Click the link to read the article on the Tucson.com website (Tony Davis). Here’s an excerpt:
April 26, 2026
It’s time to bring in a mediator to handle the prolonged dispute over managing the Colorado River between the Upper and Lower Colorado River Basin states, representatives of the four Upper Basin states say.
“The proposal for mediation attempts to address the current deadlock between Upper Basin and Lower Basin approaches and begin to deal with the basin’s dire hydrologic conditions.” said the Upper Colorado River Commission, which represents Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.
“The commissioners believe a structured mediation process can support authentic negotiations and collective action to address the Basin’s operational challenges,” the commission said in a news release last week.
The request for a mediator to handle this dispute follows about two years of fruitless negotiations among the various state representatives. There have been several major sources of dispute, but the biggest one has been over how the two basins should split the cuts in river water use that would be needed to bring human demand in line with shrinking supply…The Upper Basin states’ request comes not long before the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is supposed to announce its plan for managing the river, in the absence of an agreement among the basin states. A new plan is necessary because the river’s current operating guidelines expire Sept. 30…
The request for mediation also comes as the river’s condition continues to deteriorate. Hot, dry weather has held down water flows in the river for most of the year, and there’s a risk that spring-summer runoff into Lake Powell will be the lowest on record since Lake Powell started filling in the 1960s.