Click the link to read the article on the KSL website (Shelby Lofton). Here’s an excerpt:
May 27, 2026
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Central Utah farmers said severe drought, frost and strong winds have led to the worst conditions they’ve seen.
Farmer Neil Sorensen said his alfalfa crop is far below where it should be.
Scott Sunderland is struggling with irrigation, raising concerns about his long-term crop viability.
Central Utah farmers said a combination of drought, frost and strong winds has created some of the worst conditions they have ever seen. Farmer Neil Sorensen said normally, fields across the Sanpete Valley would be lush and green this time of year. Instead, he said conditions look more like late summer.
“The frost, the wind and the drought, it’s just took a toll on all our crops,” Sorensen said.
He primarily grows alfalfa but also grows grass and barley, grass mix and potatoes. Sorensen said his alfalfa crop is far below where it should be.
“Right now, you can see it’s below my knees,” he said, adding that even his best fields are struggling.
The National Weather Service’s Central Region Climate Outlook issued Sunday [May 24, 2026] said there is an 82% chance that an El Niño weather pattern will develop between May and July, which could bring a higher chance of above-average precipitation this summer…
Additionally, the U.S. Drought Monitor said drought conditions, which have been persistent across the Western United States for the past several months, are expected improve in Colorado over the next three months. But, even with such a hopeful outlook, NWS Meteorologist Kate Abbot said a slightly rainier pattern should start to appear the first week of June in Southwest Colorado.
“As we move into next week, we start to set up into more of a southwesterly flow pattern,” Abbot said. “We start to see some chances for afternoon showers in the San Juan Mountains, with probabilities increasing as the week progresses.”
Colorado is headed toward a potentially wetter-than-normal summer, with promises of an active monsoon season and growing confidence in developing El Nino conditions. However, with hotter temperatures likely, this summer could look different from the mountains’ last El Nino visit. The Climate Prediction Center’s seasonal precipitation outlook shows above-normal chances for rainfall in Colorado from June through September, with the Western Slope and Utah border seeing the highest likelihood of above-average rainfall. Forecasts also show a strong possibility that Colorado will see an active monsoon season, according to Peter Goble, assistant state climatologist at the Colorado Climate Center…
A super El Niño appears to be forming, but the effects in the Upper Colorado River Basin are especially hard to predict because it sits right in between the “warmer, drier” and the “wetter, colder” zones, meaning it could go either way. Source: NOAA.
The forecasts for summer showers coincide with those predicting the fast arrival of El Nino conditions, though Goble said he doesn’t currently see a strong tie between El Nino and stronger summer precipitation…A release published by the center on May 14 predicted that El Nino is likely to emerge during what’s left of spring, with an 82% chance that it will materialize between May and July and continue through the Northern Hemisphere for the upcoming winter. The center predicts a 96% chance that El Nino will remain from December through February 2027…Historically, El Nino conditions have brought wetter summers and falls , but drier than normal winters to the Northern Rockies. The last time Colorado saw El Nino conditions in the summer was in 2023, which created “a really wet late spring and summer east of the Continental Divide,” Goble said.
The energy-efficient desalination system produces fresh water without chemical additives and transforms leftover salts into useful materials.
Big takeaways
A new desalination method produces drinking water from seawater without chemical additives.
The solar-powered system uses specially engineered black metal to absorb sunlight.
Its self-cleaning surface separates and collects salts, instead of dumping them as harmful brine waste.
From the salts, the system can extract lithium, a key material for rechargeable batteries.
The approach could help address global water shortages and growing mineral demand.
The United Nations estimates that 2.2 billion people lack safely managed drinking water, and communities from California to the Middle East rely on desalination plants to convert ocean water to fresh water. Common desalination techniques, such as reverse osmosis and thermal distillation, are energy-intensive, require pre- and post-water treatment, and leave behind a concentrated saltwater byproduct called brine. The brine byproduct wreaks havoc on sea life when it’s deposited back into the ocean by raising the salt level and lowering oxygen in the water.
But a novel approach developed at the University of Rochester offers a way to overcome these drawbacks. Researchers at URochester’s Institute of Optics developed a new solar-thermal desalination process to produce fresh water in an energy-efficient way that does not leave behind brine and requires no chemical additives to pre-treat the water. A team led by Chunlei Guo, a professor of optics and of physics and a senior scientist at URochester’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics, describes their method in a paper published in Light: Science & Applications.
Vials of l-r: seawater, Great Salt Lake water, nickel and phosphorus waste, and desalinated water along with evaporated salt are pictured in the lab of University of Rochester professor Chunlei Guo April 8, 2026. Guo and his team have a paper coming out in Light: Science and Applications that describes new solar-powered ocean water desalination devices he engineered that feature his superwicking laser-etched black metal. The devices are highly efficient compared to current desalination methods and the new process doesn’t produce the brine waste that current methods do. The process takes ocean water (they collected smaples from three continents) and breaks it down into fresh water and salts. // photo by J. Adam Fenster / University of Rochester
The technology uses solar panels made of black metal etched with femtosecond lasers to make the surface super light-absorbing and superwicking—or extremely attractive to water. The panels have a laser-treated active region that pulls a thin layer of water across the surface, absorbs nearly all solar radiation, distills the water, and deposits the leftover salts and minerals into the panel’s untreated sides or “passive” region so that the salt does not clog the active region and disrupt continuous desalination.
Leveraging the ‘coffee ring’ effect
Guo says other researchers have developed solar-thermal desalination techniques that work well in lab experiments using simulated seawater made of only water and sodium chloride. As the water evaporates, the sodium chloride crystallizes in a grainy and porous fashion allowing water to pass through to dissolve the salt. The solar panels, meanwhile, can be easily cleaned.
But real ocean has a much more complex composition, and these systems tend to encounter issues when tested in the field. Unlike sodium chloride, many other components in seawater, such as magnesium- and calcium-based materials, crystallize in a crusty and non-porous fashion on the solar panel’s surface, clogging it. Eventually, water can no longer seep through. This is the same phenomenon as your shower head clogging over time or your teapot lined with scales, except that seawater contains hundreds of times more salts than your tap water.
To keep their solar panel surface from gumming up similarly, Guo’s team precisely etched the black metal’s grooves so the various salts and minerals in ocean water would simply slough off. They also leveraged a physical phenomenon that has plagued clumsy javaphiles for centuries: the coffee ring effect.
“If you drop coffee on a surface, eventually the water evaporates, and there’s a ring left at the outer edge that is the concentrated coffee particles,” says Guo. “We use that same principle to advance the salts to the passive region.”
Testing their solar-thermal desalination technique using samples of water from the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans, Guo and his team were able to make the surface self-cleaning. In other words, it extracted freshwater and directed the remaining salts to the passive region where they could be later collected without reducing the panel’s efficiency.
Vials of l-r: seawater, Great Salt Lake water, Nickel(II) sulfate (NiSO4) and Copper(II) chloride wastewater, and desalinated water along with evaporated salt are pictured in the lab of University of Rochester professor Chunlei Guo April 8, 2026. Guo and his team have a paper coming out in Light: Science and Applications that describes new solar-powered ocean water desalination devices he engineered that feature his superwicking laser-etched black metal. The devices are highly efficient compared to current desalination methods and the new process doesn’t produce the brine waste that current methods do. The process takes ocean water (they collected smaples from three continents) and breaks it down into fresh water and salts. // photo by J. Adam Fenster / University of Rochester
Turning waste into resources
One of the new desalination method’s distinct advantages is that instead of leaving behind brine that must be disposed of or processed, it extracts nearly 100 percent of the salts in solid form. This could not only produce an abundant supply of table salt, but it could also be used to extract more precious minerals, including lithium, which is used in the lithium-ion batteries that power electric vehicles and other electronics.
In a related paper in the Journal of Materials Chemistry A, Guo and his colleagues show how they can use the same superwicking solar panels to separate lithium from the rest of other salts in desalination. Embedding nanoparticles made of hydrogen titanate in the tiny grooves of the black metal surface isolates the lithium from other salts and minerals.
“Mining lithium from the earth has proven to be very taxing from an energy and environmental standpoint, so pulling lithium directly from saltwater could be a very important future route,” says Guo.
Using water samples from Great Salt Lake, the researchers extracted about 50 percent of the lithium from the salts left behind by the desalination process.
Guo says now that the superwicking desalination technology has been demonstrated in proofs of concept on small-scale devices, he sees the technology inherently scalable, capable of improving global access to drinking water and building more sustainable supply chains for precious minerals.
The National Science Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Worldwide Universities Network supported this research. Guo’s colleagues from the Institute of Optics who contributed to the research include Senior Scientist Subash Singh, alumnus Ran Wei ’24 (PhD), PhD students Luheng Tang and Tainshu Xu, and Mingjiang Ma.
In a letter published by Environmental Research Letters, Andrew Berardy and Mikhail V. Chester of Arizona State University examined the agricultural and beef industry’s dependency upon water and power. Athough their research was focused the effects of climate change in Arizona, their findings could be applied almost anywhere in the American Southwest.
“Arizona’s predominately irrigated agriculture relies on water imported through an energy intensive process from water-stressed regions. Most irrigation in Arizona is electrically powered, so failures in either energy or water systems can cascade to the food system, creating a food-energy-water nexus of vulnerability.” Using data provided by the USDA, the U.S. Geological Survey, Arizona crop budgets and region-specific literature, the two scientists predicted that a temperature increase above the baseline could decrease yields by up to 12.2% per 1° centigrade for major Arizona crops and would require increased irrigation of about 2.6% per 1° centigrade.1
Modern agricultural production is made possible by systems working together to deliver energy and water resources necessary to provide a reliable food supply. This interdependency creates the food-energy-water nexus. Arizona is a major agricultural producer, supplying considerable animal feed, livestock, milled grain products, meat, and other food products to cities throughout the U.S.
Figure 1. Importance of agricultural exports from Arizona. This map displays the food related goods shipped from Arizona as a percentage of total food related goods shipped to each state in the freight category where that percentage is highest based on 2012 Freight Analysis Framework data (Center for Transportation Analysis 2016). Cities with 5% or more of a category imported from Arizona are labeled with an icon representing the freight category and labeled with the percent of that category they receive from Arizona out of their total imports of that category. For example, Los Angeles receives 22% of their Live Animals and Fish imports from Arizona.
The Phoenix region’s large volume of food related exports means that reduced yields would have a signifcant impact on overall export capacity for Arizona. The most significant food related exports are to cities near Arizona – including Los Angeles, San Diego, El Paso, and Las Vegas. Tucson receives 100% of its live animals and fish, 85% of its other agricultural products, 83% of its other foodstuffs, and 69% of its meat and seafood from within Arizona. Phoenix receives 87% of its other agricultural products, 73% of its animal feed, 57% of its cereal grains, 51% of its other foodstuffs, and 51% of its live animals and fish from within Arizona. Therefore, disruptions to the agricultural system in the greater Phoenix area would have both a local impact, and would be felt across the Southwest in California, Nevada, and Texas.2
Shocks and strains on energy and water production and delivery systems may result in failures which cascade to food systems. In addition, feedback loops across the nexus could create compounding vulnerabilities, as failures in one system may propagate to another. Potential disruptions such as population growth, climate change, and interruptions to energy and water supply cause problems in food, energy, and water systems that combine and cascade to have downstream impacts on food supply and farm viability, which feed back into population growth in an iterative cycle.
Farms with diminished yields by cause. In 2013, Arizona farms reporting reduced yields attributed them primarily to water shortage and irrigation equipment failure, while the cost of water or energy shortage and price increases accounted for most of the remaining diminished yields (Vilsack and Reilly 2014). Arizona farms relied on irrigation for 100% of their total sales and 419 farms discontinued irrigation in 2013 (Vilsack and Reilly 2014).
Climate change already has significant negative impacts on agriculture in the United States, causing substantial economic costs and raising serious questions about the vulnerability of food supply chain3. The Southwest is especially challenged due its rapidly increasing population, changing land use and land cover, limited water supplies, and long-term drought4. Arizona is largely a semi-arid desert receiving only 20.4 cm of rain across only 36 days per year on average and with an average yearly temperature of 24° centigrade. Despite a resulting reliance on imported water andsprawling housing developmentsreducing available arable land, Arizona has a strong agricultural history and significant specialty crop production.5 The strain of irrigation required for agriculture is manifested in crop losses for Arizona farmers, as reflected in figure 3, showing key drivers of yield loss as water shortage, water costs, energy costs, and equipment failure. In 2013 these problems affected about 15% of irrigated farmland in Arizona.
Failures in the Arizona food-energy-water nexus could cause disruptions throughout the Southwest as food supply chains for urban centers like El Paso, Los Angeles, and San Diego shift. There is also the potential for cascading impacts because these cities have their own exports which might be disrupted. As cities throughout the Southwest look to meet their own needs, there may be a significant change in food supply across the region. Regardless of potential systematic failures and reductions in crop yields, it is very likely that consumptive water use will increase as average temperature increases. Sustainable food supplies in Phoenix and Tucson, as well as other agriculturally productive regions of the Southwest, will require a greater amount of water drawn from sources that are already strained.
The Crystal River flows through the Gunnison County town of Marble, seen here with Beaver Lake. A representative from the Town of Marble is expected to participate in a subcommittee focused on an intergovernmental agreement to protect the river. CREDIT: ECOFLIGHT
May 27, 2026
Five Colorado governments, including Pitkin County, and water entities have officially entered into a landmark intergovernmental agreement to protect the Crystal River from mainstem dams and out-of-basin water diversions.
The agreement comes at the recommendation of the Crystal River Wild and Scenic and Other Alternatives Steering Committee from March 2024, suggested as one of three potential long-term preservation measures, according to a press release. Along with Pitkin County, the Colorado River Water Conservation District, Gunnison County, town of Marble and West Divide Water Conservancy District formalized their shared commitment to oppose any new on-channel reservoirs on the mainstem of the Crystal River and any trans-basin diversions that would export water out of the watershed.
Each stage of a big construction project has its own challenges and puzzles to solve along the way. Raising Gross Dam is no different.
Denver Water is raising the height of the dam by 131 feet, with the final 22 feet going up this spring in two sections that are separated by a giant gap. The Gross Reservoir Expansion Project, which began construction in 2022, is designed to nearly triple the reservoir’s storage capacity. Major construction work resumed in April following a winter break.
And this year’s construction puzzles included:
How to move concrete across a 160-foot gap between where the concrete is made and where it’s placed?
And, how do you move construction vehicles across that same gap when work on the first section is finished?
“We are building the top of the dam in two sections because we need to leave a 160-foot gap in the middle of the dam for the spillway channel,” said Casey Dick, Denver Water’s deputy program manager for the Gross Reservoir Expansion Project.
Denver Water is building the last 22 feet of Gross Dam in two sections. The photo shows the left side at its new height. The right side’s last 22 feet will be finished in June. Photo credit: Denver Water.
Spillway channels are safety features on dams that allow water to safely flow out of a reservoir if needed due to flooding rains or exceptionally high and rapid snowmelt.
Raising the dam’s last two major sections, while leaving a 160-foot gap between them, meant coming up with a new way to move concrete across the construction site.
On the lower portion of the dam, crews worked on one continuous structure, which allowed trucks and equipment to easily move from one side of the dam to the other, and to move concrete from the batch plant down a large chute to where it was put into place.
However, with the final 22 feet going up in two sections, construction crews had to find a way to deliver concrete from the batch plant and across the 160-foot spillway gap as the first section went up.
The solution to this puzzle? A series of conveyors positioned in the middle of the dam that tilted higher as the first section rose higher.
“Building the new conveyor system is just another example of all the ingenuity we go through out here to build the dam,” Dick said. “With each new phase, there are new challenges that our team has to figure out.”
The new conveyor system moved concrete across the gap where the spillway channel will be to the far side of the dam. Photo credit: Denver Water.
Construction crews finished placing roller-compacted concrete on the dam’s left side on May 12.
But once that was done, crews faced the second challenge: How do you move the equipment off the finished, 22-foot higher section of the dam, across the spillway gap, down to where they are needed to complete the second section?
Short answer: If you can’t go over, go around.
Cranes lifted equipment off the higher section of the dam to the road, where the machines convoyed about 4.5 miles around to the other side using the dam’s access road.
A crane lifts a piece of equipment off the dam. Because of the new spillway gap, equipment was driven across the dam’s access road to get into position on the other side of the dam. Photo credit: Denver Water.
Construction on the final 22 feet of the second side of the dam began at the end of May and is expected to be completed in June.
Once the second section is done this summer, a year’s worth of remaining work includes: finishing the top of the dam, building safety walls; constructing the actual spillway; building a bridge over the spillway and completing the stilling basin at the bottom of the dam.
This view from the bottom of the dam shows the new baffle blocks on the bottom of the stilling basin. The baffle blocks reduce the energy of the water that flows down the spillway. Photo credit: Denver Water.
Full construction on the dam raising project is expected to wrap up in mid-2027.
“There are hundreds of logistical challenges throughout this project, but our team has been able to meet every one of them along the way,” Dick said. “We’re making good progress so far in 2026 and are looking forward to getting a lot of work done in the coming months.”
The Gross Reservoir Expansion Project involves raising the height of the existing dam by 131 feet. The dam will be built out and will have “steps” made of roller-compacted concrete to reach the new height. Image credit: Denver Water
The Clifton Water District announced Wednesday that it would join the list of utility providers implementing temporary drought rates, with a press release about the change calling for community members to take action with other drought mitigation efforts.
“The Clifton Water District urges all customers to take immediate steps to reduce water usage wherever possible,” the press release said. “Small changes — such as limiting outdoor watering, repairing leaks, and using water-efficient appliances — can collectively make a significant impact … By working together, Clifton residents can help ensure that safe and reliable water remains available for essential needs now and in the future.”
The change won’t alter billing for those using less than 3,000 gallons of water per month, much like similar rate restrictions recently announced by other providers. Clifton Water said it hoped to encourage prudent water usage with the higher rates. The district said the rates would remain in place “only until watershed conditions show meaningful improvement,” a stipulation that could mean Clifton Water customers are in for a long summer, with forecasts suggesting a historically dry year and winter snowpack widely observed at record-low levels.
Green Mountain Reservoir is owned by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and located in Summit County north of Silverthorne along the Blue River. Photo credit: Denver Water.
The state and the Colorado River Water Conservation District, a public water policy and planning agency on the Western Slope, have a new plan to protect mountain towns from losing their water supply during an unprecedented drought this summer. The District’s proposed emergency water supply plan was approved at the Colorado Water Conservation Board meeting on Wednesday, May 20, 2026…The emergency plan would protect certain water users on the main stem of the Colorado River by replacing water that would have historically come from Green Mountain Reservoir. This year forecasts say it won’t fill up for the first time in history…A portion of the reservoir is reserved for what’s called the “historic users pool,” which holds 66,000 acre-feet of water…It’s an important emergency water supply plan that protects approximately 250 municipal and domestic water entities across the Colorado River Basin from being called out due to senior water rights claims. It was created as part of the Colorado Big Thompson project, a massive water engineering project that created reservoirs and redirected Colorado River water to Front Range cities…After a drought in 1977, water managers set aside the historic user pool for agricultural and domestic users. It’s historically always been filled and available to protect those water rights from being usurped by more senior users…Every year, a group of agricultural and utility entities in the Grand Valley near Grand Junction makes what’s called the “Cameo call” to use water from it. It’s the largest and most senior call on the main stem of the river and demands that they get enough water for their needs. That includes the Grand Valley Water Users Association, Grand Valley Irrigation Company, Orchard Mesa Irrigation District, Palisade Irrigation District, and Mesa County Irrigation District. The call is made annually, generally between June and August. This year, the fear is that if that water demand is called early, there won’t be enough water for upstream towns and municipalities, including Silverthorne, Eagle River, and Grand, Garfield and Mesa counties…
The River District plans to borrow water from other reservoirs — the nearby Wolford Mountain and Ruedi reservoirs — to replace the water that would have come from Green Mountain and to prevent the Cameo call from being made…At the meeting, the board committed to support the move with $585,000, in addition to $342,000 the District committed last month.
“Instead of having to turn off all of these cities’ water rights up here and the farms and ranches up above the Grand Valley, the Green Mountain historic user pool would release water to meet the Cameo call and protect the West Slope users. It is a really appropriate use of that water,” Mueller told CPR News.
Colorado-Big Thompson Project map. Courtesy of Northern Water.
Denver Water customers have yet to embrace a strict water diet this year, cutting water use just 5% this month as the outdoor watering season begins.
The utility, which serves 1.5 million customers, has asked residents and businesses to slash water use by 20% this summer to combat extreme drought.
At the same time, reservoirs, unable to refill after melting snows evaporated early due to a surprising March heatwave, are dropping. The utility said its storage system is just 79% full, down from the 89% mark normally seen at this time of year.
Denver Water officials said they’re not disappointed with their customers, in part because they’re asking homeowners and businesses to adopt habits they haven’t had to use in years.
“We didn’t expect them to be saving 20% right away,” said Greg Fisher, Denver’s manager of water supply planning. “It’s been 13 years since we were under mandatory drought restrictions. It takes a few months to get up and running on this.”
Aurora homeowners and businesses have cut use 6.5%, Aurora Water spokesperson Shonnie Cline said. And the city’s reservoirs are similarly low, standing at just 56% full. This time last year they were 66% full.
At issue is Colorado’s drought emergency. Mountain snows, which provide the majority of the state’s water supplies, hit critical lows this year and then melted off in a March heat wave that also set records, with temperatures soaring into the 80-degree to 90-degree range.
In response, cities across the state imposed strict watering restrictions, pleading with customers to sharply limit water use so that water stored in reservoirs can be preserved as long as possible.
That reservoir levels are dropping in May is unprecedented, Fisher said. “Levels usually would be rising now,” he said. “But ours are dropping.”
Rains this month have helped. The most recent forecasts indicate that summer monsoons may be wetter than normal and a developing El Niño weather pattern later this year could deliver more liquid relief, according to Russ Schumacher, director of Colorado State University’s Colorado Climate Center.
Rains won’t necessarily help refill reservoirs, but they will help reduce the summer demand for water, meaning less needs to be released from the giant storage pools.
Utilities hope their customers will use the rains that may come as a good reason to turn off their sprinklers.
“We need to use Mother Nature as much as we can,” Fisher said. “You can literally just take a week off.”
Colorado Springs is one of the few cities that hasn’t imposed special water restrictions because its reservoirs, at the start of the watering season, were fairly full. Its normal watering schedule limits sprinkler use to three days a week, according to Colorado Springs Utilities spokesperson Jennifer Johnson. The utility actually saw water use rise slightly in May.
On Colorado’s Western Slope, the situation is also dire. This month the Colorado River District and the Colorado Water Conservation Board agreed to use water from special conservation pools in Ruedi and Wolford Mountain reservoirs to help small towns that are in danger of running out of water, and to provide some help to Western Slope farmers and the fish trying to survive in streams that are drying out.
Roughly half of the water that serves Denver and other Front Range communities comes from the Western Slope and the Colorado River. It is transferred through tunnels to the Front Range. Reductions in water use by Denver and other cities will take some of the stress off the Colorado River.
Lindsay DeFrates, deputy communications director for the Colorado River District, said the district is asking Western Slope towns to water just one day a week.
The district manages the Colorado River and represents 15 Western Slope counties. It has no authority to impose restrictions on mountain communities, but it is still pushing hard for a broad-based commitment to turn off the sprinklers.
“And obviously,” DeFrates said, “we’re hoping Front Range cities will do the same.”
Public bicycle parking at W. 44th & Tennyson May 29, 2026. A family friend could not lock up his bicycle here last weekend when he rode in from Wheat Ridge to attend a concert at the Oriental Theatre.
Public bicycle parking near W. 39th & Tennyson May 29, 2026. Most of the public bicycle parking is available but Veo vehicles are in the Loading Zone area.
Public bicycle parking free of Veo vehicles at W. 41st & Tennyson May 29, 2026.
All the public bicycle parking available at W.43rd & Tennyson May 29, 2026. Note the Veo vehicles on the public right-of-way across the street, not in a loading zone or street parking for cars and trucks.
A mini-sandstorm partially obscures the Bullfrog Marina on Lake Powell. Dropping reservoir levels are forcing officials to move the marina to a deeper part of the lake. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
Maybe sitting next to the wall of plate glass windows was not the smartest move, I thought, as a sienna-colored cloud of sand lifted up from the lakeside and made its way in my direction. I had just tucked into my $16 grilled chicken sandwich at the Anasazi Restaurant at Bullfrog Marina on Lake Powell when the wind kicked up, sandblasting the windows and causing a sizable milk crate to slide back and forth along the railings of the patio outside. It was an eerie scene. Had this been an apocalyptic cli-fi film set in a calamitously aridified West, this would have been the moment when a pterodactyl-like creature smashed through the window and plopped down all bloody and sandy in my plate of fries, an omen of the horrors to come.
It was not, however, a film. The dystopian scene was real as was the aridification, though it did not include any prehistoric creatures — only a handful of staff and other diners who, much to my dismay, seemed utterly unperturbed by the sandstorm and the havoc it was wreaking on a set of outdoor furniture. And, outside, a few ravens who seemed delighted to frolic in the gusts’ updrafts.
When we think of climate change’s effects, we might imagine communities inundated by rising seas, unhoused folks exposed to ever more severe heat waves, or entire towns wiped out by megafires. I was here at Bullfrog to see how a warmer and drier climate is affecting the communities, infrastructure, and economies that rose up around and depend upon Lake Powell-based recreation.
Bullfrog is the largest and most extensive marina on Lake Powell’s northern end. It has a 48-room hotel, the aforementioned restaurant, a gas station and convenience store, an RV park, and other lodging, along with its own school, which this year had four students in grades K-6. The population of some 50 to 100 consists mostly of employees of the National Park Service and Aramark, the private concessionaire that runs the reservoir’s marinas and other facilities. Nearby Ticaboo, which lies outside Glen Canyon National Recreation Area but also relies on Lake Powell recreation, has another 50 to 100 residents. The nearest incorporated town is Hanksville, some 67 miles to the north.
Bullfrog Creek along the southern end of the Burr Trail and Bullfrog Bay on Lake Powell in the distance. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
Bullfrog lies at the end of the road on a bay at the mouth of Bullfrog Creek, where the water is shallower than on the main channel of the Colorado River, making the marina and its facilities more vulnerable to dropping water levels. While the main boat ramp is still being used, it will likely become unusable later this summer as the reservoir’s surface levels falls toward 3,500 feet. In coming weeks, the entire floating marina will be towed across the reservoir to deeper water adjacent to Halls Crossing Marina; Bullfrog’s fuel and boat rental docks have already been moved. The ferry between Bullfrog and Halls Crossing isn’t functional at low water levels, so is expected to be out of commission for the rest of this year, making for a 145-mile car trip between the facilities at Bullfrog and the boat ramps and marina at Halls Crossing.
I visited Bullfrog on a Sunday in mid-May. Because I needed to do some internet-related work early on Monday morning, I stayed in the hotel. I initially regretted not staying in the campground, since it was mostly empty and had a strong cell phone signal, but when the tent-shredding winds and skin blasting sands kicked up I was happy to be ensconced in more secure lodging, especially given the relatively reasonable price.
It was the high tourist season elsewhere in Canyon Country. The trailhead parking lots at Capitol Reef National Park were all full or overflowing that morning as I drove through, and Torrey had been busy during my stay there for a writing conference. As I slowly made my way down the Notom Road and Burr Trail, stopping frequently to gaze at the curves and crevices in the Waterpocket Fold and for a quick bike ride, I saw maybe a half-dozen other vehicles.
Waterpocket Fold. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
Waterpocket Fold detail. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
Bullfrog, meanwhile, was decidedly quiet. The hotel was nearly empty. Only a few sites in the RV park were occupied, and I later saw that most of the sites were out of order and closed. A couple of dozen cars, at the very most, were parked on the only operable boat ramp. The shelves on the little convenience store were sparsely stocked, and a box of Triscuits was going for $7.50 — though there was no cheese to accompany them — and gas was selling for $5.17. In May of 2000, the Bullfrog District received 33,000 visits, according to National Park Service statistics; in May 2025 only 10,886 visitors passed through the entrance gate. Current numbers aren’t yet available, but I imagine this year’s visitation will be far lower. And once the boat ramp ceases to function, I imagine the numbers will plummet further.
Boats, redrock, and snowy Henry Mountains at Bullfrog Marina. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
The National Park Service is planning to build a new, deeper-water boat launch at Stanton Creek, a couple of miles from central Bullfrog, where the marina can be moved permanently. The project is expected to cost some $73 million, and won’t be completed this year. It’s a type of climate adaptation, I suppose, though one can’t help wonder how long the fix will last if the reservoir’s levels keep dropping.
Meanwhile, Bullfrog’s future is in doubt. A series of especially snowy winters in the high country might be enough to bring Bullfrog back from the edge of obsolescence. Maybe they won’t even need the Stanton Creek site. On the other hand, just one more below-average snowpack year could doom Lake Powell altogether. If Colorado River flows don’t increase substantially in the next year or two, the Bureau of Reclamation will have little choice but to build tunnels to bypass Glen Canyon Dam and effectively drain the reservoir in order to keep water running into the Grand Canyon and on to Lake Mead.
The question then would be whether Bullfrog could (or would even want to) adapt to a different sort of tourism.
The place might try to cater to hikers and small-watercraft users looking to check out newly revealed parts of Glen Canyon that have been inundated for the last several decades. And it could lure travelers exploring the greater region’s backcountry, though it’s not clear that type of visitor is going to be interested in the type of accommodations and services Bullfrog currently offers. Maybe it will just become a destination for disaster-tourist voyeurs looking to see the effects of climate change in real-time. Or, perhaps Bullfrog will become another Hite Marina, which the shrinking reservoir has left high and dry, its boat ramp separated from the lake by some six miles, the store and campground permanently shuttered and gated off.
Sightseers at Hite Overlook gazing down at the “Dominy Formation” of silt left behind by the receding waters of Lake Powell. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
Hite Marina and boat ramp on what once was the northern end of Lake Powell. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
The last time I visited Bullfrog was in the late 1980s. My dad, my brother, and I camped at Halls Crossing, then woke up and rode the ferry across the lake. From there we made an epic loop around and over the Henry Mountains along the then-unimproved Burr Trail and another gnarly road in our 1967 Pontiac Catalina. It took at least eight hours and involved some extensive road-building to keep the boat-like vehicle from bottoming out. Anyway, I remember Bullfrog as being a bustling resort with a sort of spring break party vibe, relative to the more bare-bones Halls Crossing. Of course, those were the glory days for Lake Powell, when the reservoir was full, and at the end of a bone-jarring drive across the desert one could stop at the Hite Marina for refreshments.
That night I listened to the sand batter the sliding glass door of my hotel room. The next morning, the reservoir’s placid waters reflected dawn’s first light, and the distant sandstone dunes seemed to glow from within. And to the north, a fresh coating of snow covered the craggy slopes of the Henry Mountains, promising a little bit of relief from these dry and trying times.
Henry Mountains. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
📸 Parting Shots 🎞️
Early light, the Colorado River canyon, and the Henry Mountains from the White Canyon drainage. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
Apache Plume and canyon in Utah. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
During the week, a highly variable weather pattern brought wide temperature swings to much of the contiguous United States. An unusually cold airmass that had settled over the Plains at the start of the week pushed eastward, bringing a rapid and stormy end to the early season heat wave across the Eastern Seaboard. In contrast, the West baked under much above normal temperatures. By mid-week, much above-normal temperatures had returned to the Plains, with daily maximum temperatures climbing into the upper 90s in some locations. As temperatures began to rebound across the East, cooler air overspread the Pacific states by the end of the week.
The strong temperature gradients that set up across the Nation, coupled with ample Gulf moisture streaming northward resulted in widespread heavy and persistent precipitation, with many locations exceeding two inches from eastern Texas and Oklahoma northeastward to the mid-Atlantic states, and isolated instances of 6 or more inches in some spots. Widespread rainfall, albeit with lighter accumulations, fell across the north-central Plains as daily temperatures warmed, but mostly dry weather prevailed across the upper Mississippi Valley and western Corn Belt. West of the Rockies, mostly dry weather prevailed for most of the week, but showers associated with a strong cold front overspread the Northwest at the very end of the period…
As below-normal temperatures transitioned back to a hot pattern across the High Plains, widespread precipitation moved through the region. Areas of convection brought up to 2 inches of rain to portions of eastern Nebraska and eastern Colorado, while amounts were generally an inch or less elsewhere. This precipitation was sufficient to bring some drought reduction across northern and northeastern Colorado, but drier conditions across southeastern Colorado and Kansas, coupled with hot temperatures, resulted in degradation. A sharp cutoff in precipitation was also noted across the far western Dakotas, where small areas of degradation were noted along the borders with Wyoming and Montana…
Colorado Drought Monitor one week change map ending May 26, 2026.
Mostly dry weather and above-normal temperatures dominated the Western Region during the week sparking some small-scale degradation across Montana, Idaho, and New Mexico, where the effects of the meager winter snow cover are beginning to be felt in falling streamflow values. Status quo was maintained west of the Rockies for the most part, as reservoir conditions remain good across California during a climatologically dry time of year. At the end of the week, a strong cold front brought abnormal moisture to the Northwest and northern Rockies. While not sufficient to substantively alter the drought depiction, a modest reduction in abnormal dryness was noted in far northwestern Washington…
Widespread heavy rainfall overspread the Southern Region, with amounts increasing from west to east. Accumulations of 2 to locally more than 5 inches fell across most of Tennessee, engendering widespread drought reduction. Rainfall was locally heavy but a bit spottier across Louisiana and Arkansas, which also saw widespread drought reduction but with less coverage. Across Texas, heavy rainfall across the eastern half of the state yielded drought improvements and also localized flooding. Across North Texas, localized convection brought relief to some areas, but hot conditions resulted in degradation where precipitation did not occur…
Looking Ahead
During the upcoming week, a late season storm system across the West is forecast to bring abnormal moisture to California, Oregon, and Washington, with precipitation spreading eastward to the northern Rockies by mid-week. The heaviest accumulations are forecast across the southern Cascades. Periods of convection are favored across the Plains states throughout the week, with the WPC 7-day quantitative precipitation outlook showing a potential for 1 inch or locally more across portions of Nebraska and Kansas, where Gulf moisture advection is most pronounced. Across the eastern third of the CONUS, unsettled weather is favored to continue across the Southeast, with the focus of heaviest precipitation shifting towards Florida and the south Atlantic coastal plain. A slow moving cold front is forecast to push east during the period, maintaining showery weather across the Deep South while cooler and drier conditions overspread the Corn Belt and Northeast.
During Week-2, the trough over the East is favored to rapidly de-amplify, with temperatures quickly moderating. Above-normal temperatures are favored across the West and northern tier of the CONUS on the latest CPC 8-14 day outlook, with mostly near-normal temperatures the most likely outcome across the South and Southeast regions. Unsettled weather and continued precipitation may play a role in keeping hot weather at bay across the southern tier. The CPC 8-14 day precipitation outlook favors above-normal precipitation across the Four Corners states eastward along the southern tier to the Atlantic coastline as far north as Virginia. Near normal precipitation is favored elsewhere, except for a small wet signal over the Pacific Northwest. Above-normal precipitation is favored for eastern Alaska, while above-normal temperatures and above-normal precipitation are both favored for Hawaii.
US Drought Monitor one week change map ending May 26, 2026.
Click the link to read the article on the Big Pivots website (Allen Best):
May 26, 2026
Dissonance exists between life-close-to-normal policies regarding urban water use and the growing crisis on the river
Casually surveying the urban landscapes in much of Colorado’s Front Range, you’d never know that the Colorado River — the source for roughly half the water of the cities — has deteriorated to its most pitiful shape of perhaps the last century.
Oh, yes, some utilities — notably Denver Water and Aurora Water, which together serve 1.9 million residents — have imposed rigorous stage-one drought watering restrictions. Outdoor irrigation is allowed twice per week and never during the heat of day. Other water utilities that tap Colorado River water, however, have asked only for voluntary cutbacks, if any at all.
Jeff Lukas via the Western Water Assessment.
Jeff Lukas, a water consultant with several decades invested in climate change work, says this seeming aloofness of some cities will not persist indefinitely. That is certainly true if the record heat and abnormal dryness of the past winter continues into 2027. They may have no choice.
“I think Front Range cities will be asked, whether nicely or not, to reduce their Colorado River diversions,” said Lukas in a May 11 webinar. “The mechanism for that is unclear, but I think it’s going to happen.”
Water rights of the Front Range cities — and many of those on the Western Slope, too — are junior to the Colorado River Compact. It was negotiated in 1922, making diversions more recent than that junior.
Problems in the basin were becoming apparent in the 1990s. The warming climate in this century has provoked changes. By all accounts, they have not been enough.
Lukas, as a dendrochronologist at the Institute of Alpine and Arctic Research in Boulder 20 years ago, was teasing out evidence from tree rings to understand the climates of the Colorado River Basin during the last 1,200 years.
Later, as a scientist with the Western Water Assessment, Lukas co-authored (with Liz Peyton) a 2020 report called Colorado River Basin Climate and Hydrology: State of the Science. That 500-page report integrated more than 800peer-reviewed studies to help water managers understand physical processes, climate risks, and forecasting tools across the basin.
In 2024, with the state climatologist, Russ Schumacher, and several others, Lukas turned out the 100-page volume called “Climate Change in Colorado.”
Based in Lafayette, Lukas now works as a consultant. At Lukas Climate Research and Consulting, he specializes in the overlapping areas of climate hazards, water resources, and ecosystems.
Lukas, in a presentation he titled “Running dry on the Colorado River: The roots of the crisis & its implications for the Front Range,” explained the big picture and Colorado’s Front Range part in it.
Defined by the Continental Divide, Colorado has an inverse relationship between its eastern and western slopes. About 90% of the state’s residents live to the east, nearly all at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, whereas 80% of the state’s precipitation originates on the west side, in the headwaters of the Colorado River and its tributaries.
Snow from the Gore Range and other “islands” of precipitation in Colorado provide 50% to 60% of the water in the Colorado River. Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots
Colorado itself provides 50% to 60% of the water in the entire Colorado River, depending upon the year. This year has been a terrible year everywhere in the basin, Colorado included.
Lukas explained that “islands of moisture” provide nearly all the water in this 244,000-square-mile basin. The high mountains constitute these islands. Some places deliver more than others. Buffalo Pass, near Steamboat, famously has had prodigious volumes of snow. This snow, when melted, can produce 50 inches of water.
It takes 20 inches or more of precipitation in these mountain islands to produce meaningful runoff. Even then, it doesn’t all end up in the Colorado River. In Colorado and the three upper-basin states, he said, 16% of the rain and snow that falls becomes water in the Colorado River. In the hotter lower basin, the figure is 3%.
“The atmosphere takes back most of what it giveth, even in the wetter upper basin,” he said.
Evaporation and transpiration are the pickpockets of this water. Heat produces evaporation, and we’ve had plenty of that this year.
Temperatures during November through April were the warmest on record in Colorado for that span of months. March heat was exceptional. This produced runoff in the rivers that in most cases may surpass that of May or June, the traditional times for peak runoff. Peak runoff has been trending earlier by several weeks during the last few decades, but this was a leap of about two months.
Runoff for April through July — a time that normally accounts for 70% to 80% of annual streamflows — this year will likely deliver no better than 20% to 40%. In its May report, the Bureau of Reclamation said April flows into Lake Powell were 40% of the average during the last 30 years and it expects flows in May to sink to 9% of that average.
Can it get any worse? Count on it, said Lukas.
“We should expect not every year to look like 2026 from here on out, but more years in the future will look like 2026. And somewhere down the pipe, not as far in the future as we would like, there will be a year worse than 2026 for the Colorado River.”
Members of the Colorado River Commission, in Santa Fe in 1922, after signing the Colorado River Compact. From left, W. S. Norviel (Arizona), Delph E. Carpenter (Colorado), Herbert Hoover (Secretary of Commerce and Chairman of Commission), R. E. Caldwell (Utah), Clarence C. Stetson (Executive Secretary of Commission), Stephen B. Davis, Jr. (New Mexico), Frank C. Emerson (Wyoming), W. F. McClure (California), and James G. Scrugham (Nevada) CREDIT: COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY WATER RESOURCES ARCHIVE via Aspen Journalism
This is so very different from what was assumed by the delegates from the seven basin states who gathered in 1922 in Santa Fe to apportion the Colorado River.
The role of reservoirs
Taking the big, long-term view, Lukas pointed out that the overall story of the Colorado River is one of modifications needed to suit human uses. “It’s all about smoothing out the natural variability in the availability of water over space and over time.”
Reservoirs are the primary means by which humans have been able to “smooth out the natural variability.”
The Colorado River Basin has 60 million acre-feet of storage. That’s four times the annual flow. Five-sixths of the storage capacity is found in the desert in two vessels: lakes Mead and Powell. The headwaters have many reservoirs but they are relatively small. The total storage capacity is 2,000 times more than the volume of Dillon Reservoir.
Illustration from the report, “Antique Plumbing & Leadership Postponed” from the Utah Rivers Council, Glen Canyon Institute and the Great Basin Water Network. Courtesy of Utah Rivers Council
Since 2000, stored water in those two big buckets, Mead and Powell, has declined from 49 million acre-feet to 16 million acre-feet as of May. Of that, 9 million lies at elevations below the lowest outlets. These are called dead pools.
Those delegates in 1922 who crafted the Colorado River Compact, the legal document that provided the basis for nearly all these dams and aqueducts subsequently built, assumed annual flows of 17 million to 18 million acre-feet. They were overly optimistic. The 20th century average was 15.2 million acre-feet.
Now comes the 21st century, and the average at Lee Ferry has dipped to 12.2 million acre-feet. This has implications for the Front Range cities but also farms. If Colorado must reduce its diversions to accord with the compact, those rights dated before 1922 will be exempt from reductions. The giant transmountain diversions have come more recently, as have many of the diversions for towns and cities on the Western Slope.
Accumulating evidence fingers human-caused climate change with large amounts of responsibility for declined flows. Lukas said his rule of thumb is that the role of greenhouse gases overall are responsible for two-thirds of lower flows.
Colorado statewide annual temperature anomaly (°F) with respect to the 1901-2000 average. Graphic credit: Colorado Climate Center
As for the mechanics of this shift, rising heat is one important “knob,” said Lukas. As the atmosphere warms, it reduces “runoff efficiency” even more, sending water into the atmosphere instead of into streams and then rivers. Accumulating evidence fingers human-caused climate change with responsibility for most and possibly all of increased temperatures.
Precipitation has declined about 5% since 2000, with a larger reduction in spring, an important time of year to get moisture. Here, the link to the warming climate is less clear. “It seems increasingly likely that climate change is changing the dynamics of storm tracks and the persistence of, say, high-pressure systems over the interior West,” said Lukas. “That is, at least in part, responsible for why we’ve had less precipitation since 2000.”
The Colorado River, though, had problems even before the warming climate began throwing sharp elbows in water volumes. The reservoirs of the Colorado River Basin were 92% full in 1999, a wet decade overall. Even then, however, the Colorado River had ceased to reach the Pacific Ocean. There were too many straws inserted.
Less than 12% of the river’s flow goes to urbanized and industrial uses. Lukas pointed out that cities have become more efficient in their use of water. The rule of thumb for Denver and other Western cities is that one acre-feet of water meets the needs of a three households on an annual basis. That compares with two households a few decades ago.
Mining of fossil fuels and minerals uses a small amount. Evaporation from reservoirs and rivers and other “system losses” accounts for about 15%.
That takes us to agriculture. It uses 75% of the river’s water in the Colorado River for irrigation on 5 million acres. Some of that land lies outside the basin itself. That includes the South Platte and Arkansas River valleys of eastern Colorado.
Over half of that water — about 9 million acre-feet — gets used to grow feed for livestock, mainly alfalfa and pasture grass.
Might cities want to cut deals with farmers to “share” the water? This discussion has been underway for at least 15 to 20 years. Some pilot projects in Colorado and elsewhere have been launched to see what this might look like. A strong proponent has been James Eklund, a water attorney in Denver. Others question how this is done and, for that matter, whether we want to do it. But certainly, water for urban uses has higher monetary value than growing hay to feed cattle.
Why the restraint of cities?
As for the Front Range cities, the big question is whether they are planning for a river that produces even less than it does now.
In 2024, Andy Mueller, the general manager of the Colorado River Water Conservation District, suggested the need to start planning for a river that may deliver less than 10 million acre-feet in coming decades. Some thought then that the state engineer, Jason Ullman, needed to start sorting through this matter of junior vs. senior rights. Jim Lochhead, a former water attorney on the Western Slope and later CEO of Denver Water, pushed back, saying it was premature given the huge amount of work that would be required. See: “Heading for the Colorado River Cliff,” Big Pivots, Oct. 20, 2024.
At the Zoom session on May 11, I asked Lukas about the modest watering restrictions by Front Range water providers. He had previously described mixed signals from the water utilities. If 2027 is dry again, expect more uniformity around drought restrictions. “But it’s pretty weird right now,” he said.
With the attention to the Colorado River in the news media, it seemed like a perfect opportunity for the water utilities to mount more aggressive campaigns. Any idea why they had not, I wondered.
The utilities, he said, are reluctant to deliver regulations that produce discomfort around outdoor water-use restrictions. They don’t want to do this unless absolutely necessary.
Part of this is because of experiences during the covid epidemic. A lesson to public servants during that time made them more reluctant to push the public to do things they don’t want to do. “You only want to exercise that authority, that public legal authority, sparingly and only when it’s clear that is what is really necessary.”
Revenue was another consideration. Water infrastructure is expensive, and the money to pay for it comes from charges for water use. By imposing limits, you reduce revenue and hence must charge more for water. The conundrum is that reducing use doesn’t necessarily mean you pay less. In some cases, less water may require more infrastructure. This is a hard message to convey.
“What you’re seeing is a dissonance between the circumstances and what’s happening, at least this year,” he said.
Or at least right now. We have had rainy weather in May. Some meteorologists think we may end up with healthy rainfall this summer. If instead the summer is like the winter, very hot and dry, I expect the utilities might pick up their game.
This USGS map shows the number of PFAS detected in tap water samples from select sites across the nation. The findings are based on a USGS study of samples taken between 2016 and 2021 from private and public supplies at 716 locations. The map does not represent the only locations in the U.S. with PFAS. Sources/Usage: Public Domain. Visit Media to see details.
EPA aims to end federal regulation of four PFAS in drinking water and give utilities more time to comply with existing rules.
FEMA reopens applications for a climate-resilient infrastructure grant program that the agency had cancelled.
Bureau of Reclamation announces $52 million for three new Hoover Dam turbines that will generate hydropower at lower Lake Mead levels.
A House FY27 budget bill will cut the federal government’s primary water infrastructure funds by 24 percent.
NOAA forecasts fewer Atlantic hurricanes this season.
EPA water office leader commits to investigate groundwater pollution in Georgia from Meta data center construction.
The Trump administration recommends that the U.S. Supreme Court take up Nebraska’s claim that Colorado has violated a river-sharing compact.
And lastly, the Bureau of Reclamation’s acting commissioner informs a House subcommittee about the status of Colorado River negotiations.
“Several weeks ago, I met with the 14 senators from the Colorado River basin and on a bipartisan basis, several of them said, ‘Look, we have a real crisis on the Colorado and we need to get things done and if there are any environmental statutes that are slowing things down, tell us what they are and maybe we can legislate to clear out some of the unhelpful bureaucratic paperwork.’” – Scott Cameron, acting Bureau of Reclamation commissioner, speaking at a House Natural Resources subcommittee hearing. Cameron said his office has not yet followed up on the offer but “looked forward” to conferring with the senators about “waiving or streamlining certain environmental statutes on the Colorado.”
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
As for the status of Colorado River negotiations, Cameron said, “Frankly, the seven states are not in a position where they could agree today, right now, to a four-year deal, let alone a 20-year deal, because of the uncertainties we’re dealing with.”
By the Numbers
$1 Billion: Funding now available from FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, a grant opportunity to reduce risk from climate and weather hazards. A federal judge ordered the agency to reinstate the program, which the Trump administration had cancelled. Applications are due July 23.
$52 Million: Funding announced by the Bureau of Reclamation for three new low-head turbines at Hoover Dam. Only five of the dam’s 17 turbines are designed to operate when Lake Mead drops below elevation 1,035 feet, a threshold that the shrinking reservoir is fast approaching and could breach in the next 12 months, if not sooner.
Not So PFAS The EPA is proposing to repeal federal regulation of four PFAS in drinking water, partially undoing a Biden-era rule that set first-ever limits on six of the “forever chemicals.”
Three of the chemicals – PFHxS, PFNA, and Gen X – were regulated individually. Together with PFBS, they were also regulated as a mixture.
The EPA will retain standards for PFOA and PFOS, the two most-studied of the chemicals. However, in a separate rule-making, the agency is proposing to give water utilities more time to comply, extending the deadline by two years, until 2031. The agency says the move will “ease the implementation burden” financially and administratively for water systems and might allow for cheaper treatment technologies to come to market.
Water utilities must apply for an extension. One of the considerations is whether an extension would pose an “unreasonable risk to health.” The EPA is proposing that PFOA and PFOS levels below 12 parts per trillion would not be unreasonable. (The federal standard for both is 4 ppt.)
The EPA wants public comment on whether interim utility actions during a compliance extension – point-of-use treatment, filtration pitchers, education, alternative water sources – can mitigate health risks above 12 ppt.
Water Infrastructure Funding Cuts A House spending bill cuts the two main federal sources of water infrastructure funding by about 24 percent in fiscal year 2027. The bill passed out of subcommittee last week.
The bill provides $1.2 billion for the Clean Water State Revolving Fund (27 percent cut) and $911 million for the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (19 percent cut).
Following a recent trend, about half of the appropriation comes in the form of earmarks. This money will go directly to specific projects and will not enter the revolving fund. Water industry advocates argue that continuing to take earmarks out of the revolving fund appropriation threatens the viability of the program.
Studies and Reports
The South Platte River Basin is shaded in yellow. Source: Tom Cech, One World One Water Center, Metropolitan State University of Denver.
Great Plains Water Fight The federal government’s top lawyer recommended that the U.S. Supreme Court take up one of Nebraska’s claims that Colorado is violating the South Platte River Compact, which divides the river’s water between the two states.
Nebraska argues that Colorado is breaking three articles of the compact. The U.S. solicitor general says that the high court, through a special master, should pursue only one of them: that Colorado is allowing irrigators to take too much water.
“A claim that one State has deprived another of water to which it is entitled under an interstate compact is a quintessential case for this Court’s original jurisdiction,” the brief states.
Atlantic Hurricanes NOAA is forecasting a less active Atlantic hurricane season. The agency estimates that one to three major hurricanes (Category 3 or higher) will form.
The category ratings can be misleading. They measure wind speed, not precipitation. Tropical storms and minor hurricanes can still inflict serious flood damage.
Air Conditioning Estimates The U.S. Census Bureau published data estimating how many homes use air conditioning.
States with the lowest air conditioning use are in New England and the West.
On the Radar
EPA on Data Centers and Household Wells Under oath at a House subcommittee oversight hearing, Jessica Kramer, head of the EPA Office of Water, committed to investigate impacts to drinking water quality from data center construction.
“Whatever type of construction it is, it’s a priority to ensure that water quality standards established by EPA are being met. So we’ll be looking into that certainly,” Kramer said.
Kramer’s commitment at the House Energy and Commerce hearing was prompted by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) who asked about water pollution from data center construction.
Ocasio-Cortez visited Morgan County, Georgia, a few weeks ago. She returned with jars of brown water from household wells near the construction site of a Meta data center. She displayed those at the hearing.
“This is what the drinking water now looks like, next to that data center,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
“As soon as I get back to the office, I will be looking into exactly what you just talked about,” Kramer replied.
Army Corps Deauthorized Projects The Army Corps published a list of water projects that it intends to deauthorize.
These are projects that were authorized years ago but either haven’t ever received funding or haven’t recently received funding.
Public comment on the proposal runs through August 19. Submit comments at http://www.regulations.gov using docket number COE-2026-0034.
Federal Water Tap is a weekly digest spotting trends in U.S. government water policy. To get more water news, follow Circle of Blue on Twitter and sign up for our newsletter.
View of Shoshone Hydroelectric Plant construction in Glenwood Canyon (Garfield County) Colorado; shows the Colorado River, the dam, sheds, a footbridge, and the workmen’s camp. Creator: McClure, Louis Charles, 1867-1957. Credit: Denver Public Library Digital Collections
Click the link to read the article on The Denver Post website (Elise Schmelzer). Here’s an excerpt:
May 22, 2026
For more than a year, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has withheld $40 million awarded to the Colorado River District for the purchase of the water rights attached to Xcel Energy’s aging Shoshone Power Plant in Glenwood Canyon. The release of the federal funding brings the total amount secured for the purchase to $97 million — just shy of the $99 million needed for the project. For years, the river district — a taxpayer-funded agency based in Glenwood Springs that works to protect Western Slope water — has worked to purchase the rights from the utility. Its leaders want to ensure that, even in dry years, the billions of gallons of water the rights command continue to flow west through the canyon and to the communities, wildlife habitats and farms downstream. The district and other Western Slope entities feared the certainty of the flows would be threatened if another purchaser — like a Front Range utility — were able to snag the rights first. The purchase is a “once-in-a-generation” investment in securing Western Slope water supplies, said Andy Mueller, the general manager of the Colorado River District, in a news release Friday. The federal dollars will add to the $20 million contributed by the Colorado Water Conservation Board and the $37 million raised by the district from Western Slope governments, organizations and irrigators.
“This award is a major breakthrough in our coalition’s effort to permanently secure historic flows on the Colorado River,” he said…
The federal funding brings the Shoshone water rights deal — originally inked in 2023 — one step closer to completion. Xcel Energy still needs approval for the sale from Colorado’s public utility regulators, and the river district m
Water influences every aspect of our lives through a delicate cycle that transforms liquid water into vapor and back again.
As the Earth warms, more of that precipitation is arriving in intense storms that deliver more water than the landscape can handle. When storms drop a few inches of rain over a few days, the water sinks into the soil, nourishing plants and replenishing groundwater. But during heavy downpours, the rain can’t sink in fast enough, and much of the water runs off instead, often fueling flooding.
Water also evaporates faster in warmer temperatures. So, despite an increase in total annual precipitation nationally, the landscape is drying out more rapidly as temperatures rise, resulting in more severe and frequent droughts.
I’m a hydrologist at UMass Amherst. My colleagues and I are documenting these broad shifts and what they mean for the future of the terrestrial hydrological cycle – the water cycle on land – and the people and ecosystems that depend on it. The effects are occurring across climates around the world.
A hydrological cycle out of sync
Fundamentally, the terrestrial hydrological cycle is controlled by two things: precipitation that adds moisture to the ground and evapotranspiration, meaning water that evaporates either from the land back into the atmosphere or from plants releasing it through their leaves.
During heavy precipitation in the U.S. Northeast, water is rapidly routed through the shallow subsurface rather than reaching deeper soil and groundwater storage. Julianna C Huba, et al., 2026
When this balance shifts or becomes out of sync with its natural state, it affects how water moves through the landscape. And that directly influences where water is available and how much is there.
These shifts in precipitation are occurring alongside longer growing seasons that allow the land to accumulate more heat. As temperatures rise, drier air also pulls more water from the landscape, increasing the risk of drought.
The changing timing of precipitation can result in counterintuitive feedbacks, as recent studies in the Northeast have shown.
In one study, scientists at Harvard Forest found that more intense storms are delivering greater amounts of water at rates exceeding the soil’s capacity to retain it. For example, in 2023 they found that high-intensity events in their research area made up about 42% of the year’s total precipitation.
This effect from bursts of heavy rain with dry periods in between shows up in data. My research group at UMass found in a separate study that while wet years in the Northeast are becoming more frequent, dry years are also becoming more frequent.
Data collected by scientists with Harvard Forest, near Petersham, Mass., from 1964 to 2023 shows how precipitation has been increasing, with a large percentage of it coming from downpours. Samuel Jurado and Jackie Matthes, 2025, CC BY-NC-SA
During the wettest years over the past decade, we found an accumulation of approximately 2 inches of water in the shallow ground, contributing to higher water tables, more frequent flooding and damage to infrastructure during heavy rainstorms.
Many states are now incorporating climate science into decisions about infrastructure and land use to better understand the risks ahead. Massachusetts, for example, created a climate data clearinghouse to make research and data widely available. It also invested in computer models to examine potential future scenarios of water storage on the landscape so communities and farmers can prepare.
Communities can boost their resilience to extreme storms with urban designs and construction that take flood risk into account, include careful drainage as more areas are paved and add features such as rain gardens, riverside parks and bioswales that move and hold more water where needed.
To manage dry years, communities can implement conservation measures, such as limiting outdoor watering, subsidizing low-flow toilets and showers, and using water pricing to encourage more careful use. They can also teach residents how to use less water and generally be more mindful of water use.
On a larger scale, a new study using computer models indicates that more aggressive efforts to reduce the drivers of climate change – particularly reducing greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels – can reverse the trend of extreme precipitation, eventually returning to rates seen in the 20th century.
Until that happens, however, the world will have to adapt to a changing hydrological cycle.
Insulators at an electrical substation. Image provided by Storyblocks.
by Robert Marcos
Most of us might assume that our monthly utility bills are slowly paying off the power grid, but the reality is that the electrical grid is a financial treadmill that never actually stops. This constant cycle of compounding interest, depreciation, and emergency retrofits means that the grid is never truly paid off; instead, consumers are locked into an endless loop of funding an aging asset that falls deeper into debt with every necessary upgrade.1
Energy lost during transmission: In the United States about 5% of generated electricity is lost during transmission and distribution, though some sources put the figure closer to 6–7% depending on how the losses are defined and measured.2
Physical Vulnerabilities: Critical substations are often located in extremely remote locations and are only protected by basic chain-link fences.
Threat of Electro-magnetic Pulse: Solar storms and high-altitude atomic detonations could knock out a power grid by inducing massive electrical currents in transmission lines that might overload and permanently destroy critical high-voltage transformers.
Sniper and Ballistic Attacks: Attackers can easily target and puncture fluid-filled high-voltage transformers from a distance.
The benefit of generating power where it’s needed
Generating power where it is consumed significantly reduces transmission losses that occur over long-distance power lines. In conventional centralized systems, electricity can lose a notable percentage of its energy as heat while traveling across vast grid networks. By producing electricity locally—through distributed energy resources such as rooftop solar, microturbines, or small-scale wind—these losses are minimized, resulting in greater overall system efficiency and more effective use of generated energy.3
Localized power generation also enhances grid resilience and reliability, particularly in regions vulnerable to extreme weather, wildfires, or infrastructure strain. Decentralized systems can operate independently or in microgrids, allowing critical facilities and communities to maintain power during outages that would otherwise disrupt centralized systems. This distributed approach reduces dependence on a single point of failure and supports faster recovery during emergencies.4
In addition, generating power at the point of use can provide economic and environmental advantages by aligning energy production with local needs and resources. It enables the integration of renewable energy sources tailored to regional conditions, reduces the need for costly transmission infrastructure, and can lower energy costs over time. For communities, businesses, and utilities, this approach supports cleaner energy adoption while fostering greater control over energy consumption and sustainability goals.5
The cover of a new book I’ve just published, Storm in My Head, a collection of poetry written over the 60 years I’ve been living in the headwaters of the Colorado River, since 1966 — George Sibley
This is the cover of a new book I’ve just published, Storm in My Head, a collection of poetry written over the 60 years I’ve been living in the headwaters of the Colorado River, since 1966. My 60-year celebration. Those of you who prefer your literature in sprints and strolls over the marathon essays I impose on you might enjoy this book. I’m in the process of getting it distributed, and it may eventually be in a bookstore near you or on Amazon; but for the time being, if you are interested, an email to me, george@gard-sibley.org, will initiate a response on how to get a little money to me (10 bucks plus shipping) to get an inscribed copy wending its way to you.
End of advertisement – back to the river….
Romancing the River – Elephants in the River
The Colorado River situation is moving toward replacing the existing ‘Interim Guidelines’ for managing the river system with a new set of interim guidelines for managing the river system. This new set is devised mostly by the Bureau of Reclamation, which is growing a little desperate to avoid the embarrassment of having its river system cause the flow of the river to stop – ‘dead pool’ – behind one or another of its big dams, in a river management system built for a considerably larger Colorado River – now as mythic a river as the biblical four that flowed out of the Garden of Eden.
All this makes me think I’ll briefly abandon my historical update of Frederick Dellenbaugh’s Romance of the Colorado River, and try to sort through what has been happening recently in the present, most of which we’ve been reading or hearing about in the media.
Reports on the river’s flow after the Weirdest Winter Ever (at least in recorded time) have just gotten worse and worse; now the anticipated inflow to Powell Reservoir is 13 percent of the thirty-year average, from tributary runoffs that peaked as much as two months earlier than the usual early June. The Bureau of Reclamation’s 24-month projection indicates that, if last year’s releases from Powell were replicated this year, they might have to stop generating power by late summer to protect the power turbines – which in effect declares the remaining quarter of the reservoir’s potential storage ‘dead pool,’ since the only other way past Glen Canyon Dam is through four outflow tubes of questionable viability that the Bureau would like to use as little as possible.
The Bureau will address this with two emergency measures: first, by bringing a large quantity of stored water down the Green River from Flaming Gorge Reservoir, and second, by cutting releases from Powell Reservoir by close to two million acre-feet (maf) – which in turn will leave Mead Reservoir lower and diminish its power generation. This is an emergency plan that can nowise be considered long-range planning.
The Lower Basin states in turn have bumped up their willingness to take more shortages for the next couple years by roughly doubling shortages they have already agreed to accept – if the feds will pay them something for not using water that is not there. Their earlier cuts were basically just enough to finally start taking out of their individual allotments the system losses (mostly evaporation) they have been dismissing, with Bureau cooperation, as being met through ‘surplus flows’ that effectively disappeared when the Central Arizona Project came online in the 1990s.
The four Upper Basin states have responded by suggested that it might be time to bring in a facilitator or mediator to conduct the seven-state negotiations on future management planning. This launched an episode of fussing between the Lower and Upper Basins as to who first had that idea, with the other basin objecting to it. But no one seems to be totally opposed to the idea at this point, and it might happen.
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
But basically it all seems to be in reaction to an ‘emergency’ water year, with no advance on more long-range planning – and there is no reason to believe that this year in just a one-shot emergency like the 1977 water year. It is just the most extreme year in an extreme period – the past quarter century – that is probably the shape of the future in the Colorado River region, and there are no more Flaming Gorge reservoirs to draw down for the next emergency year….
It’s probably important to remember a distinction: there is a river, the Colorado River, and we have overlaid on that river a management systemfor managing the river’s water for its human uses, a system whose parts either store water or distribute stored water to users. But we do not directly ‘manage’ the river itself, which runs according larger ‘operators’ – to global climate factors that we can inadvertently change but do not directly control, to what is happening to precipitation that falls in the river’s watersheds, and to how much what lives on the land (including us) interacts with the flow both on and below the land surface.
That last point – the water ‘on and below the land surface’ – strikes me as very important but largely ignored in the stalemated negotiations. You remember the metaphor of ‘the elephant in the room’: a big thing that everyone in the room is trying to ignore because to acknowledge it is to open a can of worms? (Sorry, mixing metaphors here.)
Well, we have ‘elephants in the river’ – or rather maybe in the ‘box’ containing the sacred Law of the River, through which we try to manage to the river. That’s the box that we’re all supposed to be ‘thinking outside of.’ Beginning to work ‘outside the box’ on anything will open a can of worms, but… are we going to have any choice, further down the road when it will be even harder if the elephants in the river continue to be ignored?
Trying to think in an integrated way of the water under the land as well as that on the land is one of our elephants in the river. We need to keep in mind the distribution of the freshwater all land-based life depends on (basically a solar-distilled three percent of the ocean’s water). In our times more than half of the freshwater on the planet is ‘banked’ in mountain glaciers and the ice sheets of the polar regions and Greenland – although this fraction is gradually diminishing under the changing climate. Of the remaining 35-40 percent, most of it is groundwater – water that soaks into the land, nurturing nearly all of the plant life that is the foundational food, fuel and housing supply for the animal kingdom (including us). This leaves only a small fraction of the water on the surface – lakes, wetlands, streams and rivers – and this is also a diminishing fraction, as the warming climate increases sublimation and evaporation from all waters exposed to the sun’s increasing power.
Typical water well
Yet that is also the fraction of freshwater over which nearly all the human squabbling is happening. For a long time, until the last century-plus, that was all the water that most of the animal kingdom could access, but now we have – and use, not wisely – pumps that make the groundwater accessible too.
We also know that most of that small fraction of surface water is pretty intimately connected to the groundwater. A river is not just a drain for water that failed to soak into the ground; as a river runs through its low-elevation course in a watershed, it constantly interacts with the groundwater, gaining water when the land is wet and the ground is full of water, and giving water to the land, as gravity permits, when the land is dry.
Healthy mountain meadows and wetlands are characteristic of healthy headwater systems and provide a variety of ecosystem services, or benefits that humans, wildlife, rivers and surrounding ecosystems rely on. The complex of wetlands and connected floodplains found in intact headwater systems can slow runoff and attenuate flood flows, creating better downstream conditions, trapping sediment to improve downstream water quality, and allowing groundwater recharge. These systems can also serve as a fire break and refuge during wildfire, can sequester carbon in the floodplain, and provide essential habitat for wildlife. Graphic by Restoration Design Group, courtesy of American Rivers
This knowledge ought to drive us toward thinking of groundwater and surface water as a single water source – not just our awareness that pumping the land dry will also diminish the river, but also our awareness that irrigating the chronically dry lands from the streams and rivers not only grows more plants and animal foods that the dry land could – but some of that irrigation water also sinks below the root zone to recharge the groundwater. The city of Gunnison, where I live, bought a ranch adjacent to the city because the city leaders knew enough about alluvial water to know that their groundwater supply (several relatively shallow wells) depended on keeping that ranch under irrigation from the river — water mostly cleaned by the ground it passes through.
But back to the Colorado River, the fraction of the water that does not soak into the land is a larger fraction than you would find in gentler lands primarily because most of the water falls on mountains in winter as snow, which melts in a relatively short time period as the weather warms, too fast for all of it to sink into land that is often too steep or too rocky for absorbing it anyway. But even in that ‘runoff period,’ scientists are learning that a lot of the water in the stream in the ‘spring flood’ season is groundwater flowing in from saturated lands.
Despite knowing all this, however, we persist in fighting over the fraction of freshwater that flows in the river’s watersheds through the year in the Colorado River region (natural basin plus out-of-basin extensions), and pay little in a basin-wide way to the use and abuse of groundwater. Only Colorado – to the best of my knowledge – has tried statewide to legally integrate the use of surface waters and groundwater: since 1969 all groundwater users had to acquire water rights, in the same priority system with surface water users. And – before there was easy access to computers and spreadsheets – all groundwater uses going back almost a century were also integrated into that priority system, a massive ‘can of worms’ to negotiate.
What’s been happening in Colorado for 35 years then is the beginning of the intelligent management of an integrated surface-and-groundwater supply – apparently far too intelligent for the Trumpish agri-industrialists of the two largest Colorado River water users, Southern California and Arizona. Arizona was forced to develop a groundwater management plan (1970) for the areas of Arizona that would be served by the federal Central Arizona Project, in order to get Congress to pass the project; but the rest of the state has been pumping groundwater at prodigious rates, with surface subsidence as evidence of collapsing emptied aquifers that are lost forever. Most of California’s groundwater overpumping is up in the Central Valley, not ‘served’ by the Colorado River, but as Colorado River flows inexorably diminish in a warming world, there will be growing temptations to pump in the Imperial and Coachella Valleys.
I have not found figures for the amount of unregulated groundwater ‘mining’ that goes on in the Colorado river region, but the number and volume of aquifers that have collapsed and been lost due to water-mining would probably go a long way toward filling Mead and Powell Reservoirs. And if you pause for a second and think about it, storing water underground is probably better than storing it in open reservoirs under a desert sun.
That is not the only elephant in the Colorado River – and most of them lead back, one way or another to the Colorado River Compact. The ‘temporary’ two-basin division that has clearly become toxic. Acknowledgement that the compact commission’s original goal of a seven-state division is not just possible now, but has been realized, to everyone’s discontent, making the two-basin division nothing but a battleground. Acceptance of the fact that the diminished river will continue to diminish so long as we continue to put greenhouse gases into the atmosphere faster than the planet can absorb them. Acknowledgment of the fact that as the planet warms, surface storage in big desert reservoirs is a bad idea that will get worse. Acceptance of the fact that the reconvening of a compact commission is overdue, to formalize the seven-state division and its appropriative consequences. And maybe the biggest worm-can of all: are some reasonable, even moral, limits on the appropriation doctrine possible?
We’ll look at some of these other elephants in future posts here – which I think is where the ‘romance of the Colorado River’ is today. I also think we will never have a workable resolution to our current river-system problems until we take on the elephants and bump our own consciousness of water in the arid regions up a notch from the naive ‘conquest of the desert.’
Map of the Colorado River drainage basin, created using USGS data. By Shannon1 Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0
Click the link to access the report on the Frontiers in Environmental Science website (Laura M. Norman, Michael M. Pollock, Francina Dominguez, Michael A. Crimmins, David Lawrence5 and Michael Dettinger). Here’s the abstract:
Drylands across the globe are experiencing intensifying water scarcity, land degradation, and hydroclimatic extremes. This review integrates evidence from multidecadal field studies, hydrologic monitoring, geomorphic and ecological assessments, remote sensing, and land–atmosphere science to evaluate how restoration influences key components of the terrestrial water cycle. Low-tech natural infrastructure in dryland streams (NIDS)—including check dams, leaky weirs, one-rock dams, and gabions—has emerged as a promising but under-synthesized nature-based solution for restoring hydrologic function in these environments. We describe the mechanisms through which these interventions modify runoff detention, infiltration, sediment and alluvial storage, shallow-groundwater recharge, vegetation recovery, and surface-energy partitioning, and we summarize outcomes across diverse dryland settings. Findings consistently show increased water residence time, enhanced soil-moisture storage, expanded riparian vegetation, extended flow duration, and shifts toward greater latent-heat flux—producing localized cooling and strengthened ecohydrological feedbacks. Building on these localized effects, we articulate a hypothesis that links the spatial extent of restoration, the density of NIDS per unit drainage area, and the magnitude of the latent-to-sensible-heat contrast generated by wetter post-rainfall conditions. Specifically, we hypothesize that when NIDS are implemented at densities permitted by topography and across areas large enough to maintain elevated soil moisture after storm events, the resulting increases in latent heat flux, surface cooling, and boundary-layer moistening may enhance moisture convergence and boundary-layer development, potentially increasing the likelihood or stability of convective precipitation, analogous to how reductions in these processes have contributed to regional drought intensification. These land–atmosphere feedbacks remain untested at scale but represent an important research Frontier. By integrating hydrologic, geomorphic, ecological, and atmospheric perspectives, this review provides a comprehensive framework for considering how low-tech, landscape-scale interventions can strengthen watershed resilience and contribute to climate-relevant nature-based solutions.
Enforcement actions will be left up to local water providers, who urge Utahns to cut back on outdoor irrigation.
Following Utah’s winter of “no-pack,” Gov. Spencer Cox has declared a state of emergency over drought conditions. The governor and Utah water managers stood near the shores of Little Dell Reservoir in Salt Lake County to outline how dire conditions have become: the worst snowfall seen in generations. Record-breaking spring heat. Rural towns that will have practically no irrigation season this summer. Forestry managers bracing for a rough fire season. And the continued decline of the Great Salt Lake and Colorado River.
“We can’t bank on what Mother Nature might deliver next winter,” Cox said at a news conference Thursday [May 22, 2026]. “Precipitation isn’t promised, and conservation is a choice that we can all make, and must make at this time.”
Utah’s April 1 snowpack averaged 2.7 inches of snow water equivalent, the amount of water the snow releases when it melts. That’s the lowest since 1930, the governor said. The normal snow water equivalent is around 14 inches at the start of April. In 2023, which saw record snowfall, the state had an average of 28 inches in April. Snowmelt provides almost all of the water supplies across the state, and runoff is what helps the Great Salt Lake and reservoirs rise each spring. The governor’s emergency declaration does not contain any mandatory actions, though. It calls on Utahns to voluntarily take water-saving measures like fixing irrigation leaks, installing low-flow toilets and replacing unused grass with water-wise plants…The Utah Department of Agriculture and Food said the declaration opens up the Emergency Disaster Relief Loan program for farmers and ranchers across the state. The program offers seven-year loans of up to $100,000 at 0% interest for the first 2 years, and 2.75% interest thereafter. Those funds can only be used for declared disaster-related losses not covered by insurance, the department said.
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 KVNF website (Brody Wilson). Here’s an excerpt:
May 19, 2026
A special mid-year West Slope Water Summit brought together water managers and community leaders to address a dire water year. Projected inflows into Lake Powell are expected to be well below half of normal — and negotiations over the river’s future remain unresolved.
A special mid-year West Slope Water Summit convened this week in Montrose — called early because the situation couldn’t wait until November. Montrose County Commissioner Sue Hansen organized the gathering after attending the Colorado River District’s State of the River address. She told attendees it was time to step up the urgency.
“This year is the first year that I am not optimistic,” Hansen said. “This is unprecedented and perhaps sobering for all of us.”
[…]
“The Lower Basin has put out, maybe you guys have heard of this, bridge proposal a couple weeks ago that in my opinion is a joke,” she said.
Her frustration centers on the math. The proposal calls for reducing water use by 3 million acre-feet over two years. But Flinker says that’s nowhere near enough — the river needs cuts of at least that much every single year. At the heart of the standoff is a hard reality. There is currently much less water in the river than we have been using, and no one anticipates that changing any time soon.
As Flinker puts it, “Well, I can speak for myself and you probably have the same opinion. Who wants to reduce their water usage? Right? No one. And the Lower Basin has used over 10 million, close to 11 million, acre-feet out of this river every year, much above their allocation. They don’t want to use less – especially when it’s not a little less – it’s like half, right?”
Southeastern Colorado’s farmers and farming communities say they’ve won valuable protections against the historic worst practices of cities’ “buy and dry” of agricultural water, after final passage of revegetation requirements along the Lower Arkansas River that may spread to other basins of the state.
“For the first time in Colorado, this new law establishes that when irrigation water is permanently removed from farmland for other uses, the responsibility to properly revegetate and reclaim that land belongs to the entity removing the water,” said Jack Goble, general manager of the bill’s primary advocate, the Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District.
“It also strengthens the role of local counties by requiring the water court to incorporate their revegetation criteria and enforcement mechanisms into change-of-use decrees. At its core, this law sets clear expectations, creates accountability and helps protect the land, neighboring landowners and rural communities that are left behind when water leaves,” Goble said.
Southeastern Colorado advocates conceded some measures after the bill’s introduction.
The original bill limited a water use transfer to 50% of the purchased water until 50% of the affected farmland had been successfully revegetated against erosion and deterioration. The bill as passed removes the hard percentage, and gives city water agencies more flexibility when they buy, such as posting a bond or negotiating conditions during local permit applications.
The initial bill language had a hard requirement for a five-year water court oversight of revegetation after a rights transfer to guarantee reclamation. The bill as passed gives water courts the ability to create an oversight period, but only when there is “a substantial risk that reclamation could regress,” Goble said.
The final bill gives assurances to Arkansas Valley communities by requiring any reclamation agreements with cities to be written into change-of-use decrees, after the details have been negotiated by an intergovernmental agreement in a permit.
“Colorado agricultural lands are vital to our economy and way of life in Colorado, and protecting Colorado lands from the impacts of drought, erosion and invasive weeds is important to protecting our natural resources and our communities. The governor will review the final version of the bill,” spokesperson Ally Sullivan said.
Aurora Water officials, from one of the Front Range water agencies that has traveled far for decades to acquire river rights and agricultural water rights, said they support concepts in the legislation, but have reservations about how it might be executed.
“Aurora Water has actively worked in the Lower Arkansas Valley for decades, including opening an office in Rocky Ford in 1988 with full-time staff dedicated to supporting long-term revegetation and land stewardship efforts after water has been removed from agricultural production,” said Aurora Water spokesperson Shonnie Cline. “In many respects, House Bill 1340 was largely modeled after practices Aurora Water has implemented in the region, and we strongly support the overall intent of the legislation.”
Cline said Aurora Water backs responsible reclamation, and “at this time, we do not anticipate the bill significantly changing Aurora Water’s current operations in the region.”
Aurora Water is much less enthusiastic about potential future legislation applying the new southeastern Colorado protections to other river basins in the state.
“Aurora Water would have concerns with any future expansion of this type of legislation into other regions of the state as it could unintentionally harm existing dryland farming operations or create disincentives for farmers who are successfully operating under dryland agricultural practices on converted lands,” Cline said.
“Additionally, Aurora Water believes it is important for water courts to retain the authority to independently evaluate whether revegetation or dryland farming standards to be incorporated into a court decree are technically appropriate, scientifically supported and feasible under the specific facts of each case, regardless of where the standards originate.”
Controversy over what happens to former farm and pasture land when a distant city dries it up has hit other parts of Colorado beyond the Lower Arkansas River, including Thornton’s purchase of thousands of acres of water rights in Weld and Larimer counties. Thornton has tried to placate the counties with commitments to revegetate or promote responsible dryland farming when it starts taking water off the acreage and putting it into an under-construction pipeline.
Aurora and Colorado Springs have faced decades of criticism from southeastern Colorado counties for past purchases and dry-ups that left areas like Crowley County looking like Dust Bowl victims. More recent farm water purchase agreements in places like Bent County limit the number of years in a row a city could take farm water, and make other concessions to try to support local economies.
Colorado Springs Utilities said after the bill’s final passage, “We recognize that revegetation of formerly irrigated lands is a fundamental requirement for any water transfer.”
“We strive to forge mutually beneficial partnerships in the Arkansas River Basin, which is why our team spent over three years negotiating terms and conditions for our water projects in Bent County,” Colorado Springs officials said, in a statement.
Colorado Springs officials said they appreciated the negotiations over House Bill 1340 for “taking these concerns seriously so that we could reach a compromise on the introduced bill that upholds our local agreements. … We believe that reliance on science and collaboration with local governments allows projects to be tailored to unique community and regional needs.”
AI generated image created by Google’s Nano Banana 2
by Robert Marcos, photojournalist
We’ve heard thousands of times (without sources being provided) that 40 million people are dependent upon Colorado River water. But which cities in the American Southwest are 100% dependentand would vanish without it?
YUMA ARIZONA
Yuma, Arizona, relies on the Colorado River for allof its municipal drinking water and is heavily tied to the river for its massive agricultural economy. Yuma has a population of 103,500 permanent residents which share a Colorado River water entitlement of 980,000 acre feet: 97% of which is used for agriculture and the remaining 3% is allocated for domestic, commercial, and military operations – such as those at the U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground. Yuma conserves its water through high-tech agricultural irrigation, extensive canal automation, municipal restrictions, and wastewater recycling. Despite being a major agricultural hub, local farmers have reduced water usage by nearly 20% while doubling food production over the last three decades.
Agriculture & Irrigation
With agriculture accounting for the vast majority of water use, Yuma’s agricultural sector employs cutting-edge conservation techniques: 1
Automated & Advanced Irrigation: Farmers utilize furrow, sprinkler, and drip systems optimized for specific crops. Irrigation districts are rolling out autonomous systems with remote-controlled canal gates to deliver water in real-time and eliminate excess diversion.
Precision Technology: Fields are leveled using GPS and laser technology, which minimizes runoff and waste.
Concrete-Lined Canals: Over 99% of farmer-owned ditches and irrigation networks are lined with concrete or buried as underground pipelines to eliminate seepage.
Municipal & City Efforts
The City of Yuma actively manages its municipal supply through strict conservation and drought response plans.2
Landscape Restrictions: The city encourages residents to adopt desert landscaping and transition away from water-heavy turf. Residents are advised to water only between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m. to prevent evaporation.
City Facilities: During declared water shortages, the city limits operations of water features, reduces winter grass overseeding, and limits facility water use.
Wastewater Recycling: The city recycles about 40% of its treated municipal water, which is safely discharged back into the environment to recharge the local aquifer and supply the Colorado River.
GREEN RIVER, WYOMING
As of 2026, the city of Green River, Wyoming had an estimated population of 11,307 people. The city itself does not hold an independent interstate water right; instead, its water use is governed by Wyoming’s state allocation within the broader “Law of the River” framework. Under the Upper Colorado River Basin Compact of 1948, the State of Wyoming is entitled to 14.00% of the total Upper Basin water allocation. This translates to a maximum full-supply entitlement of 1,043,000 acre-feet of water per year, the vast majority of which is sourced from the Green River basin.3
The city of Green River, Wyoming manages water conservation through modernized infrastructure, rigorous system auditing, and targeted wastewater recycling, operating in tandem with broader basin-wide conservation blueprints. Because Wyoming faces growing pressure to safeguard its Upper Colorado River Basin share, local municipal initiatives focus heavily on eliminating system losses and maximizing structural efficiency.4
Advanced Infrastructure and Metering
Universal Municipal Metering: The City of Green River Water Distribution department actively maintains over 4,200 water meters across commercial and residential lines. Universal metering prevents unmonitored usage and allows for exact data tracking to optimize conservation modeling.
Pressure Management: The distribution team actively manages 25 Pressure Reducing Valves (PRVs). Maintaining controlled water pressure minimizes stress on pipes, directly preventing underground ruptures and chronic structural leaks.
System Leaks and Audits: The city continuously updates its sanitary, stormwater, and water line mapping to execute aggressive leak detection and repair protocols.5
LAKE HAVASU, ARIZONA
Lake Havasu, Arizona, has a permanent population of 59,871 and is entitled to 28,582 acre feet of Colorado River water, annually. The city employs a multi-faceted approach to water management:6
Advanced Wastewater Recycling: The city operates three wastewater treatment plants that produce A+ quality reclaimed water. This recycled water is used to irrigate local golf courses and parks instead of draining fresh drinking water supplies, and the surplus is safely returned to the Colorado River for downstream use.
Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI): Lake Havasu is replacing approximately 32,000 residential water meters with smart technology. This system provides near real-time usage data and leak detection alerts via the EyeOnWater Platform, allowing residents to quickly spot and fix running toilets or plumbing leaks.
Mandatory and Voluntary Measures: The city’s conservation plan includes guidelines that limit non-essential uses like irrigation and prevent water waste. Residents are encouraged to water early in the morning to reduce evaporation and use mulch to lock in soil moisture.
BULLHEAD CITY, ARIZONA
Bullhead City Arizona has a permanent population of 43,200 and an annual entitlement to 15,210 acre feet of Colorado River water. Bullhead City, Arizona, actively combats Colorado River water shortages through phased municipal codes. Key actions include:7
Phased Restrictions: The city’s code outlines voluntary rules for Tier 1 shortages (fixing leaks, taking shorter showers), which escalate to mandatory bans on misting systems, decorative fountains, and driveway washing during Tier 2 shortages.
Turf Reduction Programs: Bullhead City offers rebates for replacing high-water-use grass with desert landscaping. The city also partners with local HOAs, using state grants to fund large-scale grass removal and park revitalization projects.
Device Rebates: The city provides direct financial incentives for residents and businesses to install smart irrigation controllers, high-efficiency toilets, washing machines, and hot water recirculation systems.
Aquifer Injection: The city recovers effluent (reclaimed water) at the Section 10 Wastewater Treatment Plant, injecting it into the Colorado River aquifer to ensure it is returned to the Colorado River system as return flow.8
Fresh snow frosts the Henry Mountains in southern Utah on May 18, 2026, as seen from Bullfrog Marina on Lake Powell. A mid-May heat spell, when the mercury topped out at nearly 100° F in Bluff, Utah, finished off the high-mountain snowpack and caused many streams to hit peak runoff on May 15 and 16. But on May 17 and 18 a fast-moving storm moved through and dumped snow in some places and brought temperatures down considerably. While it wasn’t enough to appreciably boost streamflows, it did provide some nice relief and seemed to subdue the desert gnats, at least for a while. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
When the scorching late March heat wave came for what little was left of the meagre snowpack, I was almost certain that it would cause rivers to hit their peak spring runoff levels in early April. That would have been the earliest spring runoff on record and a grim omen for the rest of the summer. Most of the contestants in this year’s predict-the-peak contest apparently had the same idea.
Luckily, we were proven wrong, in most cases: A series of spring storms and successive cold spells in April and even May managed to slow the melt and push the peak to a more reasonable mid-May date. A later runoff means streamflows will subside later, stretching out the irrigating and reservoir-filling season just a little bit longer.
There were exceptions, including the San Miguel River, which hit its spring high flow on April 2. And the Dolores River, which peaked at an absurdly early date of March 26. These both drain the western side of the San Juan Mountains, which apparently bore the brunt of the crappy winter. Still, even those rivers had a sort of second run-off season.
Here are the numbers for our contest rivers, followed by the streamflow and snowpack graphs:
The Animas River in Durango, Colorado: After topping out at 1,010 cubic feet per-second on March 27, the Animas came back and peaked on May 15 at 1,460 cfs.
The San Miguel River at Uravan, Colorado: The river hit 400 cfs on April 2, plummeted to just 63 cfs in late April, and then recovered for a second runoff and reaching 241 cfs on May 15.
The Yampa River near Maybell, Colorado: This river’s watershed got a bigger boost from the April storms than those further to the south, giving it a peak runoff of 3,480 cfs on May 16. This is the only river I’m hesitant to call, because the Upper Yampa watershed still has 2.8 inches of snow water equivalent, according to SNOTEL figures. If a temperature spike were to melt all of that at once, it could result in a larger peak.
San Juan River at Carracas, Colorado: The San Juan hit 1,090 cfs on April 2, which sure looked like the peak. But on May 15 it reached 1,140 cfs.
Nearly all of the contestants in the PtP contest chose April and even March dates for the peak, making the date part of the contest almost irrelevant. So I’m focusing on who was the closest on peak flows. And the winners are …
Animas (2 winners) 1. B Frank, with a guess of 1,468 cfs (wow! Only 8 cfs off) 2. Sharon Englehart, who guessed 1,500 cfs on June 1. While B Frank was closer in flow, Sharon was closer to the correct date.
San Miguel: Florence Paillard with a guess of 450 cfs
Yampa: B Frank again with 4,127 cfs
San Juan: J Harvey barely edges out B Frank with a guess of 850 cfs
So congratulations to B Frank, J Harvey, Florence Paillard, and Sharon Englehart! Please send your mailing address to landdesk@substack.com and I’ll send you your prizes.
🐟 Colorado River Chronicles 💧
Peak runoff on the Colorado River’s tributaries naturally flows down to the mainstem, as well, so long as there’s not a dam or other diversion preventing it from doing so. Unfortunately, however, the mid-May streamflow surges were barely discernible in the Colorado and San Juan rivers by the time they reached Lake Powell.
But Lake Powell did get a bit of a boost this month, only it wasn’t exactly “natural.” Lake Powell’s inflows jumped from as low as 3,500 cfs in late April to nearly 15,000 cfs on May 16. Yet more than 9,000 cfs of this can be attributed to extra releases from Flaming Gorge Reservoir on the Green River. That’s a lot of water coming down the river, and it did boost Lake Powell’s surface level by a whopping … half an inch or so.
Yikes.
Graph showing Flaming Gorge releases jumped from about 2,000 cfs to 9,000 cfs for about a week before dropping back down to the 1,200 cfs range. This was done to bolster Lake Powell’s levels and to help endangered fish.
The Flaming Gorge releases combined with tributary runoff to bring Lake Powell inflows up to 2025 levels for the same time of year. However, it is still far below the median level for May and there almost certainly will be no June surge.
🌵 Public Lands 🌲
On Monday, the GOP-dominated U.S. Senate confirmed Steven Pearce to lead the Bureau of Land Management and oversee some 245 million acres of public lands. Pearce, a right-wing ideologue, former congressman from New Mexico, and a one-time executive of an oilfield services company has long been hostile to the very idea of public lands.
Advocacy groups and Democratic lawmakers have responded to the move with outrage, shock, and dismay, and they have flooded my e-mailbox with claims that this confirmation represents an action that could “redefine public lands as we know them,” as one statement said, and will lead to the wholesale sell off of those same lands.
To be sure, Pearce is a terrible choice for the position, and by confirming him the GOP reinforced the fact that they are willing to sacrifice Americans’ lands and waters to stay on Trump’s good side. But had they rejected Pearce, the administration would simply pick someone who is equally atrocious, although maybe a little bit less open about it. Or maybe they wouldn’t nominate anyone at all, and instead illegally assign a perpetually acting director, as was the case during Trump’s first term with William Perry Pendley.
And even if the administration did nominate a career bureaucrat or someone more reasonable than Pearce, the fact remains: They would either carry out the Trump/Doug Burgum mission, which is to bring the agency back to the days of the Bureau of Livestock and Mining, or they’d be canned. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum was widely considered to be a strong and reasonable choice for that position — even garnering the endorsement of REI’s board of directors — and he has turned out to be one of the most extraction-friendly Interior secretaries in history. Indeed, the administration has already been doing a fairly thorough job of executing their plan without a confirmed BLM director, so why would Pearce make any bit of difference?
Trump’s election is what started redefining public lands. Pearce’s confirmation is just another step in the continued assault on the nation’s lands, air, water, and the communities that depend on them.
Over the past 16 months, the administration has leased out hundreds of thousands of acres of land to oil and gas companies, handed out drilling permits like lollipops at a bank, fast-tracked uranium mine permits, cut the public out of environmental reviews, opened up millions of acres to energy development, and transferred public lands — all without an official BLM director. And in the weeks leading up to Pearce’s confirmation, at least nine BLM state and associate state directors accepted the administration’s deferred resignation and buyout program. In other words, they jumped ship voluntarily, perhaps because they could see that it was sinking.
So far, the administration hasn’t shrunk any national monuments or tried any large-scale land selloffs, with the exception of conveying 1.4 million acres of land in the Dalton Utility Corridor to the state of Alaska. This was a unique situation in that it was done under the 1959 Alaska Statehood Act, which authorized the transfer of 105 million acres of public land to the state for economic development purposes (which, in Alaska, usually translates to oil and gas drilling). As we saw during his first term, Trump doesn’t need Pearce — or any BLM director at all — to diminish national monuments or transfer lands.
In other words, Pearce’s confirmation is just more of the same.
A railroad bridge crossing the dry Gila River. Photograph from Storyblocks.
The Gila River has served as one of the most historically significant waterways in the American Southwest. In 1540 the Coronado Expedition had to construct rafts in order to cross the swollen river, which stretches 649 miles across New Mexico and Arizona. The Gila River has acted as an agricultural lifeline, a changing geopolitical border, a crucial westward migration corridor, and the birthplace of America’s wilderness conservation movement.1
Four years ago I drove to Yuma and then turned north in order to reach the confluence of the Colorado and the Gila Rivers. After launching my drone my very first impression was that the Colorado River was flowing into the Gila, not the other way around. How could I tell? The Gila River was completely dry a half-mile east of the confluence.
Because of extensive upstream dams, irrigation canals, and city diversions feeding places like Phoenix and Tucson, the lower half of the 649-mile river is dried up completely. It typically becomes a dry, sandy riverbed long before reaching its natural confluence with the Colorado River near Yuma, Arizona.2
Ancient petroglyphs line the (former) Gila River shoreline at Sears Point, Arizona. Photograph by Robert Marcos.
Massive Upstream Diversions
The Gila River basin drains nearly 60,000 square miles. However, major structures like the Coolidge Dam and downstream diversion dams capture virtually all of its reliable surface water. The water is instead funneled into agricultural valleys and municipal pipes, leaving the final stretches of the riverbed barren.3
Rare Exceptions and Flooding
The Gila River only reaches the Colorado River during exceptional flood events. When massive winter snowmelt or powerful late-summer monsoons overwhelm upstream reservoirs, water must be released from the Painted Rock Dam. For example, historic wet winters have occasionally caused the Gila to violently discharge into the Colorado for brief periods, but these are anomalies rather than a steady, daily contribution.4
The “Reverse” Water Flow
Paradoxically, rather than the Gila supplying the Colorado River, the Colorado now supplies the Gila. Because Arizona over-drafted the Gila River system over the last century, the federal government built a massive 336-mile canal system. This canal actually pumps roughly 1.5 million acre-feet of water out of the Colorado River every year to supply the cities and farms sitting within the dry Gila River basin.5
Conservation Credits (Paper Water)
While the Gila River doesn’t add physical water to the Colorado, local entities actively help protect the Colorado River system through legal and conservation agreements. For instance, the Gila River Indian Community frequently signs landmark conservation deals with the U.S. government. They agree to leave large portions of their legal Colorado River water allocations untouched in Lake Mead to prop up dropping water levels in exchange for federal funding.6
We are excited to welcome indigenous scholar, filmmaker and founder of NativesOutdoors Len Necefer (Diné) to accompany the screening of the film in co-sponsorship with the Getches-Wilkinson Center and the American Indian Law Program at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Law, as well as with our colleagues at the Center for the Humanities and The Arts in the College of Arts and Sciences at CU Boulder.
Advance registration is encouraged. You can register HERE
Synopsis: El Niño is likely to emerge soon (82% chance in May-July 2026) and continuethrough Northern Hemisphere winter 2026-27 (96% chance in December 2026 – February2027).
In the past month, ENSO-neutral conditions continued, as indicated by near-average sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the east-central equatorial Pacific Ocean (Fig. 1). The latest weekly Niño-3.4 index value was +0.4°C, with the westernmost (Niño-4) and easternmost (Niño-1+2) indices at +0.5°C and +1.0°C, respectively. The equatorial subsurface temperature index (average from 180°-100°W) increased for the sixth consecutive month, with widespread, significantly above-average subsurface temperatures across the equatorial Pacific. Westerly wind anomalies were observed over the western equatorial Pacific at low levels and were evident over the central and east-central Pacific at upper levels. Convection was near average on the equator near the Date Line and was suppressed around Indonesia. Collectively, the coupled ocean-atmosphere system reflected ENSO-neutral conditions.
The North American Multi-Model Ensemble (NMME) average, including the NCEP CFSv2, favors El Niño to form by next month and persist through Northern Hemisphere winter 2026-27. While confidence in the occurrence of El Niño has increased since last month, there is still substantial uncertainty in the peak strength of El Niño, with no strength categorization exceeding a 37% chance. The strongest El Niño events in the historical record are characterized by significant ocean-atmosphere coupling through the summer, and it remains to be seen whether this occurs in 2026. Stronger El Niño events do not ensure strong impacts; they can only make certain impacts more likely (see CPC outlooks for probabilities of seasonal anomalies). In summary, El Niño is likely to emerge soon (82% chance in May-July 2026) and continue through Northern Hemisphere winter 2026-27 (96% chance in December 2026 – February 2027).
El Niño is likely to emerge soon (82% chance in May-July 2026) and continue through Northern Hemisphere winter 2026-27 (96% chance in December 2026 – February 2027). An #ElNino Watch remains in effect. #ENSOhttps://t.co/5zlzaZ0D9Zpic.twitter.com/iIomWfkCco
— NWS Climate Prediction Center (@NWSCPC) May 14, 2026
The early May winter storm that brought winter weather to Colorado and Wyoming dissipates, revealing the snowy landscape left in its wake. Taken on 6 May 2026, 17:21:00. GOES imagery: CSU/CIRA & NOAA
Snow and rain in the American West is concentrating at one of the highest rates in the world, researchers found, with implications for ecosystems, water management and this year’s El Niño.
Scientists have uncovered a new driver of aridification, potentially reshaping how drought across the globe is understood.
A new study published Wednesday in Nature by a pair of researchers from Dartmouth College and the Université du Québec à Montréal shows that changing precipitation concentrations exert an important influence over landscape moisture retention. When an area receives its annual moisture in a small number of large, wet storms, it can overwhelm the soils, creating pools of water on the land surface. These exposed pools are more prone to evaporation, meaning water that would otherwise reach streams, rivers and dams drifts back into the atmosphere.
When paired with long dry spells, these storms dry out landscapes, even though total precipitation hasn’t necessarily changed, the researchers found.
“If you’re asking the land to drink from a fire hose, whether that’s through highly concentrated precipitation falling from the sky or rapid snowmelt, you’re going to lose water,” said Justin Mankin, an associate professor of geography at Dartmouth and the study’s senior author. “It is just a feature of the world that as you concentrate rainfall, less of it goes into the land.”
Using several precipitation datasets, Mankin and his co-author, Corey Lesk, a professor of Earth and atmospheric sciences at the Université du Québec à Montréal, determined where on Earth annual moisture was concentrating, and where yearly rain and snow totals were spreading out across the calendar.
“There’s really maybe two hotspots that have the strongest consolidation trends since 1980,” Lesk said. “One is the Amazon and adjacent regions, too, it’s a huge hotspot.”
“But the other hotspot is pretty much right over Wyoming [and] Colorado,” he added.
River basins across the American West have been drying out under a “megadrought” that has gripped the region for the better part of the 21st century, forcing Western states to cut back their water use and renegotiate—with considerable acrimony—the dwindling resource. Mankin and Lesk’s new paper adds to a growing body of science laying out the perils changing moisture cycles pose to river basins, where users are accustomed to receiving a set amount of water at a predictable time.
“The methods represent a strong combination of direct observations and tests of the relationships using computer simulations,” said Bryan Shuman, a paleoclimatology professor at the University of Wyoming who was not involved with the study. “These are not patterns that can be dismissed as untrustworthy computer predictions. They show that this pattern has been happening and can be observed.”
Shuman, who has previously studied precipitation concentration, said the dynamics outlined in Mankin and Lesk’s paper paint a sobering picture for the West’s climate.
“The challenges raised here highlight how the future could involve both dangerous flooding but that that can come along with much worse droughts than in the past,” he said. “Simply put, we could receive the same amount of rain and still experience drought.”
As the American West staggers out from its worst winter on record, there is a chance the coming El Niño cycle, where warmer water in the Pacific Ocean can increase temperatures and precipitation in the West, brings concentrated levels of precipitation, along with the potential drying Mankin and Lesk describe in their research.
Since the early 20th century, the American West has blossomed on the vines of federal and state dams and canals meant to impound and transport water from where it flowed naturally to where it is useful for cities, farms and industries.
But this century-old infrastructure and the economies it enables could be “potentially maladapted to this rapidly changing climate,” Mankin said, in which the same amount of moisture packed into in a few heavy storms yields less water.
Moisture consolidation, which Mankin and Lesk believe is a logical result of a warming atmosphere, is “actually a new mode of volatility, a new way in which precipitation and the water cycle in a warmer climate is harder to predict and harder to manage,” Lesk added.
“It’s not just more of the same that the West has always dealt with.”
We’re excited to invite you to view a screening of The American Southwest, a film about the Colorado River and the historical and current implications it's management has on the indigenous peoples of Colorado. 🎥The screening will take place on June 11th from 4:00 – 7:00pm at CSU… pic.twitter.com/gFL8TSuQfX
The Aspinall Unit spring peak operation has been scheduled for Wednesday, May 27th. The schedule for the ramped increase and decrease in releases is as follows:
The purpose of this release is to satisfy the Black Canyon Decree spring release. Due to the maintenance outage ending on May 20th and unseasonably early peak runoff of the North Fork, this spring peak release timing was chosen to coincide with equal or greater inflows to Blue Mesa Reservoir.
Contact Andrew Limbach (alimbach@usbr.gov or 970-248-0644) for more information regarding Aspinall operations or the Operation Group meeting.
Click the link to access the update on the NOAA website:
May 14, 2026
West Braces for Critical Water Shortages After Unprecedented Snow Drought
Key Points
Snowpack, the western U.S.’s largest non-man made reservoir, is already gone in many places. Significant hydrological drought impacts (low water supply) are already occurring and will continue through summer across much of the West. Compounding these impacts, the West continues to experience long-term drought. Drought conditions can be expected to deteriorate, and impacts to become more pronounced.
April and May snowfall in some areas did not offset seasonal snow deficits, but increased soil moisture and slowed high-elevation snowmelt, which may slow drought deterioration and temporarily mitigate early season wildfire risk. Snow did not fall in all states.
This year’s peak snowpack will be the new benchmark low for Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico; there are no comparable years. [ed. emphasis mine] In these states, snow water equivalent (SWE) around April 1, the usual peak date, was 32- 53% lower than the previous record low during the SNOTEL era. In Idaho, record warm temperatures pushed snow to only the high elevations, leaving the state with no historical comparison.
Earlier-than-normal meltout (snow no longer present) occurred across the Western U.S., with many SNOTEL locations setting a new earliest or second earliest meltout date on record. Water supply forecasts in many watersheds are still forecasted to approach historic lows or at historic lows.
In Oregon, 62 of 73 forecast points are approaching or at historic lows.
In Utah, peak flows occurred and concluded in many streams before the spring runoff season even started.
As the West enters summer, evaporative demand (thirst of the atmosphere) and water demands will increase. This will further strain and reduce water supplies. Current outlooks favor-warmer-than-normal normal temperatures. Any relief will depend on late spring storms, along with the level of activity and geographic extent of the monsoon season.
Snow Drought Conditions Summary
This update is based on data available as of Monday, May 11, 2026 at 12:00 a.m. PT. We acknowledge 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 unprecedented heat wave and rapid snowmelt in March made recovery from the snow drought nearly impossible, despite the April and May snow for some. The April and May storms slowed snowmelt in the high elevations where little snowpack remains and brought rain to the lower elevations, increasing soil moisture. These conditions will likely slow further drought deterioration and mitigate immediate wildfire risk. However, not all states saw this precipitation. Outlooks continue to favor an early start to the wildfire season in some areas of the West.
This water year continues to be the warmest on record (since 1895) in California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Wyoming, and Montana; the second warmest in Oregon and Idaho; and the fourth warmest in Washington. The average temperature over the last 5 years was the warmest on record in Wyoming, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Utah, and Washington. In California and Oregon, the last 5 years were the third warmest 5-year period on record. Many states are experiencing long-term drought, compounding the impacts from this year’s snow drought. Record low water supply are forecasted in many locations, reflecting the impacts of this year’s snow drought, long term drought, and record warmth.
This year’s western snow drought is considerably worse than significant snow droughts of the past for many states. Even for states where there is precedence, anticipating impacts or drawing comparisons to previous significant snow droughts is challenging given increasing demands on western water supply and multiyear droughts. In Washington, snowpack in 2026 was greater than its record low, 2015, and similar to that in 2001. However, Washington is in its fourth consecutive year of drought, and a drought emergency was declared in all previous years with similarly low snowpack. This year’s peak snowpack will be the lowest on record for Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico. This year will represent the new benchmark low. In these states, snowpack around April 1, the usual peak date, was 32- 53% lower than the previous record low in the SNOTEL record. Idaho also experienced a new record low snow season. In Idaho, warm temperatures melted snow at middle and lower elevations, and no previous years compare to this condition for the state.
Given that snow droughts often precede hydrological drought (when low water supply becomes evident in the water system), significant hydrological drought impacts are already and will continue to impact much of the West.
Snow Telemetry (SNOTEL) snow water equivalent (SWE) date of water year melt out for Water Year 2026, compared to the median melt out date. Only stations with at least 20 years of data are included. Blue indicates later than normal melt out, whereas yellow, orange, and red indicate earlier than normal melt out. This map is valid as of May 10, 2026. Source: USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS).For an interactive version of this map, please visit NRCS.
Central Rocky Mountains
Much of the snow is gone at SNOTEL stations in Utah and Colorado, with snow remaining at only 12% and 37% of stations in the two states, respectively. At stations where snow has disappeared, the melt out occurred an average of 40 days early. Snow water equivalent (SWE) at most of the remaining stations is at 20% of median or less. Storms in April slowed high elevation snowmelt, but were far from sufficient for the region to recover from considerable seasonal SWE deficits. An early May snowstorm in Colorado brought beneficial moisture to parts of the state, but again, did not alleviate the SWE deficits and water supply concerns. Record low streamflow volumes are forecast for the Yampa River (28% of average) and the Colorado River at Lake Powell (13% of average). Temperatures in October-April in Utah and Colorado were the highest on record, but, in contrast to the northern Rocky Mountains, seasonal precipitation across the region was generally much below normal. Water year precipitation totals were below the 15th percentile for many SNOTEL stations in central Utah and central and northern Colorado.
Utah
On May 7, 2026, the Utah Drought Response Committee formally recommended Utah Governor Spencer Cox issue a drought emergency declaration for all 29 counties in the state. The recommendation cited record low snowpack, water supply concerns, and statewide drought. Formal drought declarations also were issued for parts or all of the state in 2021, 2022, and 2025. Drought has impacted southern Utah for 8 of the last 10 years. A formal drought emergency declaration allows the state to activate resources, support agriculture, and coordinate water restrictions.
Colorado
On March 16, 2026, acting on recommendations from the state’s Water Conditions Monitoring Committee, Governor Jared Polis activated Phase 2 of the state’s Drought Response Plan and the state’s Drought Task Force. The actions followed the warmest start to the water year in the Colorado Climate Center’s 131-year record, and statewide snow water equivalent among the lowest in more than four decades of records. The last time the Drought Task Force was activated was in 2020. During every year since 2020, portions of the South Platte River and Rio Grande River have required priority calls to curtail water use to ensure that senior water rights holders receive their legal share. The Drought Task Force identifies critical impact areas to coordinate state-level support and resources for affected Colorado communities.
Arizona
In 2025, Arizona operated under Tier 1 reductions in Colorado River Water Supply and is still operating under this structure. These reductions are a result of less available water in the Colorado River, impacting central Arizona agricultural users. These reductions represent a 512,000 acre-foot reduction in water, with most reductions being taken by the Central Arizona Project water users.
New Mexico
Several years of extreme drought and the earliest snowmelt on record are challenging water users of the Rio Grande River. The Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District began staggered irrigation operations in late March with natural flow of the Rio Grande. The Carlsbad Irrigation District began releases for irrigation on March 22 and has allocated only 2.5 acre-feet per acre to farmers.
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 / NOAA’s National Integrated Drought Information System jason.gerlich@noaa.gov
Tony Bergantino Wyoming State Climate Office, University of Wyoming antonius@uwyo.edu
Amanda Sheffield University of Colorado Boulder Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences / NOAA’s National Integrated Drought Information System amanda.sheffield@noaa.gov
On Friday, May 22, 2026, Congressman Jeff Hurd announced the release of a $40 million award to the Colorado River District for the purchase and permanent protection of the Shoshone Water Rights. The final approval of $40 million award brings the total amount of funding secured to $97 million of the $99 million needed for the purchase. The process now moves into the contracting phase during which the River District will work with the Bureau of Reclamation to finalize the terms of the award.
Colorado River District General Manager Andy Mueller offered the following remarks regarding the broad, bi-partisan support of this project from our federal, state and local representatives:
“This award is a major breakthrough in our coalition’s effort to permanently secure historic flows on the Colorado River. This funding would not have been possible without the leadership of Representative Jeff Hurd. His unwavering advocacy within the Administration helped secure this once-in-a-generation investment in a project that is vital to the prosperity of rural communities, farmers and ranchers on the Western Slope.
Senator Michael Bennet demonstrated valuable foresight appropriating Inflation Reduction Act funding to address the growing water challenges facing the Colorado River Basin. His leadership helped deliver this historic investment in long-term water security and protect our state’s namesake river for generations to come.
As founders of the Colorado River Caucuses in both the Senate and House, Senator Hickenlooper and Representative Neguse fought for these dollars by developing and strengthening coalitions across divides – both geographical and political. By advocating for the Shoshone Water Rights Project in Colorado and Washington, they helped deliver a durable and permanent solution for the entire Colorado River system.
Shoshone Hydroelectric Plant back in the days before I-70 via Aspen Journalism
Veo vehicles hogging all the public bicycle parking at W. 44th & Tennyson, May 22, 2026.
Veo is parking their scooters and bicycles in the public bicycle parking on Tennyson Street and there is nowhere for bicyclists to lock up to do business with the merchants. The Denver bureaucracy was unresponsive to my inquiries. 311 did closed the request without action.
Maybe the respondents don’t ride bicycles, but if they did they would want to lock them up when snagging some cherry pie, brown sugar cinnamon ice cream, or croissants, like I do.
Veo vehicles taking up public bicycle parking at W. 43rd & Tennyson May 22, 2026.
Look, bicyclists are fine with the for profit folks making a buck, helping out with transportation, and helping to meet Denver’s carbon footprint goals. Just get the damn Veo vehicles out of the public bicycle parking!
It looks like some NorthSiders fixed Veo’s stupid near W. 39th & Tennyson May 22, 2026.
Corn being harvested on the Ute Mountain Ute Farm & Ranch Enterprise. Aerial photo by Robert Marcos
In 1949 the Bureau of reclamation installed a diversion on Colorado’s West Marcos River that began channeling water to the brand new Jackson Gulch Reservoir. The reservoir had been created to provide irrigation water to Mancos area farmers of European descent. Somehow the Bureau of Reclamation overlooked the fact that the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe owned senior rights to that water, and about a year after the diversion was created the Tribe’s farm downstream dried up and turned to dust. Out of necessity, tribal members turned to cattle ranching.
Thirty-six years later in 1986, the Ute Mountain Ute and Southern Ute Tribes gathered to celebrate the passage of the Colorado Indian Water Rights Settlement. Then in 1994 for the first time in their reservation’s history, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe received “wet water” in the amount of 25,100 acre feet a year, of both municipal and agricultural water from the McPhee Reservoir near Dolores.
There was only one problem. During the water rights negotiation the Mountain Ute had to subordinate their senior rights to Mancos River water for junior rights to water from the McPhee Reservoir. Consequently, as severe, climate-driven droughts began to hit Southwestern Colorado, the tribe, (because of its junior rights), began to see severe cuts to their water deliveries – sometimes as little as 10% of their full allocation. These water cuts have had a devastating effect on the Tribe’s award-winning 7,700 acre Farm & Ranch Enterprise – including the involuntary fallowing of fields and massive layoffs of both tribal and non-tribal employees.
During the week, the contiguous United States exhibited significant regional temperature anomalies driven by a highly amplified synoptic pattern. Early in the period, a pronounced unseasonable cold air mass influenced the Northern Plains, Upper Midwest, and Northeast, depressing temperatures 5°F to 15°F below normal across the Dakotas, Minnesota, New York, and Pennsylvania. Conversely, the Southwest and South Texas experienced anomalous warmth, with maximum temperatures exceeding 90°F and averaging up to 15°F above normal. By the latter half of the week, this warm air mass expanded eastward into the Ohio Valley and Mid-Atlantic, initiating an early-season heatwave with observed maximum temperatures climbing into the mid-80s to low 90s.
Precipitation regimes during this period were characterized by severe convective outbreaks and pronounced moisture disparities. In the early portion of the week, persistent onshore moisture transport resulted in heavy rainfall totals of 4 to 6 inches across the central Gulf Coast, specifically affecting Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Between May 17 and 18, a powerful frontal system traversing the central United States triggered widespread severe weather across the Great Plains and Midwest. This system produced damaging winds up to 80 mph, large hail, and multiple tornadoes across South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, and Missouri, alongside localized flash flooding. In contrast, extreme moisture deficits persisted west of the Rocky Mountains, where weekly precipitation totals generally remained under 0.10 inches, further elevating wildfire risk across the southern High Plains…
Temperatures were above normal across much of the region this week, with average readings ranging from the low 40s along the Canadian border and in the mountains to the mid-70s across southern Kansas. Highly anomalous early-season warmth gripped the southern half of the region. The core of this heat anomaly was centered over Kansas and Colorado, where weekly temperatures soared 6°F to 12°F above historical averages, with localized spots in southern Kansas peaking more than 12°F above normal. This unseasonable warmth extended moderately northward into Nebraska, yielding departures of 3°F to 6°F above average. Conversely, the northern High Plains remained under a more seasonal air mass; North Dakota, South Dakota, and northern Wyoming experienced below-normal conditions, fluctuating within 3°F to 6°F of historical baseline temperatures. Precipitation amounts varied across the region, with extreme dryness across the much of the region and a highly concentrated deluge along the southeastern boundary. Large portions of Wyoming, Colorado, and western parts of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas, reported weekly totals below 0.50 inches, with extensive areas receiving less than 0.10 inches. This lack of moisture resulted in departures of 0.5 to 1.5 inches below average, causing conditions to deteriorate. Extreme (D3) drought expanded in southwestern Kansas and southern Colorado. Severe (D2) in parts of Colorado and northeast Wyoming, while moderate (D1) drought expanded in parts of South Dakota. In powerful contrast, intense convective activity generated a sharp corridor of heavy rainfall across eastern portions of Kansas and Nebraska. Totals in this localized zone rapidly climbed between 2.5 and 5.5 inches, with departures ranging between 1.5 to over 4.5 inches above normal, resulting in improvements to moderate (D1) to exceptional (D4) drought in Nebraska and moderate (D1) to extreme (D3) drought in Kansas. Heavy rainfall also brought improvements to severe (D2) to exceptional (D4) drought in northern Colorado and a reduction of exceptional (D4) drought in southern Wyoming this week…
Colorado Drought Monitor one week change map ending May 19, 2026.
Temperatures varied across the region this week, with average readings ranging from the mid-30s and 40s across the northern tier and high elevations to the low 80s in the desert Southwest. In terms of departures from normal, unseasonably cold conditions dominated the northern half of the region, with departures ranging between 3°F and 9°F below normal. In sharp contrast, the southern tier experienced unseasonable warmth. A building ridge over the Southwest drove temperatures in southern California, Arizona, and New Mexico 3°F to 9°F above normal, with eastern New Mexico seeing the greatest extremes. Precipitation across the Western region was characterized by an extreme contrast between a highly active storm track in the Pacific Northwest and aridity across the remainder of the region. Above-normal precipitation was confined to much of Washington, and parts of Oregon and Montana, where weekly rainfall totals ranged between 1.5 to 3.5 inches, with localized totals in the Cascade Range exceeding 4.5 inches. This activity generated substantial departures of 0.75 to over 3.0 inches above normal, justifying moderate (D1) to severe (D2) drought and abnormal dryness (D0) improvements in Washington and northern Idaho, and improvements to abnormal dryness (D0) to northwestern Oregon and western Montana. Conversely, dry conditions persisted across nearly the entire remaining geographic footprint. Widespread areas across California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and parts of Idaho, Montana, Utah recorded negligible rainfall totals of less than 0.10 inches. Due to the climatological onset of the dry season in parts of the West, this lack of rainfall translated into modest negative departures ranging from near-normal to 0.75 inches below seasonal averages. Nonetheless, deteriorating conditions led to the expansion of exceptional (D4) drought in southern Idaho, and extreme (D3) drought in parts of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Montana, and southern Idaho. In addition, severe (D2) drought was expanded in Oregon, Montana, and Arizona, while moderate (D1) drought expanded in parts of Idaho, Montana, Nevada, and Arizona…
Below-normal precipitation dominated the South this week. The vast majority of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee received less than 0.10 to 0.50 inches of total rainfall, leaving nearly the entire geographic footprint under exceptionally dry conditions. This lack of rainfall translated into widespread departures ranging from 0.75 to 1.50 inches below normal. Below-normal rainfall totals resulted in the introduction of exceptional (D4) drought in the Oklahoma Panhandle and D4 expansion in parts of Arkansas and Mississippi. Extreme (D3) to severe (D2) drought were expanded in parts of Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee.
The major exception to this dry regime was concentrated in southern portions of the region, specifically southern Texas, where localized convective storms delivered 1.0 to 3.0 inches of rainfall, resulting in the improvement of extreme (D3) drought in southern portions of Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Temperatures were above normal across much of the region, ranging from the upper 50s and low 60s in Tennessee to the upper 80s in parts of Texas. Looking at departures from normal, a highly anomalous zone of intense warmth gripped the western half of the region, where temperatures averaged 6°F to 15°F above historical norms. Conversely, the eastern tier of the region bucked the western warming trend entirely; Mississippi and Tennessee experienced unseasonably cool conditions, with temperatures suppressing to 3°F to 6°F below normal…
Looking Ahead
Over the next five days (May 19–23, 2026), the United States can expect a highly dynamic weather pattern characterized by contrasting temperature extremes and widespread storm activity. An early-season heatwave will make headlines across much of the eastern U.S. through midweek, with interior portions of the Mid-Atlantic and the Carolinas seeing highs climb into the lower to middle 90s—warm enough to potentially establish new daily records before a cold front brings cooler relief by Thursday. In stark contrast, the Intermountain West and Rockies will experience below-normal temperatures to start the week, alongside late-season accumulating snow in the higher elevations of Colorado and Wyoming. Meanwhile, a strong cold front tracking across the Plains and Midwest will spark widespread showers and severe thunderstorms. Multiple rounds of heavy rainfall will bring a risk of scattered flash flooding, focusing heavily on Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas on Tuesday before an expanded risk of heavy precipitation stretches from western Texas to the central Appalachians on Wednesday.
Further out, the Climate Prediction Center’s 6–10 day outlook (valid May 24–28, 2026) favors above-normal temperatures across most of the United States—stretching from the Rocky Mountains all the way to the East Coast, with the highest confidence for this unseasonable warmth concentrated in the Upper Midwest. Hawaii is also leaning toward warmer conditions. In contrast, temperatures are expected to be colder than average across the state of Alaska, and in a pocket of northwestern Washington state. Meanwhile, near-normal temperatures are forecast in parts of the South and along the West Coast. Probabilities for wetter-than-average conditions favor the vast majority of the country, including Hawaii and portions of Alaska. In the contiguous U.S., this wet weather pattern extends from the Southwest to the East Coast, with the greatest probability of above-normal precipitation expected to be in the south-central U.S., specifically across southern Texas. The West Coast, portions of the Pacific Northwest, the northern Rockies, northern parts of the Midwest, and northern Alaska are favored to receive near-normal precipitation during this time. No areas are favored to be drier than normal.
US Drought Monitor one week change map ending May 19, 2026.
A whistleblower and watchdog advocacy group used an EPA database of locations that may have handled PFAS materials or products to map the potential impact of PFAS throughout Colorado. They found about 21,000 Colorado locations in the EPA listings, which were uncovered through a freedom of information lawsuit. Locations are listed by industry category. (Source: Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility analysis of EPA database)
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced $44.3 million in new grant funding for “Small or Disadvantaged Communities” to address polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in Colorado water. That funding comes as the agency rolls back some regulations on those chemicals…The funding for Colorado water is part of a billion dollar investment across the country. The money can be allocated to testing, planning, and infrastructure projects. According to a press release from the EPA, “small, rural, and disadvantaged water systems often have fewer resources.“ The program is ”specifically designed to ensure these communities are not left behind.” […] New rules announced Monday would rescind some Biden-era regulations on PFAS chemicals and extend the deadline for water to meet federal standards by two additional years, to 2031.
A double rainbow arches over the Painted Wall in Black Canyon at Gunnison National Park. Photo Credit: Dave Showalter
From email from Reclamation (Andrew Limbach):
May 20, 2026
The Aspinall Unit spring peak operation has been tentatively scheduled for Wednesday, May 27th. A final notification of the release schedule will be sent out that will include time of day ramped releases.
Pursuant to the Black Canyon Decree section 31.5.2.1 for peak flows during a “dry” hydrologic year the Black Canyon will have a 24-hour peak flow of 730 cfs.
The purpose of this release is to satisfy the Black Canyon Decree spring release. Due to the maintenance outage ending on May 20th and unseasonably early peak runoff of the North Fork, this spring peak release timing was chosen to coincide with equal or greater inflows to Blue Mesa Reservoir.
Contact Andrew Limbach (alimbach@usbr.gov or 970-248-0644) for more information regarding Aspinall operations or the Operation Group meeting.
Click the link to read the article on the Summit Daily website (Robert Tann). Here’s an excerpt:
May 19, 2026
Lawmakers decided against introducing a “right to float” bill this legislative session, despite a push by river advocates
Last summer, a group of Colorado legislators hopped aboard several rafts with river guides and conservationists to float a mellow section of the Colorado River south of Kremmling. The trip was organized by a coalition of outdoor recreation advocates, who’d hoped to persuade lawmakers to once again wade into the issue of stream access and what rights the public has when recreating in rivers that run through private property. But over the course of Colorado’s 120-day legislative session, no such bill was introduced. A compromise between recreationists and landowner groups, which lawmakers had been seeking, never materialized…River rafters have been pushing for legislation that would provide immunity from trespassing for floaters who touch the privately-owned riverbeds and banks to help with navigation. They hoped the proposal could provide a tailored solution and avoid the longstanding fight over whether river beds should remain private property or be publicly owned…Landowner groups remained resistant to any legislative approach, which they say would only breed conflict. They would prefer to see river access issues continue to be resolved the way they’ve long been, with agreements made between landowners and river users…
Heading into this year’s legislative session, supporters of public river access advocates were again at odds over what kind of policy they should push for. Not long after organizing lawmakers’ river trip last summer, the stream access coalition, made up of several outfitting and conservation groups, split into two camps. One was focused on the right to wade in rivers, primarily driven by anglers, while the other was concentrated on the right to float. It was the latter group, which dubbed itself the River Recreation Alliance, that ultimately pursued legislation this year…A right to wade bill would have meant taking on private property ownership of river beds. A study published last year by the free-market think tank Common Sense Institute warned that the state, should lawmakers go that route, would be at risk of violating the takings clause of the Colorado Constitution, which prohibits the government from taking or damaging private property without compensation. Johnson believes legislation focused instead on floating would minimize those risks, since it would not strip land from property owners. Her coalition’s proposal also would have allowed rafters to touch the bed and banks of rivers only for safety reasons, such as scouting, portage and to avoid obstacles, according to a one-page memo Johnson shared. Walking, wading, anchoring or wade fishing would not be protected under the proposal, which also would have provided liability for landowners when accidents or injuries occurred in the river.
A warming climate is increasing the risk to water infrastructure.
The U.S. recorded a record number of billion-dollar weather disasters in the last three years.
Weather hazards, combined with aging infrastructure and rising costs, are raising the cost of supplying water.
When the Eaton Fire blitzed central Los Angeles County in January 2025, the foothills community of Altadena sat in its path.
Burning more than 14,000 acres in and around the southern edge of Angeles National Forest, the fire concentrated its structural damage in an area of Altadena served by Las Flores Water Company, a small drinking water provider.
By the time the flames were extinguished, the water company sustained substantial losses that its customers will cover with expensive surcharges. The Eaton Fire destroyed the private utility’s two reservoirs and about three-quarters of its customers’ homes. More than a year later, effective April 1, the utility instituted a $3,000 surcharge per household, to be paid on the water bill in $50 increments over 60 months. Residents with savings can make a single $2,600 payment upfront.
Failure to pay means either a dramatic household or business disruption. Water service will be cut off. For Las Flores, the funds are intended to be a lifeline, keeping the utility from bankruptcy as it repairs its reservoirs while maintaining day-to-day operations until more residents return and revenue rebounds.
For residents whose lives have already been upended, the surcharge also represents an unwelcome expense.
“Such an action is not taken lightly, and we recognize that the imposition of this flat fixed fee may have economic consequences for some of you,” John Bednarski, the board president, wrote in a September 2025 letter to customers.
These consequences of a climate-related emergency in the Los Angeles foothills are emblematic of the terrible toll being exacted nationwide not just on land and property, but also on essential duties of government, like supplying water. Las Flores is just one calamity among many in recent years. The number of weather disasters causing more than $1 billion in damages in the United States is climbing. According to Climate Central, the last three years have had the highest number of billion-dollar disasters. The vicious storms, floods, freezes, and droughts have destroyed homes and killed hundreds of people. They are also endangering water supply and reliability as well as municipal and residential financial well-being.
Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina, in 2024, wrecked dozens of water and wastewater systems and prompted $861 million in state and federal funds to rebuild them. The Hermit’s Peak-Calf Canyon Fire outside Las Vegas, New Mexico, in 2022, so damaged a watershed with ash and debris that the city’s water treatment plant could not function. It is being replaced thanks to a congressional appropriation. Persistent drought today threatens southern Texas, where Corpus Christi nears a water catastrophe due to depleted reservoirs.
A warming planet is magnifying these and other physical risks to water infrastructure while also increasing the cost of recovery. This environmental upheaval is set against a backdrop of increasing economic pressures for water utilities and challenging financial conditions for their customers.
Aging pipes and treatment plants need to be replaced. By one estimate the national need for drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater over the next 20 years is $3.4 trillion, or $168 billion annually in capital spending. New federal regulations for lead and PFAS are an expensive outlay. Additional costs since the pandemic came first in the form of supply chain snarls and rapid inflation, then moved higher with the Trump administration’s tariffs. Rising interest rates and more costly energy and treatment chemicals – all these factors add up. The result is that utilities have raised customer water rates, which have outpaced overall inflation for years. Water and sewer bills rose 24 percent over the last five years in 50 large cities, according to Bluefield Research.
Utility leaders have taken notice of the headwinds. Among the top challenges identified in this year’s State of the Water Industry survey from the American Water Works Association were aging infrastructure, securing financing, rising cost of treatment, and extreme weather.
“Climate variability is one of the most significant and challenging risks to water supplies and water sector infrastructure,” the report notes.
Management failures in the face of environmental pressures have financial consequences. Earlier this month, S&P Global Ratings downgraded the credit rating for Corpus Christi’s municipal utility from AA- to A. The lower rating will increase borrowing costs for the city just when it needs money to navigate a water-supply crisis. To justify the downgrade, the ratings agency cited the city’s drought risk, water restrictions, and high capital needs to acquire additional water supplies. Corpus Christi is planning at least $1 billion in water infrastructure and supply investments, which include groundwater pumping, brackish groundwater treatment, recycled water, and potentially seawater desalination. The city’s two main reservoirs are 8 percent of capacity combined as of May 15.
State and federal dollars often fill the breach after a weather disaster. But the need is far greater than the available funds. North Carolina awarded $861 million in state and federal grants to 217 drinking water and wastewater projects after Hurricane Helene. But more than $600 million in applications were not able to be fulfilled, according to Gov. Josh Stein.
“We need substantially more federal support,” Stein said on May 14 while visiting Canton, a town in western North Carolina that was flooded during Helene. With $24.5 million in state and federal funds, Canton is rebuilding its water and sewer infrastructure.
Canton is one of the lucky ones. The increasing number of weather disasters for water utilities comes at a time of federal disengagement and funding uncertainty, note Rebecca Anderson and Shannon M. McNeeley of the Pacific Institute.
The Trump administration cancelled a multibillion-dollar FEMA grant program for climate-resilient infrastructure before being ordered by a U.S. district judge to reinstate it this spring. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Biden-era law that provided an extra $43 billion for water infrastructure, expires this year with no replacement in sight. A federal pandemic-era program to assist low-income households with their water bills has also expired. Water utilities are urging Congress to resume the program so that they can upgrade their systems without worrying that the cost will burden their poorest customers. House Democrats introduced the Water Access and Affordability Act in April to reauthorize the program.
“Without sufficient federal disaster mitigation and recovery funding, states and communities shoulder a disproportionate share of response, recovery, and preparedness costs,” Anderson and McNeeley write. “This burden is often especially heavy for small and rural water systems with limited revenue.”
Floods, droughts, wildfires, and hurricanes have always wrought destruction and water-supply desperation. Superstorm Sandy, in 2012, knocked out wastewater plants in eight states, leading to the release of some 11 billion gallons of raw and partially treated sewage. In New York City alone, the damage to wastewater facilities totaled more than $100 million.
But with the rising number of disasters and the increasing intensity of storms and droughts, more financial demands are challenging not just individual water utilities but assumptions about who is at risk.
No utility, even those on apparently solid financial footing, should be complacent, said Greg Pierce, a California water system expert at the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation. Just look at Las Flores Water Company and its neighbors in Altadena.
Before the Eaton Fire, “none of these systems were on anyone’s list of small or underperforming systems, even within Los Angeles County,” he said.
Aerial photo of downtown Los Angeles California, provided by Storyblocks.
No, they do not. While it’s technically true that 40 million people across seven states and Mexico have water systems that are supplied in part by the Colorado River, it’s misleading to imply that 40 million people depend on the Colorado River entirely. But the statement – which was taken out of context, has been repeated so often by the media and others that it’s now widely-accepted as a fact. It originated from a Bureau of Reclamation report that actually says, “Although agricultural uses depend on 70 percent of Colorado River water, between 35 and 40 million people rely on the same water for some, if not all, of their municipal needs”.1
Top three reasons why the shortened “40 million” phrase is misleading
1.Agriculture consumes the vast majority of the water, not individuals
The phrase implies that 40 million people rely on the river primarily for drinking, bathing, and basic survival. In reality, agricultural irrigation consumes roughly 75% to 80% of the river’s water. A massive portion of that goes specifically toward water-intensive cattle feed crops like alfalfa and hay. Domestic, household use accounts for only about 10% to 13% of the total supply. The narrative of “40 million thirsty citizens” masks the fact that the crisis is fundamentally an agricultural management problem rather than a residential population crisis.
2.Major urban areas only use the river as a fractional supplement
Many of the 40 million people counted in this statistic live in large coastal or metropolitan cities—such as Los Angeles, San Diego, Denver, and Phoenix—that do not rely solely on the Colorado River. These cities utilize a diversified portfolio of water sources, including local groundwater, northern state aqueducts, state-wide recycling systems, and other local river basins. Saying they “depend” on the Colorado River implies total reliance, when it often provides only a fraction of their municipal supply.
3.Aggressive water recycling and conservation significantly reduce our “dependence”
Using the word “depend” creates a fatalistic narrative that if the river’s flow drops, 40 million people will run out of water. In practice, many of the urban centers counted in the 40 million figure are highly resilient due to aggressive wastewater recycling and conservation efforts. For example, Las Vegas and the state of Nevada recycle nearly 85% of their treated wastewater back into Lake Mead. Because these cities reuse the same water multiple times, their actual net depletion of the river is much lower than their gross population would suggest.
The first Colorado Streamflow Tracker update of the season showed very low April flow. The White River at Meeker flow was in the 1st percentile(!). Nearby, the North Platte River recorded its LOWEST April volume in the ~77 year @NRCS_CO naturalized flow archive. #cowxpic.twitter.com/bGDCditqvP
— Colorado Flood Threat Bulletin (@COFloodUpdates) May 19, 2026
Lake Powell is formed by Glen Canyon Dam. In a concept pitched by a conservation organization, a flexible pool of water could be moved between Upper Basin reservoirs to wherever it’s needed most. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM
An environmental organization is floating a concept that could help the Colorado River system during extremely dry years like this one and keep the nation’s two largest reservoirs above critical thresholds.
Boulder-based Western Resource Advocates has released a concept paper that explores the idea of a flexible pool of water that can be moved wherever it’s needed most among the basin’s biggest reservoirs.
Water users in the Lower Basin states — California, Arizona and Nevada — currently have about 3.2 million acre-feet stored in Lake Mead through voluntary conservation and efficiency measures. Water users bank water in this pool, known as the Intentionally Created Surplus, and can take this water back out again to use under certain circumstances.
The paper’s authors — John Berggren, a regional policy manager with Western Resource Advocates, and Kevin Wheeler, principal and engineer with Water Balance Consulting — used the ICS pool as an example to explore how the idea would work. They say that if the ICS pool could be moved from Lake Mead to Lake Powell, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation could have a buffer to more easily protect Glen Canyon Dam infrastructure, minimize the need for large releases from upstream reservoirs and reduce the risk of litigation among the seven basin states that share the Colorado River.
“If you took a million or two million acre-feet out of Mead in the form of a conservation pool and moved it to Powell, then you could protect Powell without having to do all the DROA and the 6e releases,” Berggren said. “This is a perfect year where we would like to have the flexibility to move this water wherever it’s needed most, in this case in Powell.”
Berggren is referring to the actions that the federal government is taking this year: releasing up to 1 million acre-feet from Flaming Gorge Reservoir to prop up Powell, as well as reducing releases down to just 6 million acre-feet from Powell instead of the originally expected 7.48 million acre-feet. Projections from Reclamation show the reservoir falling below 3,500 feet by this summer if these actions aren’t taken, jeopardizing the ability to make hydropower at Glen Canyon Dam.
This is a pivotal moment for the Colorado River Basin’s 40 million water users, with a historically bad snowpack and streamflows pushing reservoir levels to new lows and management into crisis mode. The seven states that share the river have not been able to reach an agreement for how reservoirs will be operated and shortages will be shared after the current framework expires this year. The feds are poised to step in with their own management rules, but the actions they are allowed to legally take may not go far enough to keep the system from crashing.
Graphic credit: Aspen Journalism
An invisible pool
Berggren’s paper lays out a surplus pool that would be flexible and “operationally neutral,” and would be separate from the rest of the stored water in both reservoirs. That means it wouldn’t count toward calculations of how much water is in Lake Powell or Lake Mead for the purpose of determining how water shortages would be shared.
There isn’t a way to physically move water upstream, but according to WRA, water could be transferred between reservoirs through adjustments to dam releases and careful accounting. A pool could be “moved” from Mead to Powell by holding back water in Powell. It could be moved back to Mead by increasing releases from Powell.
The concept paper does not advocate for taking such actions this year, presenting them as a potential strategy to be used under a new river management framework that is being hashed out between the states that share the river and the federal government.
“There are a lot of concerns about operational neutrality, but we’re trying to show that it’s actually not that scary and can provide benefit with less risk than the current options,” Berggren said.
Reservoir levels in Mead currently determine how deep cuts to the Lower Basin states are; as Mead is drawn down, it triggers deeper cuts. Some water experts have said the ICS pool allows Lower Basin water users to game the system. By leaving their water in the ICS pool, it keeps reservoir levels artificially high and lets water users avoid taking deeper cuts. If the ICS pool had remained separate from the rest of Lake Mead, shortage triggers and mandatory conservation would have happened earlier.
Making this pool “operationally neutral,” or invisible to reservoir operations, fixes this issue.
In a proposal submitted to the federal government May 1, the Lower Basin states expressed support for this concept, but they did not lay out a plan to implement it.
“The goal is to achieve operational neutrality of ICS,” the submittal reads. “The Lower Division States will continue to determine when and how to convert ICS to operational neutrality at higher elevations in Lake Mead.”
They also said the long-term goal is to create an operationally neutral common pool of new water savings to be strategically deployed at low elevations to help delay and offset additional reductions to the Lower Basin.
Some experts say there are concerns and unanswered questions about these types of pools. The dividing line where water delivery is measured from the Upper Basin (Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming) to the Lower Basin is Lee Ferry, just downstream of Lake Powell. Water measured at this location determines whether the Upper Basin remains in compliance with the 1922 Colorado River Compact. Moving water between reservoirs would have to deal with this issue.
“You would just have to agree on the rules of when is it considered a delivery at Lee Ferry and when isn’t it a delivery at Lee Ferry,” said Colorado River expert and author Eric Kuhn.
Another problem is that removing the ICS pool from reservoir accounting would leave a 3.2-million-acre-foot hole in Lake Mead that would need to be filled.
“It’s hard to get there because there isn’t a way to make ICS operationally neutral unless you impose the shortages that would occur if the ICS weren’t there,” said Kathryn Sorensen, director of research and professor of practice at the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University. “I don’t know how else you can do it. You have to pay the piper.”
The infamous bathtub ring around Lake Mead can be seen in this photo of the intakes at Hoover Dam in December 2021. A conservation organization says flexible pools could be used to “move” water from Lake Mead to Lake Powell, where water levels could be critically low this year. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM
Lower Basin proposal
Last week, the Lower Basin states submitted a proposal to Reclamation to operate the reservoirs through 2028 that includes more conservation. This short-term deal could provide a temporary fix while states continue to hammer out a long-term strategy to share the river.
The Lower Basin states are proposing to cut another 700,000 acre-feet of water per year through 2028, on top of the 1.5 million acre-feet they had already promised. California and Arizona will each take another 300,000 acre-feet of cuts and Nevada will take a cut of 100,000 acre-feet. The proposal does not include any mandatory conservation from the Upper Basin.
“It was a monumental undertaking in a very short time frame to come up with all of this,” said JB Hamby, California’s lead negotiator. “We need a bridge to the future, and we welcome and look forward to an opportunity for a full seven-state deal where all states are part of the solution.”
The Lower Basin proposal also says that this year’s release from Flaming Gorge to prop up Powell should be as close to the maximum amount of Reclamation’s rangeof 1 million acre-feet as possible. The proposal also calls for increasing releases from Lake Powell if hydrology and projected reservoir levels improve.
“The intent under improved hydrology is to share the benefits of improved hydrology between both basins,” the proposal reads.
Colorado’s negotiator, Becky Mitchell, said in a prepared statement that the Lower Basin’s proposal for water-use reductions is a good first step but they still call for too much water to be released out of Lake Powell and other Upper Basin reservoirs.
“The Lower Division States’ proposal would also drain the Upstream Initial Units with limited opportunities for recovery,” Mitchell’s statement reads. “Lake Powell should properly be viewed as a savings account for the Lower Basin: The Lower Basin’s own resiliency depends upon it. The entire Basin should support sustainable, supply-driven operations at Lake Powell that rebuild storage.”
Upper Basin officials have proposed a mediator to help move the needle on talks about future management to try to get to a seven-state deal.
Berggren said that although the concept of a flexible, floating pool doesn’t solve the basic supply-and-demand problem on the Colorado River, it’s still an important tool for future management.
“There are a bunch of other things needed, including Lower Basin users and Upper Basin users using less water overall,” Berggren said. “This is just one component. But it helps provide some benefit in dry years like this one.”
In backcountry first aid, the rapid assessment of someone injured was for years summed up by the ABCs: check the patient’s airway, breathing and circulation. A new priority has since been added: stop life-threatening bleeding as quickly as possible.
That approach is relevant for those of us working to protect public lands as we confront the equivalent of a massive hemorrhage. It is Congress’ unconstrained use of the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to destroy management plans that were thoughtfully considered and years in the making.
With only simple majority votes required in each chamber of Congress, bypassing committee review and without the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster, management plans that involved extensive public participation are being thrown out.
The CRA has already been used to undo six resource management plans and one mining prohibition. What replaces these plans is unclear and has plunged public land managers, local communities and even industry into uncertainty that will linger for years.
Last month, Congress used the CRA to remove protections against mining for roughly 225,000 acres at the headwaters of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. This was a major blow to the watershed of America’s most visited wilderness and a grim moment for conservationists. Now, the focus has shifted to Utah.
Senator Mike Lee and Rep. Celeste Maloy, both Utah Republicans, have introduced joint resolutions to undo the management plan for the 1.9-million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. When you think of Southern Utah, Grand Staircase-Escalante is at its heart; its vast landscape of canyons and mesas knits together Bryce Canyon and Capitol Reef national parks and the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area.
If this CRA resolution passes, it could devastate the monument, turning it into a place where out-of-control off-road vehicle use, landscape-level clearcutting, and other extractive activities would all be possible.
The good news is that this fight is one that we, together, can win. When we do, it will set a precedent to protect all national monuments, national parks and beloved public lands that might be next in line.
In the House of Representatives, the ever-changing margins are razor thin—just ask Republican Speaker Mike Johnson, who struggles with vote counts daily. In the Senate, Mike Lee has proved notorious for wasting valuable time with legislation that has little chance of passing.
We know these elected officials have been hearing from their constituents who are unhappy about their previous votes using the CRA. In both chambers, a growing list of Republicans find they need to bolster their public lands and environmental credentialsbefore the mid-terms.
Lee and Maloy’s doomed efforts last year to sell off public lands proved highly unpopular nationwide and in Utah. Knowing that, members of Congress might want to think twice before tying themselves to the duo’s latest attempts to weaken protection for Grand Staircase-Escalante.
At the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, we’re no stranger to an uphill battle. Ever since SUWA was founded in 1983, we’ve sparred with Utah’s anti-public-lands politicians, who show a level of disdain for our national heritage that seems bizarre in its tenacity. A deep-rooted belief that a federal public lands system simply should not exist seems to drive these politicians—defying logic, economic data and poll after poll.
That’s why we are not shy about asking people outside of Utah to join us in speaking up for protecting public lands in Utah. Public lands belong to all Americans, and every day, we urge people across the country to tell their elected officials to speak up for public lands, Indigenous sacred sites and intact ecosystems in Utah—because our politicians won’t.
Scott Braden
This is the moment to urge members of Congress to vote “no” on the Grand Staircase-Escalante CRA resolution. A vote could be coming anytime in the next few weeks. Time is of the essence.
To make the case, everyone who cares about the magnificent red-rock canyons of Grand Staircase-Escalante and Southern Utah needs to act now. The more our voices are raised and registered, the stronger our message urging Congress to listen to the people who want protection and stewardship, not short-term exploitation of our public land.
Scott Braden is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. He is the executive director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA).
The Antiquities Act of 1906 was signed into law by Theodore Roosevelt, for “… the protection of objects of historic and scientific interest” through the designation of national monuments by the President and Congress. National monuments are one of the types of specially-designated areas that make up the BLM’s National Conservation Lands. Some of the earliest national monuments included Devils Tower, the Grand Canyon, and Death Valley. They were initially protected by the War Department, then later by the National Park Service. More recently, the BLM and other Federal agencies have retained stewardship responsibilities for national monuments on public lands. In fact, the BLM manages more acres of national monuments in the continental U. S. than any other agency. This includes the largest land-based national monument, the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah featured here. National monuments under the BLM’s stewardship have yielded numerous scientific discoveries, ranging from fossils of previously unknown dinosaurs to new theories about prehistoric cultures. They provide places to view some of America’s darkest night skies, most unique wildlife, and treasured archaeological resources. In total, twenty BLM-managed national monuments, covering over five million acres, are found throughout the western U. S. and offer endless opportunities for discovery. Photos and description by Bob Wick, BLM.
