Click the link to read the article on The Aspen Daily News website (Austin Corona). Here’s an excerpt:
March 25, 2026
River managers need to conserve around 1.7 million acre-feet in Lake Powell to keep the reservoir from dropping below hydropower turbines this year, according to federal government projections. The Bureau of Reclamation, a federal agency that manages dams on the Colorado River, has estimated that reservoir levels could fall below required elevations for hydropower production before August as record-low snowpack turns into pitiful flows in streams and rivers.
“The situation is dire, the stakes have never been higher, and the reservoirs have never been drier,” Estevan Lopez, New Mexico’s negotiator on interstate Colorado River matters, said during a meeting of the Upper Colorado River Commission on Tuesday [March 24, 2026].
If water levels fall below required levels for hydropower production, dam managers will be forced to release water through bypass tubes, which are not designed for sustained, high-volume flows. With too much use, the bypasses could fail, turning the dam into a massive plug in the river and shutting off downstream flows. To keep Powell above those critical levels, federal officials can either fill it with water from upstream reservoirs, including some in Colorado, or they can reduce the water it drains from Powell and sends to the Lower Basin (California, Arizona and New Mexico). States are already expressing their views on how those operations should work. Upper Colorado River basin states, including Colorado, want the federal government to achieve the conservation requirement by reducing water releases to downstream states, at least in part. Upper Basin states say upstream reservoirs aren’t enough to save Powell without cuts to Lower Basin water deliveries. Draining the upstream reservoirs could also leave the system without backup supplies in the event of another dry year…The three primary reservoirs that could prop up Powell are Flaming Gorge in Wyoming, Navajo Reservoir in New Mexico, and Blue Mesa Reservoir near Gunnison, Colorado. Of the three, only Flaming Gorge is large enough to contribute the entire 1.7 million acre-feet on its own, and that would require draining the reservoir to halfway full. Blue Mesa and Navajo already stand at around halfway full, and the two reservoirs likely could not provide the water to save Lake Powell even if both were entirely drained.
