Click the link to read the article on The Denver Post website (Elise Schmelzer). Here’s an excerpt:
August 30, 2025
The likelihood of Western states reaching a consensus on a plan for the future of the Colorado River is dimming as time runs out for the negotiators tasked with dividing up the shrinking river relied upon by 40 million people.
“The path to success seems tenuous at this point,” Arizona’s negotiator, Tom Buschatzke, said in an interview this week with The Denver Post. “The discussions continue to revolve around the main issue that we’ve been struggling with for some time since these discussions started.”
The states have until Nov. 11 to tell the federal government whether they will have a deal and until Feb. 14 to submit a detailed plan. If consensus cannot be reached, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation will implement its own plan — a scenario that would likely prompt years of expensive litigation and put complicated water management questions in the hands of judges who aren’t specialized in the issues…
Negotiators from the Lower Basin for months have argued that their counterparts in the Upper Basin must agree to mandatory usage cuts in the driest years. The Lower Basin has already made significant cuts to address the shrinking river, Buschatzke said this week…The Upper Basin states maintain that they already take water cuts every year because they are above the system’s two major reservoirs. Since they’re reliant on snowpack and precipitation, they’re forced to live within the supply of the river. Unlike the Lower Basin states, the Upper Basin has never used its entire legal allotment, while the Lower Basin for years used more water than the river supplied and depleted water supplies stored in Mead and Powell, the basin’s negotiators have said…
Negotiators continue to discuss a concept that would base the amount released from the system’s two major reservoirs on the amount of water flowing in the river, rather than the decades-old system that bases releases on water levels at Lake Powell and Lake Mead. The negotiators spoke publicly last month about the concept, which some hailed as a potential breakthrough in negotiations. But optimism around that concept has faded. Mitchell said it was unclear whether an agreement could be reached around the framework. Buschatzke said major sticking points remained, like what percentage of the flow each basin should receive.
