the outdoor recreation economy is that while we often focus on mountain resort communities, there are recreation-dependent communities across the entire state. Whatโs unique about this season is that all of Colorado is effectively experiencing drier than normal conditions. Typically, you might see some areas below average, others at or above average. This year, itโs widespread. That scale is worth highlighting.
Itโs easy to focus on mountain resorts because snowโor the lack of itโis so visible. But itโs just as important to think about river-based and other recreation-dependent communities and what this will mean for them in the spring.
Beyond skiing, which activities feel the impact of a low-snow winter?
River-dependent activities like rafting, tubing and fly fishing are also affected. At these record low snowpack levels, some rivers may limit recreation from a conservation perspective to protect aquatic species and overall river health if water levels drop too low. That creates a difficult dynamic for communities whose economies depend heavily on outdoor recreation and visitation. This isnโt just about ski townsโbusinesses tied to camping, backpacking, guiding, gear rental, retail and campground operations also feel the effects when visitation patterns shift.
In mountain resort and ski communities, thereโs always season-to-season variation. Many ski industry managers will tell you average snowfall years are actually the best for business. Too much snow can create operational challenges and even deter some visitors. But in an average year, thereโs enough snow to keep serious skiers happy while still being manageable for beginners and intermediates.
Why is this season particularly hard for ski resorts?
I think this season is more challenging because you have that double whammy of not just a lack of snowfall, but high temperatures as well. If itโs cold and thereโs a lack of snowfall, most ski areas can make enough snow to build a solid base and open a good percentage of terrain that the majority of visitors and residents will use. They can still operate at a capacity where people continue to ski and arenโt canceling vacations.
This year, though, the combination of low snow and high temperatures makes that much harder. Itโs just not feasible to make enough snow when it wonโt stick around. The energy and water demands required to make snow that quickly melts simply arenโt a sound management decision.
Westwide SNOTEL basin-filled map March 11, 2026.
What does low snowpack mean for spring and summer river economies?
Low snowpack affects not just total water levels but also runoff timing. Shorter, earlier runoff windows can compress rafting and fishing seasons, making it harder for outfitters to plan staffing and reservations.
How does wildfire complicate the picture?
Wildfire is a real challenge for Colorado and the West. One of the biggest issues is how far-reaching the impacts are because of smoke. There are legitimate public health and safety concerns about being outside and inhaling that level of smoke.
Even if Colorado doesnโt have a wildfire in a major tourism region, a fire in Wyoming, Utah or elsewhere can still affect the tourism season. As the climate warms and wildfire risk increases, that disruption could become more common across multiple states.
How do resorts try to adapt in the short and long term?
Itโs hard to pivot in the short term. That kind of rapid adaptation is challenging. But over the years, many ski resorts have adopted diversification strategies to reduce their reliance on winter and ski tourism as their sole focus.
If you look at Alterra Mountain Company and Vail Resorts as examples, thereโs a reason they own and/or manage resorts across the U.S. and internationally. This season, for instance, the East Coast is having a phenomenal year. That likely means above-average visitation and revenue there, which can help offset declines in places experiencing poor snow conditions. Geographic diversification is one key strategy.
What ripple effects are communities seeing beyond lift ticket sales?
Lift ticket revenue is obviously a key part of a ski resortโs business, but itโs not the only one. This season provides a clear illustration of that dynamic.
For example, Vail Resorts reported that season-to-date skier visits were down 20% compared to the prior year. But lift revenue was down just 1.8%. That gap is largely due to season pass sales, which provide more stable, upfront revenue.
At the same time, other categories saw much steeper declines: Ski school revenue was down nearly 15%, dining revenue down almost 16% and retail and rental revenue down about 6%.
So even when lift revenue appears relatively stable, the broader resort ecosystem is feeling much sharper impacts.
Lower visitation can also affect seasonal employment, reducing hours or shortening contracts for workers who rely on winter tourism income. That hurts resort companies, but it also impacts the supporting businessesโoften mom-and-pop shops or other chainsโthat rely on visitation. When overall visitation drops, all of those businesses feel it. The ripple effect across the entire community is significant.
What conversations should communities be having right now?
Economic diversification is key. Outdoor recreation is a powerful way to bring in visitors and outside dollars, especially in rural places that canโt attract manufacturing or may never become the next tech hub. But communities need to think strategically about broadening their economic base and leveraging their outdoor recreation infrastructure as a quality of life attractor for other industries.
Some places are already doing this. Steamboat Springs, for example, has built out an entrepreneurial ecosystem that is rooted in outdoor recreation and the mountain lifestyle but is separate to the tourism economy. Grand Junction has leaned into mountain biking and its access to public lands, while also seeking to attract outdoor recreation brands to diversify its economy beyond traditional extractive industries. These kinds of investments help communities spread risk across seasons and industries.
Itโs also about managing the visitation they do have and maximizing visitor spending. How do you encourage people not just to camp on adjacent BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land and leave, but to come downtown? How do you design trail systems so they start or end downtown, prompting visitors to buy an ice cream, a coffee or a meal?
Ian Billick on the favored mode of transportation at Crested Butte.
Following a drier-than-normal winter, a pattern change at the beginning of March resulted in widespread heavy precipitation (1 to 3 inches, locally more) and a 1-category improvement to parts of the Ohio and Middle to Lower Mississippi Valley. This drought improvement extended east to the Central Appalachians and the Northeast. However, a long-term drought continues for much of the Northeast. Despite the much-needed rainfall for portions of the Southeast and Southern Great Plains, severe (D2) to extreme (D3) drought persists for many areas. A low snowpack and early onset of snowmelt are a major drought concern for the West. As of March 10, drought of varying intensity was designated for parts of Hawaii. Alaska and Puerto Rico remain drought-free…
Widespread drought of varying intensity continues across much of the Central Great Plains and Central Rockies. Drought expanded this past week to include all of southwestern Colorado and intensified for northwestern parts of the state. The low snowpack throughout the Central Rockies, especially Colorado, remains a major concern heading into the spring. As of March 10, snow water equivalent for the river basins of Colorado is running below 70 percent of the 1991-2020 average. There were a couple exceptions to the worsening conditions. A wet snow (1โ or more, liquid equivalent) supported the removal of extreme (D3) drought across parts of the Denver metro area. Heavy rainfall (more than 1.5 inches) prompted small 1-category improvements to eastern Kansas and southeastern Nebraska…
Colorado Drought Monitor one week change map ending March 10, 2026.
The low snowpack throughout much of the West is a major concern heading into the spring. As of March 10, snow water equivalent (SWE) is less than 40 percent of normal from the Cascades of the Pacific Northwest southward through the Great Basin and Four Corners region. 14-day temperatures, valid from February 25 to March 10, have averaged 5 to degrees F above normal. This warmer-than-normal end to February and start to March has led to an early onset of snowmelt for parts of the West. Although California remains drought-free, SWE is 53 percent of normal statewide according to the California Department of Water Resources. Overall, only minor changes were made this past week to the West Region. Based on increasing 60-day precipitation deficits and to reflect the low snowpack, abnormal dryness (D0) was added to parts of northern California. Drought expanded into southeastern Utah while intensifying to severe (D2) and extreme (D3) drought across northeastern and western portions of the state. Moderate (D1) drought was expanded across north-central to northeastern Washington along with central Oregon due to 30 to 90-day precipitation deficits and low snowpack…
Despite the locally heavy rainfall across the Lower Mississippi Valley along with eastern Oklahoma and Texas, only modest improvements were warranted as a favorable response among the various indicators was not enough to justify more widespread 1-week changes. However, targeted 1-category improvements were made to parts of northwestern Arkansas, eastern Oklahoma, eastern Texas, and the Lower Mississippi Valley where weekly precipitation amounts exceeded 2 inches. In areas that missed out on the beneficial rainfall, drought intensified for parts of west-central Oklahoma and the Oklahoma Panhandle. A majority of the South Region has received less than half their normal precipitation with a temperature departure of more than 6 degrees F above normal during the past 90 days. These 3-month precipitation and temperature observations are consistent with a La Nina wintertime pattern…
Looking Ahead
In the wake of a cold front, sharply colder temperatures are forecast to overspread the eastern U.S. on March 12. A second and even stronger cold front is expected to progress east from the Great Plains to the East Coast by March 16. Following this strong March cold front, subfreezing temperatures are forecast to extend as far south as Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle. According to the Weather Prediction Center, 5-day precipitation amounts from March 12-16 are forecast to exceed 1 inch, liquid equivalent, across the Great Lakes and New England. Much needed rainfall is also anticipated for drought-stricken Florida. Elsewhere, drier weather is forecast for the Ohio Valley, Middle to Lower Mississippi Valley, and Great Plains. During mid-March, dry weather will be accompanied by an increasing chance of record heat across California, the Great Basin, and Southwest. A powerful Kona low will bring heavy to excessive rainfall to Hawaii through at least March 14.โฏ
The NWS 6-10 day outlook (valid March 17-21) leans toward below-normal temperatures for the East, while above-normal temperatures are likely from the West Coast to the Great Plains. Above-normal temperature probabilities exceed 90 percent across most of California, the Great Basin, and Southwest. In contrast to the warmerโthan-normal temperatures over the West, Alaska is likely to be colder-than-normal. A majority of the lower 48 states are favored to have below-normal precipitation from March 17-21 with the largest below-normal precipitation probabilities (greater than 50 percent) forecast across the Central to Southern Great Plains, Southwest, and much of California. The wet pattern is forecast to persist for Hawaii with enhanced above-normal precipitation probabilities.
US Drought Monitor one week change map ending March 10, 2026.
