Click the link to read the article on the Wyofile website (Dustin Bleizeffer):
April 10, 2026
The outlook for the Colorado River, and Lake Powell in particular, continues to worsen due to an historically warm winter and dismal snowpack.
Projections show that Lake Powell on the Utah-Arizona border could drop low enough this year that it stops producing hydroelectric power at the Glen Canyon Dam. If it drops even lower, the dam is in danger of structural failure.
Wyoming relies on some of that hydroelectric power, according to state officials. The state will also play a major, legally obligated role in trying to help prevent such a catastrophe. Primarily, the Bureau of Reclamation will release extra water from Flaming Gorge Reservoir — potentially 1 million acre feet, which is more than a quarter of its storage capacity of about 3.8 million acre-feet.
In addition to recreation and economic impacts at Flaming Gorge on the Wyoming-Utah border — boat ramps may be rendered inoperable — Wyoming officials worry about potential mandatory water use reductions in the southwest corner of the state, as well as potential legal entanglements over a seven-state negotiation that has so far failed to resolve how stakeholders will share the pain of a declining Colorado River.
Adding to frustrations and fears, the water crisis is so severe and crashing so rapidly that stakeholders can’t even track — with confidence — its extent.
“Even though these projections are painting an incredibly dire picture for us, we need to be mindful that runoff might even be worse than what’s being projected,” Wyoming Senior Assistant Attorney General Chris Brown said Friday, adding that dry soil throughout the region is a wildcard in water calculations. “It’s bad. It’s incredibly bad what we’re seeing in the Upper [Colorado River] Basin right now.”
Brown joined Wyoming State Engineer Brandon Gebhart Friday at a Wyoming Colorado River Advisory Committee meeting to provide an update on the crisis (click here to see a slidedeck presented at the meeting).
“The information we’re getting is evolving just about as quickly as the hydrology is declining, so we’re trying to react to what we’re seeing in almost real time,” Brown said. “We don’t know what’s actually going to happen.”
An extra release from Flaming Gorge, which will begin on or before May 1, is a certainty, according to Wyoming water officials. That’s because the reservoir was specifically built to serve as a sort of water bank to ensure legally obliged deliveries to downstream states Nevada, Arizona and California. Among four storage reservoirs in the upper basin, Flaming Gorge has the most — and the most legally unrestricted – water to send downstream to Lake Powell.
“It’s the low-hanging fruit,” Brown said. “It’s the biggest, by far, and it’s got the most available water.”
The reservoir also played a vital backup role for Lake Powell a few years ago. Colorado River authorities released an extra volume of about 465,000 acre-feet of water from Flaming Gorge in 2023.
But this year, even considering decreased releases from Lake Powell to help maintain Glen Canyon dam’s functionality, “anything we do as far as upstream [extra water] releases is not going to be enough,” Brown said.
