A new report finds that Lakes Mead and Powell, the nation’s largest reservoirs, could store just 9 percent of their combined capacity by the end of next summer.
Consumption of Colorado River water is outpacing nature’s ability to replenish it, with the basin’s reservoirs on the verge of being depleted to the point of exhaustion without urgent federal action to cut use, according to a new analysis from leading experts of the river.
The analysis, published Thursday [September 11, 2025], found that if the river’s water continues to be used at the same rate and the Southwest sees another winter as dry as the last one, Lakes Mead and Powell—the nation’s two largest reservoirs—would collectively hold 9 percent of the water they can store by the end of next summer. After enduring decades of overconsumption of the river’s water, the lakes would have just under 4 million acre feet of water in storage for emergencies and drier years when demand can’t be met. Every year, roughly 13 million acre feet is taken from the river for drinking water and human development across the region, with conservative forecasts estimating roughly 9.3 million acre feet of inflow next year.
The report is stark in its assessment of the situation: Current Colorado River levels require “immediate and substantial reductions in consumptive use across the Basin” or Lake Powell by 2027 would have no storage left and “would have to be operated as a ‘run of river” facility” in which only the inflow from the river could be released downstream.
“The River recognizes no human laws or governance structures and follows only physical ones,” the report’s authors wrote. “There is a declining amount of water available in the Colorado River system, primarily caused by the effects of a warming climate—longer growing seasons, drier soils, and less efficient conversion of the winter snowpack into stream flow. Although American society has developed infrastructure to store the spring snowmelt and make that water available in other seasons to more completely utilize the variable runoff, the Colorado River watershed produces only a finite volume of water, regardless of how many dams exist.”
The lifeblood of the American Southwest, the Colorado River’s water flows from Wyoming to Mexico, enabling the region’s population and economies to develop. The damming of the river has diverted water to booming metropolises like Los Angeles and Phoenix while also supporting the U.S.’s most productive agricultural areas and powering some of the its largest hydroelectric dams. In total, the river supplies seven states, 30 tribes and 40 million people with water.
The compact that divvied up the river’s water a century ago overestimated how much actually flowed through it, and climate change has diminished the supply even further. The melting snowpack that runs off mountains in the spring to feed the river has declined, shrinking the river and its storage reservoirs during decades of drought. The seven states that take Colorado River water are divided into two factions engaged in tense conversations about its future and how cutbacks should be distributed. Current guidelines for managing the river in times of drought are set to expire at the end of next year, and new ones are legally required to take their place, but negotiations between states, tribes and other stakeholders over the sharing of the necessary cuts in water usage are at an impasse.
But if current conditions persist, further cutbacks on the river won’t be able to wait until those negotiations are finished, the report’s authors find, and they urged the Department of the Interior “to take immediate action.”
“Let’s hope that we are all wrong and that it snows like hell all winter and runoff is wonderful and we buy ourselves some time and additional buffer,” said Kathryn Sorensen, director of research for Arizona State University’s Kyl Center for Water Policy and one of the report’s co-authors. “But of course, it never makes sense to plan as if it’s going to snow, and we have to deal with what is a realistic but not worst-case scenario and take responsible actions.”
Adding to the issue is the status of the infrastructure that enables the river to be diverted and stored for use. For example, the researchers write, it was thought that anything above what’s known as “dead pool”—a water level below the reservoirs’ lowest outlets that can pass water through the dams—was “active storage.” But testing last year from the Bureau of Reclamation, the federal agency overseeing the river and its dams, found that those outlets can only be safely used at water levels higher than previously thought and cannot be used for long durations.
Margaret Garcia, an associate professor at ASU’s School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, who was not a part of the study, said the analyses makes clear the “reality of dead pool is within sight” for the basin’s reservoirs, even without considering the possibility of having an extremely dry year.
She likened the reservoirs to having a savings account with a bank. “When you have a savings account, you have some time to scramble and figure things out,” Garcia said. “But if you’ve already drawn down your savings account and then [you’re laid off] and you never filled it back up at least a little bit, you’re in for a really tough situation.”
And just like a savings account, Garcia said, a reservoir isn’t much good if it can’t generate hydropower or store water.
Sorensen said the secretary of the Interior, Doug Burgum, has broad authority to act to protect critical infrastructure in both of the river’s basins. The question is what those actions should be.
“The solutions are there,” she said. “The solutions are known. They’re just extraordinarily painful to implement. “
State negotiators have worked this year to determine how to manage the river after 2026, Sorensen said, but the buffer of water stored in reservoirs “that we’re relying on to kind of get us through the negotiations and these difficult times is potentially much smaller than maybe was commonly understood.”
From left, Western States Ranches Agricultural Operations Manager Mike Higuera, Conscience Bay Research Program Officer Dan Waldvogle and Colorado State University researcher Perry Cabot. The three held a field day and ranch tour in August for other local ranchers to learn about water conservation and deficit irrigation. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM
As reservoir levels continue to plummet at the end of another dismal water year, some agricultural water users are asking Colorado lawmakers to consider a bill next session that would make it easier for them to get credit for conserving water.
It would be the next step in creating a conservation pool in Lake Powell that the Upper Basin states could use to protect against water scarcity.
Over the past decade, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming have dabbled in programs that pay willing participants to use less water on a temporary basis. But so far, that saved water has flowed downstream unaccounted for. Changes to state laws would be needed to allow state officials to shepherd conserved water into a Lake Powell pool.
“Our message is simple: Protect Colorado agriculture by enabling voluntary, compensated water conservation without causing injury to other water users,” Dan Waldvogle told state legislators at an August meeting of the Water and Natural Resources Committee in Steamboat Springs. “Give us credit for the water we save and guarantee that conserved consumptive use is fairly and fully compensated … . The 2026 legislative session is our last best chance to take action and control our future.”
Waldvogle was speaking on behalf of the Colorado Farm Bureau and Rocky Mountain Farmers Union. He also works for Conscience Bay Co., a Boulder-based real estate investment firm that owns a cattle-ranching operation in Delta County known as Western States Ranches.
But allowing the state to shepherd conserved water resurrects old concerns for some on the Western Slope. They say it could open the state to speculators and interstate water markets, with Colorado water users selling their water to the highest bidder in the Lower Basin, which includes California, Arizona and Nevada.
“We’re saying you should not pass a standalone shepherding law or conserved consumptive use law that would allow and enable the state engineer to do that without having a thorough discussion with all stakeholders and encoding in legislation important sideboards and protections for our agricultural industry and our community,” Colorado River Water Conservation District General Manager Andy Mueller told lawmakers at the August meeting.
State Engineer Jason Ullmann said in an email that he does “not have authority to require water conserved through voluntary programs to bypass other Colorado water users’ headgates unless it is necessary to meet Colorado’s compact obligations.” The bypassing of other users’ headgate to deliver water to a point downstream is more commonly known as shepherding.
The General Assembly would need to pass legislation in order to give him that authority, many stakeholders believe.
Western States Ranches near Eckert enrolled some of its fields in the 2024 System Conservation Pilot Program. The ranch was paid about $278,000 to save about 550 acre-feet of water. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM
The conservation conversation comes at a pivotal time for water users on the Colorado River, which remains wracked by drought and climate change. The most recent projections from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation show water levels at Lake Powell potentially falling below the threshold needed to make hydropower by November 2026. The reservoir is currently about 28% full.
State Sen. Dylan Roberts, a Democrat who represents several Western Slope counties including Eagle, Garfield, Grand, Moffat, Rio Blanco, Routt and Summit and is the chair of the Water and Natural Resources Committee, told Aspen Journalism that as of now, no bill to address shepherding or future conservation programs is in the works in Colorado. But that may be because the seven states that share the Colorado River are still hashing out how reservoirs will be operated and how cuts will be shared when the current guidelines expire next year.
The potential path forward.
At the beginning of this summer, negotiators from the seven basin states agreed to a concept that would share water based on flows in the river and not on demands, but talks have since stalled. Federal officials have given the states a Nov. 11 deadline to come up with the outline of a deal.
“I remain fully committed to reaching consensus, but I want to be candid, especially with you all,” Becky Mitchell, Colorado’s lead negotiator, told lawmakers. “The discussions with my counterparts have been and continue to be challenging. I understand why this discussion is so challenging for our Lower Basin counterparts. They have developed a reliance on water that is above their apportionment that is simply not there.”
Colorado and the other Upper Basin states have been tiptoeing into voluntary conservation pilot programs since 2015, and the 2019 Drought Contingency Plan allowed for a 500,000-acre-foot conservation pool in Lake Powell. Late last year, Upper Basin officials offered up a 200,000-acre-foot pool in Powell as part of negotiations, and some type of future voluntary conservation program for the Upper Basin appears increasingly likely.
The System Conservation Pilot Program, which first ran from 2015 to 2018, was rebooted in 2023 and paid water users in the Upper Basin to cut back in 2023 and 2024. Over two years, the program doled out about $45 million to conserve just over 100,000 acre-feet of water across the four states.
A main criticism of the SCPP was that the conserved water was not tracked to Lake Powell, even though one of the program’s stated intents was to boost levels in the nation’s second-largest reservoir. In some cases, the water was probably picked up by a downstream water user, with no net gain to Lake Powell. This is the issue that new state legislation could remedy. Until now, the experimental conservation programs were allowed with temporary approvals from state officials.
“We want action,” Waldvogle said. “And I think the way I define action is for [lawmakers] to move forward in developing a program in order to really catalyze our communities into these discussions. To really develop all the sideboards necessary to have a program is going to take a longer time frame.”
Western States Ranches
Conscience Bay owns about 3,800 acres on parcels scattered throughout Delta County, 3,000 of which the company says are irrigated. About 3,200 of these total acres are clustered in Harts Basin near Eckert, making up the headquarters of the company’s reaching operation known as Western States Ranches. The ranch participated in the SCPP in 2024, with water to some fields shut off June 1 and others July 1. The ranch saved about 550 acre-feet, or 7% of its water, according to ranch managers.
Ranch representatives see participation in these early voluntary conservation programs as a way to have some control over their operations should water cuts become mandatory in the future. They say they are interested in innovative ways to adapt to water scarcity, and they partnered with Colorado State University scientists to study the effects on forage crops of taking irrigation off their fields that were enrolled in SCPP in 2024.
“We wanted to figure out how this is going to affect us, and if we are required to do this in the future, we want to have the knowledge to make good decisions,” said Mike Higuera, agricultural operations manager of Western States Ranches. “We assume that we are going to have to conserve water in this game.”
Western States Ranches in Delta County participated in the 2024 System Conservation Pilot Program. The ranch is working with Colorado State University researchers to learn what happens when water is removed from fields. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM
Western States Ranches hosted an August field day in Eckert with the Western Landowners Alliance for other local farmers and ranchers to learn about drought-resilient ranching and share the findings from CSU researchers.
The ranch’s participation in SCPP has resurrected fears that the owners, who began purchasing the Delta County properties in 2017, are speculating — buying up land for its senior water rights and hoarding them for a future profit. With a water-conservation program in the Upper Basin all but guaranteed, some worry that Western States Ranches could be looking to profit off sending their water downstream.
The question came up at the August field day when a Paonia-area rancher said he had heard the ranch owners were speculators. Conscience Bay representatives have always denied that accusation.
“I can tell you there are a lot better ways to make money,” Higuera replied.
According to SCPP documents, the ranch was paid $278,372 for their water in 2024. Higuera said that amounted to about 10% of their revenue last year, with cattle sales making up the other 90%.
Colorado in recent years has tried to tackle the thorny issues of how to fairly roll out a conservation program while prohibiting speculation. Defining what speculation is and who is a speculator is slippery and hinges on determining the water rights purchaser’s intent — a nearly impossible thing to know or police with 100% certainty. The bottom line of the state’s existing anti-speculation policy is that water-rights owners must put that water to beneficial use.
Ultimately, a 2021 workgroup failed to find consensus about ways to strengthen protections against speculation and a drought task force failed to provide recommendations about conserved consumptive programs for lawmakers, underscoring the difficulty of protecting the state’s water without infringing on private property rights. Some agricultural producers balked at laws that could restrict their ability to make money by selling their land and associated water rights.
At the heart of speculation concerns is the fear of large-scale, permanent dry-up of agricultural lands. Mueller has long cautioned that conservation programs, if not done carefully, could disproportionately impact rural agricultural communities. Although SCPP was open to all water-use sectors, all of Colorado’s participants in SCPP in 2023 and 2024 were from Western Slope agriculture.
“Any program that we have must be designed for our state’s best ability to support the longevity of agriculture and the vitality of our communities, and we’ve got to be thoughtful and precise,” Mueller said.
This equipment in a field on Western States Ranches helps figure out how much water crops use. The ranch partnered with Colorado State University researchers to track what happens to a forage crop when water is removed mid-way through the irrigation season. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM
Paying for programs
Another big question about Upper Basin conservation remains: How will it be paid for?
SCPP in 2023 and 2024 was funded with money from the federal Inflation Reduction Act. The bill that could have authorized SCPP again in 2025 is still stalled in the House. Over 2023 and 2024, the program doled out about $45 million to water users in the Upper Basin and saved about 101,000 acre-feet.
Without overhauling the West’s system of water rights, voluntary, temporary and compensated conservation programs are one of the only carrots to entice agricultural water users — who account for the majority of water use in the Colorado River Basin — to cut back. But they are expensive, and it’s unclear how future long-term conservation programs would be funded.
Colorado’s entire congressional delegation in early August sent a bipartisan letter to federal water managers, in an effort to shake loose $140 million in funding that was promised for projects addressing drought on the Western Slope in the final days of the Biden administration and then frozen by the Trump administration.
U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., addressed the question at a Colorado Water Congress meeting in Steamboat Springs in August.
“We’re now not going to have a great federal partner for a while, I’m afraid, and we’re going to have to figure out how to rely on each other and do it in more imaginative ways than maybe we have in the past,” Bennet said.
Map of the Colorado River drainage basin, created using USGS data. By Shannon1 Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0
The San Juan River’s Navajo Dam and reservoir. Photo credit: U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
From email from Reclamation (Conor Felletter):
The Bureau of Reclamation has scheduled a decrease in the release from Navajo Dam to 500 cubic feet per second (cfs) from the current release of 650 cfs for Tuesday September 16, at 4:00 AM.
Releases are made for the authorized purposes of the Navajo Unit, and to attempt to maintain a target base flow through the endangered fish critical habitat reach of the San Juan River (Farmington to Lake Powell). The San Juan River Basin Recovery Implementation Program recommends a target base flow of between 500 cfs and 1,000 cfs through the critical habitat area. The target base flow is calculated as the weekly average of gaged flows throughout the critical habitat area from Farmington to Lake Powell.
This scheduled release change is subject to changes in river flows and weather conditions. If you have any questions, please contact Conor Felletter (cfelletter@usbr.gov or 970-637-1985), or visit Reclamation’s Navajo Dam website athttps://www.usbr.gov/uc/water/crsp/cs/nvd.html
The San Luis Valley is running out of water and there’s no way around it.
In Saguache County specifically, the amount of water in Saguache Creek has consistently been going down, while the amount needed to irrigate remains the same. This lack of water due to climate change, drought and overuse affects every aspect of life. Impacts on water access and streamflow are making irrigation more complicated and unpredictable, and for a community that has been built around, and economically relies on, agriculture, this is concerning. Millions of dollars are being spent to try to find solutions and mitigate the impacts, but as these challenges persist, a broader discussion is opening up about the future of agriculture in the Valley.
The question at the heart of the issue: how do communities around the San Luis Valley, like Saguache, not only manage and survive this crisis, but sustainably adapt to a landscape with less water?
The answer is complicated.
Saguache Creek in September, 2025. Credit: Ryan Michelle Scavo
Since 2002, the entire American southwest has been experiencing a severe drought. The San Luis Valley is at the center of this crisis, warming faster than any other region. Increased temperatures, inconsistent precipitation, and decreasing snowpack – alongside overpumping and overuse – has created a dire situation in which the amount of water available for use in Saguache County is rapidly decreasing.
There are two ways to access water in the Valley: pulling directly from surface water sources like creeks, rivers, and lakes, or pumping from wells that pull from the aquifer below. The water system is all connected, and the water level of the aquifer contributes to the streamflow of creeks and surface water through groundwater discharge and baseflow.
Currently, the unconfined aquifer is down over a million acre-feet of water, an amount equal to the size of the Blue Mesa Reservoir in Gunnison. The San Luis Valley has both an unconfined and confined aquifer, but the part that is under Saguache in the north end of the Valley is the confined artesian aquifer. With the structure of a confined aquifer, the loss of water, though concerning, does not prevent well users from accessing water.
It does, however, impact surface water. Unlike the aquifer, where there is still water to pull from even with losses, for surface water, significant losses to the water system mean lower streamflow and sometimes a nonexistent water source.
“If the water table drops 3 to 5 feet, suddenly it becomes disconnected from the creek and doesn’t support the streamflows. The streams just start sinking into the ground,” said Tom McCracken, a farmer and former Saguache creek surface water user. “Streamflows are down across the board. It’s really really getting bad, and it’s exacerbated by the fact that the aquifer is so low. The water is just soaking into the ground instead of running out into the Valley like it used to.”
San Luis Valley Groundwater
This means that when the wells are pumping from the aquifer, if the water level drops low enough, they’re inadvertently depleting the flow of the creek, which is water somebody has a right to divert. While this pumping impacts the aquifer as a whole, and is not localized specifically to Saguache County, streamflow of surface water around the Valley feels the impacts. These losses are considered injurious depletions, and they have been disproportionately impacting surface water rights holders, who rely on streamflow to irrigate.
This is especially problematic because water rights in the Valley operate on the concept of prior appropriation, where the longer a water right has existed, the more seniority it gets. In times of water shortage, older water rights have priority over newer water rights.
Saguache rancher George Whitten, owner of Blue Range Ranch and San Juan Ranch. Credit: Ryan Michelle Scavo
“On a creek system like this, there’s a longstanding history of struggles between one ranch and the other because the doctrine of prior appropriation kind of sets up a struggle for water rights right from the very beginning,” said George Whitten, a lifelong rancher in Saguache, who owns Blue Range Ranch and San Juan Ranch. “It’s not a system of sharing but a system of allocation. You have all the water until there’s enough for the next guy and on down. And that changes daily depending on the flow of the stream.”
Generally, in Saguache County, surface water rights are older, and considered senior, often holding numbers that rank priority within surface rights, and well water rights are newer and considered junior.
This has created a unique and challenging problem, spurring tensions in the community, as surface water users, used to having senior water rights, are finding themselves with decreasing water access because of low streamflow, while well water users are able to continue pumping from the aquifer.
“People with surface water rights that are from the 1870s are never happy with the idea that a well that was drilled in 1970 could be flowing when their water right is not there anymore,” said Whitten. “As the Valley starts to dry up, with climate change and a lack of snow fall, surface rights are less and less dependable. We’re set up in this epic struggle for how to deal with that.”
The solution to this problem might seem simple: people just need to pump less water. And while that is true to a degree, addressing this problem is a lot more complicated than that.
“Most people want to restore the aquifer, really, in their heart,” said McCracken. “But it’s like ‘I’m not going to do it if my neighbor’s not going to do it. Why should I be the one to suffer?’”
Under the current state Division of Water Resources model, established with the passing of Senate Bill 04-222, the state provides subdistricts with a maximum amount of predicted depletions for the area annually. Subdistricts then must find enough water to repair those depletions before the growing season starts, mapping it out in an annual replacement plan, which is approved by the state.
That means that for wells to continue operation, the injurious depletions must be remedied, by putting an amount equal to the amount of depletions back into the creek, so that surface water users also have access.
If enough water isn’t located and the plan isn’t approved, users won’t be granted access until it can be figured out. This means water shut off during the growing season. In 2021, Subdistrict 5’s replacement plan was rejected, resulting in about 230 wells being shut off from April 1 through the end of June, when a challenge to the rejection was finally approved, granting water access. Nearly half of the growing season was lost, yielding serious economic consequences.
In order to meet these goals, the Rio Grande Water Conservation District (RGWCD) has been leasing and buying properties and water rights around Saguache County, retiring them from agricultural production, and redirecting the water to repair depletions.
In early 2022, Subdistrict 5 was looking to be in a similar spot as 2021: without enough water to counter the depletions and unable to agree on how to get that water. The RGWCD bought its first big property, the Hazard Ranch, in May of 2022. The purchase consisted of 110 acres of property and 143 acres of water rights from the Hazard family, who had been ranching in the Valley since the 1870s. The water from the Hazard sale was enough to replenish the remaining depletions and got the annual replacement plan approved, allowing other water users to stay in operation. This last-minute purchase ultimately saved Subdistrict 5’s water from being shut down for a second year in a row.
The way the process works is that the subdistricts can purchase water rights and sometimes also the property that those water rights sit on, retiring the land from agricultural use. But finding the right properties and water rights can be tricky. There are limited water rights that are available to be used by the subdistricts, because existing conservation easements along the creek and other factors restrict the locations of potential surface water rights purchases. Each subdistrict also has its own criteria and valuations for what water rights are valuable, and only certain properties meet those criteria.
Currently, Subdistrict 5 is funding projects using loans from the Colorado Water Conservation Board. Right now it has two loans worth about $12 million.
Once purchases have been made, the subdistrict files a change of use form that switches the water’s usage designation from irrigation to augmentation. Because this process is usually happening quickly in order to meet depletion needs, this form is often filed as a temporary change of use. A permanent change requires a lengthy court process that can take up to 20 years. As long as the subdistrict has started the court process to get the designation changed, it can continue to operate under the new, temporarily changed designation, until that is officially changed, which allows for more immediate action.
After the change of use, using augmentation wells that pump water to the creek, the water that was previously irrigation and consumptive use (the amount being consumed by the crops) can be redirected and returned, offsetting depletions.
For Subdistrict 5, when it makes this switch to augmentation, it isn’t actually retiring the water rights. The water remains available to be pumped if the subdistrict needs more water to meet requirements in years with large depletions. It is still conserving water because it usually isn’t pumping, and when it is, it isn’t getting anywhere near the historical levels that were pumped when pumping was used for agriculture.
“We all need to pump significantly less or else everybody is going to be shut down. So if we shut down these quarters here, it will allow the other quarters to continue to operate versus everyone being shut down,” said Chris Ivers, program manager for Subdistrict 5. “It’s not that we want to retire productive agricultural land, it’s just that the rules limit how much we can sustainably pump – the rules of nature, I mean.”
Subdistricts must meet both sustainability mandates and injurious depletion mandates from the state. Currently, to meet sustainability goals, Subdistrict 5 must remain within the limits of the historical pumping that took place between 1978-2000 for a 10-year period. Because the district is well within this sustainable range, it has been able to focus on buying water rights without having to prioritize full retirement for sustainability reasons, which is the main focus of some other subdistricts.
“What we’re seeing in the state’s annual measurement under the groundwater rules is that the Saguache response area, the aquifer, is actually recovering in that area at a greater rate than anywhere else in the confined aquifer in the Valley,” said Amber Pacheco, deputy general manager of the Rio Grande Water Conservation District.
The district’s next big purchase will likely be more of North Star Farm, from whom it has been leasing and buying property for years. North Star, one of the largest water users in the Valley, runs around 30 circles in Subdistrict 5, growing alfalfa for large dairy operations in California. North Star only holds junior, groundwater rights, and its operation consists of a system that pumps water from wells and irrigates using water pivots at the center of every circle.
Farm land in Saguache. Credit: Ryan Michelle Scavo
For surface water users, this purchase is a step in the right direction, as North Star’s water usage has been a point of contention for many years.
“It’s a difficult thing to see a sprinkler running on North Star Farm when the number 10 water right is off in Saguache Creek,”said Whitten, who is vice president of the Subdistrict 5 board of managers. “Seeing them able to pump a full supply of water without any surface rights whatsoever, when the people on the creek, due to the lack of inflows, are sitting there drying up and watching that go on – it’s a hard spot in this community for sure,” said Whitten. “I totally get it. I have a lot of land that is not usable anymore because of North Star.”
This situation acts as a prime example of the cultural clash that exists in the Valley, not only between surface and well water rights holders, but also between a large corporate entity in a sea of family-owned and operated businesses.
But even though North Star is an out-of-state corporation, the situation is complicated because the locals who are employed by North Star are a part of the community as well.
“You know the people who work there, who manage that farm, they live in Sanford, but they have kids in school and they’re part of the community too. If you get too focused on Saguache Creek you lose your perspective,” Whitten said.
Drying up North Star has been a longtime goal of the RGWCD and other community members. They have embarked on several endeavors over the years with the goal of purchasing the whole property and all of its water rights, but the price has always been just out of reach. Ultimately people want the land dried up and revegetated, with all of that water being put back into the creek.
Today, the goal remains the same, but instead of all at once, it’s starting to happen in small pieces. Starting in 2021, Subdistrict 5 was leasing one to three groundwater irrigated sprinkler quarter sections from North Star, negotiating those leases annually. Each quarter contains about 120 acres of irrigated ground. In 2024, Subdistrict 5 purchased the water rights to those three leased quarters, and Subdistrict 2 purchased two quarters as well. Subdistrict 5 is planning to purchase four additional quarters in the upcoming year, using funding from a loan approved in January of this year.
Having recently made big purchases like the Hazard Ranch and parts of the North Star property, Subdistrict 5 has a large quantity of water available to be redirected.
Some wells that already exist work as augmentation wells, but sometimes new augmentation wells need to be built in more optimal locations in order to connect certain groundwater areas to the creek. This is a priority for the subdistrict right now.
“Our current problem isn’t the amount of water. [With recent purchases], we have enough water, but we don’t have enough ability to deliver that water,” said Ivers. “We’re really focused on finding locations for augmentation wells on Saguache Creek.”
While things are moving in a positive direction, the situation will likely only intensify in the upcoming years. When the state model gets updated, predicted depletions change based on the water situation from the prior decade. The new calculations that have come out, which would go into effect in 2026, show a drastic jump in the amount of depletions Subdistrict 5 will have to remedy.
“It’s a pretty significant increase for the subdistrict, which means it’s going to have a significant and kind of an immediate impact on those subdistrict members to try to recover enough groundwater that they can pay for these increased depletions,” said Pacheco. “It’s going to be a big, big challenge for Subdistrict 5 especially, to try to be able to meet those with the limited availability of what they can use in the area. They’re working on it already and I have faith that we’ll be able to do that successfully, but it will be a challenge for sure.”
While the subdistricts operate individually, 1, 4, and 5 all owe depletions to Saguache Creek, and are combining efforts and sharing resources when they can to make sure depletions and goals get met.
“Subdistricts 1, 4, and 5 have agreed to work together as best they can to solve the problem as one. It’s kind of a good opportunity for a more collaborative effort for Saguache Creek,” said Ivers.
While the purchasing and retirement of agricultural land has been regarded as one of the only sustainable solutions to the problem, the strategy has been met with some questions and concerns – both economic and environmental.
The establishment of the state model was controversial in some circles because it created an irrigation season and seasonal restrictions on water access for all water rights holders. It was met with backlash from certain parts of the community, particularly surface water users, who were used to irrigating when they felt it was necessary, even if it was outside of the usual growing season. Many still don’t love it, and a consistent point of frustration has been centered around the impacts of climate change, which is causing fluctuations in the timing of runoff and snowpack melt. Earlier flows, coming down before the start of the state’s irrigation season, means farmers have to watch water go by in the river that can’t be diverted, while struggling with a lack of water later in the season.
How the property retirement and dry-up will impact taxes is another area of concern.
“Saguache County’s tax base could be drastically affected by all this dry-up. The property tax base is based on agriculture mainly, and if we lose that, we gotta find alternative ways to finance the county’s operations. It really should be part of the negotiations to dry up a circle to maintain that tax base, but it’s not at the moment. So I’m really concerned about it,” said McCracken, who serves on the Saguache County Board of Commissioners.
Property taxes are calculated based on how productive the land is, so when it gets dried up and stops, it loses that productivity and therefore also the tax classification. Losing large properties to dry-up, while good for water, could mean a huge loss to county coffers. The Rio Grande Water Conservation District says that this is something it takes into consideration.
“If the RGWCD buys the land and actually controls the land, we do work with the counties to try to continue the tax base for that property, even though it’s now gone to a different taxable classification,” said Pacheco. “We try to keep their budgets as whole as we can when we buy properties, so we pay Alamosa County, we get bills from Saguache County, all to try to minimize the impact on those government services.”
Retiring agricultural land also creates a few environmental concerns. First, putting surface water back into the ground, while sustainable, endangers riparian zones on the creeks going up into the canyons, which are critical wildlife habitats and for regional tourism.
Diverting a property’s water without the proper plan, especially with a persistent drought, can also create the optimal conditions for a dust bowl. Changing weather, with decreasing precipitation and strong, unpredictable winds, alongside the removal of water and crops, causes the topsoil to dry up. With no roots or vegetation to hold the soil in place, the potential for it to blow away increases.
“You potentially have these huge dust storms where you lose an inch of top soil in the storm, and there’s traffic pile ups on Highway 17 and there’s drifts of soil up to the top of the fencelines. I mean it’s just out of control,” said McCracken. “Those circles, if they’re dried up, have to be revegetated. It’s just an absolute necessity.”
The RGWCD, along with other groups in the Valley, is working to make revegetation a priority. Whitten is part of a group, along with Patrick O’Neill and Madeline Wilson from CSU Extension, that has been discussing the best ways to go about revegetation in the area. The goal would be to improve soil health and restore nutrients that have been stripped during prior agricultural use, by bringing in native plant cover and potentially grazing livestock as well. Different plans allow for a few inches of water to be left on retired land to support revegetation efforts in the first few years.
Enforcing revegetation is a problem the RGWCD and county officials are still working to address. If the RGWCD doesn’t control the land, either because it only owns water rights, or because landowners had to dry up land they couldn’t afford to farm, but aren’t connected to a program, the RGWCD can’t force them to revegetate. These situations are complicated, because while people may want those properties to be revegetated for environmental and aesthetic reasons, it’s unclear who has the authority, and whose responsibility it is, to make those decisions or enforce rules.
Many also question whether or not the millions of dollars being spent buying properties could be better allocated toward other sustainability and conservation efforts that impact water. Instead of so much money being used to buy properties, a portion could be going to farmers to help them start practicing more sustainable methods, like sequestering carbon and improving soil health, which naturally help reduce water usage while also restoring the ecosystem.
A view of silos in Saguache. Credit: Ryan Michelle Scavo
This concern is rooted in the idea that, if industrial agriculture practices are going to continue running through water and harming the soil, eventually requiring more and more land to be bought up and retired – which some call a “Band-aid solution” – it might be productive to look into reworking the agricultural system into a more sustainable model.
“We have farmers in the Valley using sustainable farming methods that have reduced their water usage by like 40 to 50 percent. Why aren’t we doing that? Why aren’t we taking the resources we have and spending at least some of them to try to change, not just take land out of agriculture permanently,” said McCracken. “Change their way of farming and maybe change some of the crops and the number of rotations that they do. Maybe we can get that water back if we do this right. Maybe we can keep more people in business. Maybe it doesn’t have to be only the corporations that survive all of this.”
The efforts being made around the Valley by Rio Grande Water Conservation District and other organizations are an important part of the search for a solution to what could be considered an impossible problem, one that communities around the southwest continue to grapple with.
“I’m really proud of the San Luis Valley and the RGWCD and the people here who have tried to figure out a way to mitigate those impacts on surface rights by well pumping,” said Whitten. “I’ve spent most of my life involved in this struggle and we’re way ahead of most people in the West, I think, in dealing with these issues.”
It will likely only continue to get more complex, as climate change, drought, and water availability become more unpredictable. But, it is a Valley-wide and basin-wide issue that affects everyone, and it seems as though, despite certain disagreement points, the community can agree that attempting to adapt and find sustainable paths forward is the only solution.
“What we endeavored to do back in the day was to control the collapse of the agricultural empire that we’ve built here. We’re running out of water and there’s just no way around that,” said Whitten. “So do you let everybody just pump until the last guy who can drill the deepest well is the last one left? Or do you somehow try to control this collapse of our economy and somehow salvage it? The natural world is going to prevail in the end. How do we control this and try to become sustainable and resilient?”
These questions remain at the center of conversations in Saguache County.
1869 Map of San Luis Parc of Colorado and Northern New Mexico. “Sawatch Lake” at the east of the San Luis Valley is in the closed basin. The Blanca Wetlands are at the south end of the lake.
The Colorado River District is working to buy the water rights to the Shoshone hydroelectric power plant for $99 million from Xcel Energy to ensure they exist in perpetuity, due to their importance in helping assure a sizable amount of Colorado River water continues flowing downstream at times of low water levels rather than being diverted. It is pursuing an instream flow right to protect the flows associated with the rights at times when the plant isn’t operating, and so the flows will continue should the plant ever close.Heather Sackett/Aspen Journalism
Front Range utility giant Denver Water has thrown its support behind the effort by Colorado’s entire congressional delegation to get the Bureau of Reclamation to release previously announced drought-mitigation funding for 15 Colorado water projects, including $40 million to help acquire the Shoshone hydroelectric plant water rights on the Colorado River. In a Sept. 5 letter to the bureau’s acting commissioner, David Palumbo, and Scott Cameron, acting assistant Interior secretary for water and science, Denver Water CEO/Manager Alan Salazar voiced the utility’s support for the funding for 15 Colorado projects selected for the bureau’s Upper Colorado River Basin Environmental Drought Mitigation funding opportunity. The money is part of a category of funding also known as “Bucket 2” or “B2E.”
[…]
In the waning days of the Biden administration, the Bureau of Reclamation announced the Shoshone funding and tens of millions of dollars of funding for other water projects in the state. Among the other projects are about $25.6 million for drought mitigation in southwest Colorado, about $24.3 million for the Grand Mesa and Upper Gunnison watershed resiliency and aquatic connectivity project, $4.6 million for the Mesa Conservation District and Colorado West Land Trust to work on drought resiliency on local conserved lands, and $2.8 million for the Fruita Reservoir Dam removal project on Piñon Mesa. Most of that funding has been frozen under the Trump administration, although it did eventually agree to release nearly $12 million to the Orchard Mesa Irrigation District for water projects that were among the projects previously announced for funding…
Of particular interest particularly for West Slope water interests is the Shoshone funding. The Colorado River District is trying to close a $99 million deal with Xcel Energy to buy what are large and senior water rights associated with the plant in Glenwood Canyon. Those rights, due to their seniority, have helped protect flows into the canyon and downstream, and the river district wants to protect those water rights and their associated flows in cases when the plant isn’t operating, and should it eventually shut down. The federal funding is key to the fundraising effort to buy the water rights. The river district has proposed dedicating the Shoshone water rights to the Colorado Water Conservation Board for instream flow use, Salazar noted in his letter.
From email from the Center for Colorado River Studies:
September 11, 2025
While Colorado River Basin attention is focused on negotiating post-2026 operating rules, a near term crisis is unfolding before our eyes. If no immediate action is taken to reduce water use, our already-thin buffer of storage in Lake Powell and Lake Mead could drop to just 9 percent of the levels with which we started the 21st century.
Water consumption in the Basin continues to outpace the natural supply, further drawing down reservoir levels. While Basin State representatives pursue the elusive goal of a workable and mutually acceptable set of post-2026 operating rules, our review of the latest Bureau of Reclamation data shows that the gap between ongoing water use and the reality of how much water actually flows in the Colorado River poses a serious near term threat. Another year like the one we just had on the Colorado River would nearly exhaust our dwindling reserves.
In a report issued today, we look at total mass balance in the system – reservoir storage, inflow, and water use – to help clarify how much water the Basin actually has to work with if next year’s snowmelt runoff is similar to 2025, and the risks if we do not take near term action to reduce our use. The findings are stark.
Jack Schmidt, Director, Center for Colorado River Studies, Utah State University, former Chief, Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center
Anne Castle, Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy and the Environment, University of Colorado Law School, former US Commissioner, Upper Colorado River Commission, former Assistant Secretary for Water and Science, US Dept. of the Interior
John Fleck, Writer in Residence, Utton Transboundary Resources Center, University of New Mexico
Eric Kuhn, Retired General Manager, Colorado River Water Conservation District
Kathryn Sorensen, Kyl Center for Water Policy, Arizona State University, former Director, Phoenix Water Services
Katherine Tara, Staff Attorney, Utton Transboundary Resources Center, University of New Mexico
Amid tense negotiations over the Colorado River’s future, Nevada leaders came together Thursday to focus on the state’s strategy to meet the climate and drought crisis threatening Lake Mead and the Hoover Dam.
Democratic Rep. Susie Lee, whose district falls within the boundaries of Lake Mead and half of the Hoover Dam, brought together regional water and hydropower leaders to highlight mounting needs the state faces during her third annual Southern Nevada Water Summit at the Springs Preserve.
Before water was piped from the Colorado River to Las Vegas, the burgeoning community relied entirely on groundwater from the Las Vegas Springs located on the site where the Springs Preserve now sits.
That water soon dried up after demand from the growing city depleted the aquifer. Now water managers are working to ensure Lake Mead – which provides nearly 90% of the city’s water – does not meet the same fate.
The summit comes at a critical time as states run against a mid-November deadline to reach a consensus on how the river and its reservoirs should be managed after current guidelines expire at the end of 2026. If states can’t reach a deal ahead of the deadline, the federal government will likely step in and make those decisions for them.
“The reality is it’s a really tough set of negotiations right now, so we’re meeting pretty regularly,” said Southern Nevada Water Authority Deputy General Manager Colby Pellegrino.
“There’s a lot of work that still needs to be done. We are nowhere close to agreement,” Pellegrino said.
Still, it’s an improvement from December when representatives from Lower Basin states — Nevada, Arizona, and California — and Upper Basin states — Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming — left a major water summit in Las Vegas without even speaking to each other.
Upper and Lower Basin states have largely quarreled over which portion of the basin should decrease its water use, and by how much.
States did come closer to a consensus after a breakthrough proposal in July to share the waterway based on the actual flow of the river, as opposed to projected flows and historical agreements. The proposal is still in play, said Pellegrino.
“I personally think it’s really good public policy for us to pursue something like that. It’s very responsive to current conditions. It does a decent job of creating some equity between the Upper Basin and Lower Basin,” Pellegrino said.
“But we’ve got a long way to go to see if we can agree on the details,” she continued.
Water flows in the Colorado River are shrinking due to climate change, and the reality of what that means for states reliant on the river is becoming more stark.
Earlier this month, federal officials announced they would continue water allocation cuts on the Colorado River for the fifth consecutive year following a persistent drought that’s drained Lake Mead.
Lake Mead’s elevation is currently at about 1,054 feet above sea level – 175 feet below what’s considered full. Based on water storage, the reservoir is at 31% of capacity.
Nevada is ahead of the game when it comes to preparing for those reductions, said Pellegrino.
Nevada receives less than 2% of Colorado River water each year, the smallest share of any state in the basin. Those limitations have forced Nevada to become a conservation pioneer.
Southern Nevada hasn’t used its full allocation of Colorado River water for years. Conservation efforts have helped Southern Nevada use 36% less water from Lake Mead than it did two decades ago, according to the Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA).
Even under the most severe water shortage, the Southern Nevada Water Authority would be able to access its share of the river thanks to major infrastructure projects, including Intake 3 — the ‘third straw’ — and the Low Lake Level Pumping Station.
“Our intake and our infrastructure allows us to deliver water to this valley even when water cannot be released from Hoover Dam,” Pellegrino said.
Other water infrastructure projects in Nevada have been funded by the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act, which allocated 10% of revenue derived from land sales to the Southern Nevada Water Authority.
To date, SNPLMA has generated more than $368 million to fund Nevada’s water priorities and infrastructure needs. Pellegrino said SNWA will continue leveraging that funding to support water conservation, infrastructure upgrades, long-term drought planning, and environmental restoration.
Additional sources of federal funding have also been a major contributor to water conservation on the Colorado River, said Lee.
The congresswoman highlighted the Inflation Reduction Act, which included $4 billion in investments for drought mitigation along the Colorado River Basin. She also highlighted the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law which provided $141 million for water conservation projects in Southern Nevada, including funding for the Las Vegas Wash, which carries millions of gallons of treated wastewater to Lake Mead.
That funding allowed California, Arizona and Nevada to collectively reduce water use by at least 3 million acre-feet through the end of 2026, stabilizing Lake Mead for several years.
Another major issue created by lower water levels at Lake Mead is the loss of hydropower productivity. Hoover Dam generates half the power that it did in 2000 due to consistently lower water levels in Lake Mead.
If Lake Mead falls another 20 feet, Hoover Dam’s capacity to generate electricity would be slashed by 70% from its current level.
The break point for hydropower is 1,035 feet. At that level, 12 older turbines at Hoover that are not designed for low reservoir levels would be shut down. Only five newer turbines installed a decade ago would continue to generate power.
There is a way to fix the problem, said the Colorado River Commission of Nevada’s director of hydropower Gail Bates.
Replacing the 12 older turbines would maintain power generation even at low levels, however it would require significant investment.
“We’re really getting to the point where they’re urgently needed. Bad news is the cost. They cost about $8 million each to install. So it’s a very heavy investment,” Bates said.
During the summit, Lee and Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto said they are working together to advance the Help Hoover Dam Act, a bill that would unlock some $50 million in stranded funding for the dam from an orphaned federal account.
The funds had been set aside for pension benefits for federal employees, but advocates for the bill say Congress funds pension benefits through other means and that the funds could be spent on dam upgrades if the Bureau of Reclamation was given the authority to do so.
“The dam is turning 100 years old in 2035 and the Bureau of Reclamation is estimating that it will require about $200 million in upgrades. This is money that’s just sitting there stranded. It would be so good to free that up so we can make those investments,” Cortez Masto said.
Nevada Current is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Nevada Current maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Hugh Jackson for questions: info@nevadacurrent.com.
Map of the Colorado River drainage basin, created using USGS data. By Shannon1 Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0
Lake Pleasant (pictured), located north of Phoenix, serves as the Central Arizona Project’s water storage reservoir, as well as being a popular recreational amenity. Water shortages are impacting Colorado River basin reservoirs such as Lake Mead in Nevada and Lake Powell, which stretches across northern Arizona and southern Utah. Environmental changes throughout the Southwest are presenting challenges to maintaining flows. Photo courtesy of Central Arizona Project
Arizona cities are joining together under one banner to advocate for Arizona in ongoing Colorado River talks…At a discussion on Wednesday, Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego emphasized the need to get these negotiations right for the sake of Arizona’s future.
“For political reasons as well as drought, it [the river] is under threat, and we have to come together and tell the story of the really important work that we as the cities in the Central Arizona Project service territory are doing to protect our water,” Gallego said.
She is one of 23 Arizona mayors in the bipartisan coalition so far…The goal of the new Arizona coalition is to unite Colorado River water users and showcase the state’s ongoing water conservation efforts. Brenda Burman is the executive director of the CAP.
“I think when people have looked into our state from the outside, they haven’t seen us standing together. They’ve seen us making our own announcements, and that’s not how we feel, so we wanted to have a chance to be able to show it,” Burman said.
Burman said the coalition is only in its first phase and will expand to include other Arizona water users, like farms.
Extensive farmland receives irrigation water and 80 percent of the Arizona population receives municipal water through the Central Arizona Project, a massive distribution system in the state that Brad Udall’s father and uncle worked to establish. Accelerating evaporation in diversion systems such as this is a top concern resulting from climate change. Credit: Colorado State University
Rocky Mountain Community Radio’s Caroline Llanes spoke with Chris Winter to find out what the report says about the basin’s future. Winter is the executive director of the Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy, and the Environment at the University of Colorado, Boulder’s School of Law…
Llanes: Let’s start by talking a little bit about the Bureau of Reclamation’s 24-month study projections. What is the agency saying about the Colorado River Basin in this study?
Projected Lake Powell end-of-month physical elevations from the latest 24-Month Study inflow scenarios.
Projected Lake Mead end-of-month physical elevations from the latest 24-Month Study inflow scenarios.
Winter: Yeah, so the latest projections are quite dire, and it’s not good news. So the Bureau typically says, ‘here’s what the reservoir levels are.’ And then it says, ‘over the next 24 months, we’re going to do our best to guess or estimate what those levels might be over time.’ And so this year in particular has been a really bad year for runoff and the Colorado River Basin, and that’s because of course we had a low snow year, especially for lots of areas on the Western Slope of Colorado and other areas. So, because we had less snow this year, that’s generating less runoff into the Colorado River and into Lake Powell. And so as a result of that, the reservoir levels are going down, because we’re withdrawing using more water than is going into the system—so, a basic supply-demand problem. The Bureau’s report basically starts saying, ‘here’s the elevation of Lake Powell and Lake Mead based on the water year that we’ve had so far,’ and I think that’s something, you know, somewhere around 3,555 feet, which is quite low, that number doesn’t mean a lot to a lot of folks, but those of us who focus on the Colorado River all the time are like, ‘wow, that’s not a good number,’ and that’s quite low for the reservoir levels in Lake Powell.
Llanes: Did they make any policy recommendations or (provide) actions for the states in the basin to take?
Winter: Yeah, so the report itself doesn’t make recommendations on how to change management of the system in response to this. This is really just a technical report that estimates how much water will be in the system over the next 24 months, but there’s preexisting operating guidelines in place from 2007. The reservoir levels, and the predicted reservoir levels, trigger under those operating guidelines, certain restrictions. And those restrictions generally require reductions in releases of water to lower basin and water users, states like California and Arizona. And so I think we’ve all been assuming that those restrictions are gonna kick in any way. So this isn’t really a lot of really new information on that front, but this report certainly clarifies that. But I think what it really does now is it places a lot of importance on the negotiations that are taking place among the states with the federal government to figure out how to allocate water in the future and especially what’s at stake and what kind of timelines we’re working with.
The points and counterpoints are in: Colorado’s water heavyweights have laid out their arguments about the future of a powerful Colorado River water right ahead of a state hearing in mid-September.
A Western Slope coalition led by the Colorado River District and Front Range groups — Aurora Water, Colorado Springs Utilities, Denver Water and Northern Water — are debating a potential change to water rights tied to the Shoshone Power Plant in Glenwood Canyon. The influential water rights, owned by an Xcel Energy subsidiary, impact how water flows across the state.
The Western Slope wants to add an environmental use to the water rights, which currently allow Xcel to use the water for hydropower, mining, milling, manufacturing and other purposes. It’s part of the coalition’s broad plan to keep the Colorado River’s “status quo” flows at Shoshone Power Plant long into the future.
Front Range water managers and providers are concerned that their water supplies could be impacted, especially if the Colorado River District is overestimating the amount of water that should head west toward Shoshone, near Glenwood Springs, rather than east to growing Front Range cities.
Each side has insinuated that the other is swaying its estimate of past water use to send more water to their part of the state.
Graphic credit: Laurine Lassalle/Aspen Journalism
“We do not contest the environmental benefits. Protecting flows in Glenwood Canyon is valuable,” said Aurora Water in a rebuttal statement filed Friday. “Aurora’s participation in this hearing is not about securing any sort of ‘windfall,’ as some have wrongly alleged. That claim is baseless and pure projection. Our sole position is that Shoshone should be preserved as it has historically operated — no more, no less.”
Thirteen entities submitted rebuttal statements, totaling 367 pages,[to] the Colorado Water Conservation Board. It’s part of the state’s multistep review process in advance of the hearing at the board’s next meeting, Sept. 16-18.
For western Colorado communities, the Shoshone water rights impact their economies, quality of life and environments. Shoshone’s water rights are old enough that they have priority over other, more recent water rights in dry periods under state law. Over the past century, these communities have grown up relying on the power plant to send water westward — toward their farm diversions and rafting corridors — as it generates electricity.
For Front Range communities, the stakes are similar. Water providers rely on water from western Colorado to support growing cities, industries and farms. And in some cases, their water rights come in second to Shoshone’s under the “first in time, first in right” water administration system.
With high stakes on either side, Fresh Water News is breaking down some of the key questions in the debate.
What is an instream flow right?
An instream flow right is meant to help preserve the natural environment. In 1973, Colorado lawmakers allowed a state agency, the Colorado Water Conservation Board, to use water rights to keep water in rivers, streams and natural lakes through the Instream Flow Program.
At the time, Coloradans were concerned about stretches of streams that dried up when mountain runoff slowed while demand from humans — cities, farms and industries — continued. Shallower, slower streamflows impact habitat and food sources for native species while sometimes creating better habitat for their competitors.
The program aims to keep water in streams and natural lakes to reduce these impacts. Since 1973, the state has appropriated instream flow rights on nearly 1,700 stream segments covering more than 9,700 miles. In Shoshone’s case, the instream flow right would apply to a 2.4-mile stretch of the Colorado River between the point where Shoshone takes water out of the river and the point where it releases that water back into the river channel.
What’s this state-led process?
The state-led process will determine whether the water rights attached to the Shoshone Power Plant can be used to protect instream flows.
Colorado lawmakers designated the Colorado Water Conservation Board, a state water policy agency, as the sole entity that can own and operate instream flow rights. The agency’s board of directors is reviewing testimony, environmental analyses, and other materials as part of a standard, 120-day review process for proposed instream flow rights. The board is scheduled to make its final determination at its September meeting.
The Colorado River District kicked off the review period in May when it formally proposed adding an instream flow right to Shoshone’s water rights. Under the district’s proposal, the district would own the title to Shoshone’s water rights, but the state would manage it in perpetuity.
After the hearing, the proposed Shoshone environmental water right would also need to go through a water court process.
What is this “historical use” debate about?
In order to legally change Shoshone’s water rights to include environmental use, state officials need to know how much water has been used under Shoshone’s water rights in the past.
Shoshone’s 1905 water right allows the power plant to divert up to 1,250 cubic feet per second of water. A second, more recent, water right allows the plant to divert 158 cfs. But the amount of water that is actually used to generate power at Shoshone fluctuates or has paused because of facility maintenance.
Calculating past use is complicated. BBA Water Consultants, hired by the Colorado River District, looked at Shoshone’s operations from 1975 through 2003. The plant’s 29-year average historical use was 844,644 acre-feet, according to the consultants’ preliminary analysis.
They excluded years after 2003 because Shoshone had significant outages totaling 1,466 days over 19 years compared with 89 days during the study period.
Some Front Range water users say this estimate is too high or that more recent years should have been included.
Aurora Water said the Western Slope group used “cherry-picked data” and the historical use was closer to 538,204 acre-feet, a 36% difference.
Are there other disagreements?
In short, yes. The oft-repeated refrain in water deals is “the devil’s in the details.”
Colorado Springs Utilities raised concerns in its rebuttal about adding an environmental use to Shoshone’s more recent, or junior, water right, which currently allows water to be used for manufacturing and power generation. The Colorado River District’s plan would expand the junior right and potentially cause a water-administration ripple effect that would impact the utility’s water supplies.
Denver Water was concerned about historical use. It and Aurora Water also took issue with how the environmental water right would be owned and managed under the Colorado River District’s proposal. State lawmakers gave the CWCB exclusive authority to hold and use instream flow rights, but the River District’s plan encroaches on that authority by saying the district will hold the title, but the state agency will manage the right.
Northern Water shared many of these concerns, requesting that the state delay its decision.
For its part, the Colorado River District said everyone agrees on the main issue — adding an environmental use to the Shoshone water rights — but that the objectors “misstate the law” and are trying to distort the parameters of the state’s upcoming decision.
The district says the water court decides how much water is at stake, saying the water providers should leave “historical use” up to the court. It has also suggested the state stay neutral on the historical use amount.
This historical photo shows the penstocks of the Shoshone power plant above the Colorado River. A coalition led by the Colorado River District is seeking to purchase the water rights associated with the plant. Credit: Library of Congress photo
Colorado River “Beginnings”. Photo: Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism
From email from the Arizona Department of Water Resources (Doug Maceachern):
September 2, 2025
It’s time to set the record straight regarding the negotiations among Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico and Colorado regarding the post-2026 Colorado River operations.
Amid the backdrop of prolonged drought and declining flows of the Colorado River, the seven states have the unenviable task of balancing the amount of water Mother Nature provides and the stressors related to the use of that water for 40 million people and millions of acres of farmland.
Udall/Overpeck 4-panel Figure Colorado River temperature/precipitation/natural flows with trend. Lake Mead and Lake Powell storage. Updated through Water Year 2024. Credit: Brad Udall
Discussions among the seven basin states continue, but finding common ground has been extremely challenging. The United States has told the seven basin states that if an agreement is not reached by November 11, 2025, they will move forward with an alternative. The terms and conditions of that alternative have not been disclosed. There is still an opportunity to avoid the path of federally imposed operating guidelines and the legal entanglements that would likely follow. But the clock is ticking.
However, Arizona, California, Nevada, and our partners in Mexico have not been idle. Over the last decade, we have reduced our water use so that the elevation of Lake Mead, the primary storage reservoir supplying water to our three states and Mexico, is over 100 feet higher because of those water-use reductions. That is over two trillion gallons of water. Arizona’s contribution to that success story? Nearly a trillion gallons of that total entirely on our own.
Those reductions have been painful, but they have not been enough to sustain the river. Moving forward, all seven states must do more.
That outcome requires bold thinking, sacrifice, and a willingness to share in protecting the Colorado River by all seven states that benefit from its bounty. The tool to achieve that goal is simple: reduce water use.
Arizona, California, and Nevada have put forth a Post 2026 operational proposal that requires mandatory, certain and verifiable water-use reductions of additional billions of gallons of water by the three Lower Basin states.
To the contrary, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and New Mexico have not agreed, nor have they proposed, any mandatory, certain and verifiable reductions in their water use. Not. One. Single. Gallon. Instead, they propose that water-use reductions needed to save the Colorado River come solely from Arizona, California and Nevada.
Map of the Colorado River drainage basin, created using USGS data. By Shannon1 Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0
Crystal Dam, part of the Colorado River Storage Project, Aspinall Unit. Credit Reclamation.
From email from Reclamation (Conor Felletter):
September 4, 2025
On Saturday, September 6, 2025 at 6pm MT, Reclamation will decrease releases from Crystal Dam to 1,450 cfs from the current release of 1,500 cfs. Gunnison Tunnel diversions remain at 1025 cfs. Gunnison River flows in the Black Canyon/Gunnison Gorge, currently ~460 cfs, are anticipated to decrease to ~410 cfs. This schedule will remain in effect until a new notification is issued. Scheduled releases are subject to changes with changes in river flows and weather conditions.
Releases are made for the authorized purposes of the Aspinall Unit, and to maintain target base flows through the endangered fish habitat along the Gunnison River between Delta and Grand Junction.
Contact Conor Felletter (cfelletter@usbr.gov or 970-637-1985) for more information regarding Aspinall operations.
Up until late August, this summer has been particularly dry, both for the Denver region and for the West Slope, the source of half of Denver Water’s supply. And that combination has translated into a heavy workload for the utility’s largest reservoir, the 257,000-acre-foot Dillon Reservoir in Summit County.
Dillon Reservoir in Summit County is Denver Water’s largest reservoir. Photo credit: Denver Water.
A summer largely bereft of the monsoon rains (which bolster our water supply and reduce water use by our water-smart customers) combined with long stretches of days above 90 degrees pushed up demand among the 1.5 million people Denver Water serves.
The dry summer situation also triggered calls for more water from farmers and ranchers who have senior water rights that put them at the front of the line for receiving water from the South Platte River system. Denver Water’s supplies are also constrained on the north side of its system, as ongoing work on the Gross Reservoir Expansion Project requires the utility reduce the amount of water it stores in that reservoir during the project.
Dillon Reservoir provides Denver Water with a supplemental supply to use when the amount of water available from its south system source, the South Platte River, is not enough to meet demands.
That all combined to make Denver Water more heavily reliant on Dillon Reservoir than usual, forcing the utility to push higher volumes from Dillon through the Roberts Tunnel to the Front Range.
“A lot of factors combined to see us lean hard into our Dillon supplies this summer,” said Nathan Elder, manager of supply for Denver Water. “We know this impacts recreation, both what we release into the Blue River below the reservoir and the water levels for the marinas at Dillon Reservoir. We try very hard to maintain good conditions for recreation at Dillon, but this summer posed challenges.”
The Dillon Marina at Dillon Reservoir. Photo credit: Denver Water.
Overall, the amount of water flowing into Dillon was at just 70% of normal in the April-through-July stretch. July alone saw just 48% of typical flows into the reservoir — that’s 20,000 acre-feet below average, about the capacity of Antero Reservoir west of Fairplay.
The situation serves as a reminder for Denver Water customers to stay smart about water use.
Especially amid a hot, dry summer, customers should make sure to follow watering rules and skip irrigation during rainy periods. And they should consider landscape changes that replace thirsty turfgrass with plants that need less water.
Yet, despite relentless dry periods covering July and most of August, Denver Water customers did a good job managing irrigation. They used water at a rate of just about 2% above the five-year average, and just 1.6% above the longer term, 2000-2024 average.
These plants from Resource Central’s Garden In A Box program are water-wise and interesting throughout the year. Photo credit: Denver Water.
But even as Denver Water customers kept demands low by historical standards, the combination of conditions saw water levels in Dillon fall below levels optimal for the marinas at the reservoir by the end of August.
Typically, Denver Water tries to keep the surface of Dillon Reservoir at 9,012 feet in elevation through Labor Day. But this year, levels will fall a few feet below that.
And water volumes flowing out of Dillon into the Blue River — flows important to rafters and anglers — also fell significantly. Since late July, those outflows were about 100 cubic feet per second, about half of normal for this time of year. In August they dropped even further, to 75 cubic feet per second.
The overall picture began to improve slightly in late August, as the state benefited from a cooling trend and bursts of rainfall. The cooler, wetter weather in the metro area cut Denver Water customers’ demand for water in the Denver region, easing the need to pull as much water from Dillon.
Even so, the tough summer means Denver Water will likely enter the new, 12-month water year, which begins Oct. 1, with its reservoirs, including Dillon, at below-average elevations.
That puts the onus on the upcoming winter season to come through with a good snowpack, never a sure thing.
“We’ll hope to see water demands fall in September and then look to a good snowpack in the winter and spring,” Elder said.
“But we’ll be starting from behind. We hope we can make up the gap in reservoir storage with a wet winter and spring. And we’ll need our customers to help us with smart water practices.”
Current drought conditions across the state of Colorado, with San Miguel County outlined in black, as of Aug. 26. The Town of Telluride implemented outdoor water restrictions on Monday, Aug. 25, due to ongoing drought conditions and limited water availability locally. (Map courtesy of the U.S. Drought Monitor)
The Town of Telluride implemented outdoor water restrictions beginning Monday, Aug. 25, due to ongoing drought conditions and limited water availability locally. All water utility customers for the Town of Telluride, including Lawson Hill, Hillside and Sunnyside, are required to follow an irrigation schedule, with outdoor watering only permitted on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Watering must take place between 7 p.m. and 8 a.m. Irrigation systems should be set to 70-75% of normal water use, and all exterior water features must be turned off. No users are permitted to truck in additional water…Additionally, restaurants and businesses should serve water only upon request, and people are requested to fix any leaks immediately. Water audits and monitoring of water bills for excessive use can also help people regulate their use. Property owners who have landscaping that has been installed since spring 2024 can apply for additional permission to water. The public works department will review variances for new or modified landscaping on a case-by-case basis…
Although monsoonal rains have recently brought some moisture to the local area, it is still very dry. On the Western Slope, drought conditions remain dire, with several zones in northwestern Colorado in the category of ‘exceptional’ drought. Exceptional is the most severe category of drought and is often linked to hydrologic and agricultural issues.
“The ongoing lack of precipitation has been to blame for that, and it was very hot last week,” Allie Mazurek, engagement climatologist at the Colorado Climate Center, told the Daily Planet. “We have an elevated wildfire risk.”
[…]
Over 7% of Colorado remains under exceptional drought, and 1.86 million people are experiencing some type of drought, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Drought Monitor, published on Aug. 28. Exceptional drought typically happens about once every 50 years, although parts of Colorado also experienced exceptional drought in 2023. San Miguel County is faring slightly better than much of the Western Slope, although all of the county is under at least severe drought, and the eastern edge is under extreme drought…
Locally, the San Miguel River, measured at the Placerville gauge, ended up at 62% of normal total streamflow volume for the April through July period, and the Uncompahgre River at Ridgway Reservoir was at 66%. The Animas at Durango was also at 62% of median, and the Dolores was at 52%. Some of these streamflows are historical lows…This year’s observed streamflow for the Dolores and Animas is only in the ninth percentile out of more than 100 years of observation…For the most current information on Telluride’s Water Conservation Program, visit bit.ly/totwater or follow @townoftelluride on social media.
The Crystal River was running under 8 cfs on Aug. 24, 2025. This section of river is downstream of big agricultural diversions and ditches owned and maintained by the Town of Carbondale. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM
Streamflows on the Western Slope have plummeted over the last month, sending water managers scrambling to boost flows for endangered fish and ranking it among the driest years in recent history.
According to the Natural Resources Conservation Service, the Roaring Fork River basin ended the month of July at 28% of average streamflows. The Colorado River headwaters was at 42% of average; the Gunnison River basin was at 34% of average and rivers in the White/Yampa/Green River basin in the northwest corner of the state were running at 24% of average. Prior to this week’s rains, the Crystal River near the Colorado Parks and Wildlife fish hatchery was running at 7.5 cfs, or 10% of average.
“We’ve been seeing pretty widespread well-below-normal flows across the entire upper Colorado River basin due to extremely dry conditions starting back in December,” said Cody Moser, a senior hydrologist with the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center.
For most of August, the Crystal River near fish hatchery was running at less than 15 cfs. These extremely low conditions plus water temperatures above 71 degrees Fahrenheit, prompted CPW to implement on Aug. 15 a full-day voluntary fishing closure on the Crystal from mile marker 64 on Highway 133 to the confluence with the Roaring Fork. This section of the Crystal is downstream from big agricultural diversions and ditches owned and operated by the town of Carbondale.
The upper Roaring Fork River and its tributaries are also suffering the consequences of low flows. On Aug. 25 the Colorado Water Conservation Board placed a call for the minimum instream flow on a seven-mile section of the Roaring Fork through Aspen, between Difficult and Maroon creeks. The call was released the next day after rain boosted flows above the 32 cfs minimum amount.
The CWCB is the only entity in the state allowed to hold instream flow water rights, which are intended to preserve the natural environment to a reasonable degree. It’s not uncommon for the CWCB to place calls for this stretch in late summer and it did so in other years, including 2012, 2018, 2020, 2021 and 2022.
Low flows have also affected recreation at the North Star Nature Preserve, a popular area for paddle boarders east of Aspen. On July 24, Pitkin County implemented a voluntary float closure — asking people to launch at South Gate instead of Wildwood — which occurs when the river falls below 60 cfs.
“At low water levels, users are at risk of touching bottom, which could damage the riparian habitat and would be considered trespassing,” a Pitkin County official said in an email.
Before this week’s rainfall, the Roaring Fork above Aspen hovered around 30 cfs.
Streamflows across the Western Slope are often at some of their lowest points of the year during the late summer and early fall when snowmelt has waned and irrigators are still drawing from streams. But this summer’s lack of precipitation and low soil moisture were the main drivers of dry streams. Much of the Western Slope is in extreme or exceptional drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
“The biggest factor is the dry spring conditions and layered on top of them a much drier than normal summer,” said Peter Goble, assistant state climatologist. “We will be watching those base flows but also soil moisture levels as we go into fall and early winter to see if those pick back up.”
Dry soils that suck up snowmelt before it makes it to streams can mean a normal snowpack translates into below-normal runoff.
This section of the Colorado River at the boat launch near Corn Lake dipped to around 150 cfs in lake August. Known as the 15-mile reach, this stretch of river should have at least 810 cfs to meet the needs of endangered fish. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM
Stressed out fish
Another area hard hit by low flows is the 15-mile reach of the Colorado River between Palisade and the confluence with the Gunnison River. The chronically dry section is home to multiple endangered fish species and is downstream from some of the biggest agricultural diversions from the Colorado River in the state. Each year water managers work together to time voluntary releases from upstream reservoirs to boost late-season flows for the fish.
But even with many entities working with the Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program, a 2022 memo from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service found that during the irrigation season of dry years, flows did not meet the 810 cfs target 39% of the time.
This year, flows have not been above 810 cfs since July 9. And although flows in the 15-mile reach have been climbing since Aug. 23, — up to about 650 cfs on Aug. 27 — nearly all the water in the reach before this week’s rain was attributable to upstream reservoir releases specifically intended for endangered fish. Without releases for the recovery program, flows in the 15-mile reach could have dipped as low as 30 to 50 cfs.
“From my standpoint it’s amazing how a dry year just makes it really hard to get down even a third of that flow target,” said Bart Miller, healthy rivers director with Western Resource Advocates. “It’s a challenging time for water users, but a super challenging time for fish. For the fish it’s a huge stressor.”
This map shows the 15-mile reach of the Colorado River near Grand Junction, home to four species of endangered fish. Map credit: CWCB
This year there was about 29,175 acre-feet earmarked for endangered fish, according to a presentation by program staff. But by Sept. 1 nearly all this water was scheduled to be used up. The nonprofit Colorado Water Trust has stepped in to lease an additional 5,000 acre-feet out of Ruedi Reservoir. The water is owned by the town of Palisade, the Colorado River Water Conservation District and QB Energy. The releases of about 100 cfs are projected to begin Aug. 27 and continue through mid-October, said Danielle Snyder, a water resources specialist with the Colorado Water Trust.
“This particular stretch is very critical for the health of the ecosystem,” Snyder said. “We saw a lot of benefit for both the community and the environment and we thought this would be a great opportunity given we have the capacity and funds to provide water to that region.”
The CWCB will also lease an additional 2,350 acre-feet for fish flows.
Locally dwindling streamflows have big implications downstream. Projections released earlier this month from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation show the nation’s two largest reservoirs — Lake Powell and Lake Mead — continuing to drop. Lake Powell could drop below the level needed to make hydropower by late 2026. As proof of how dry the month of July was across the basin, inflow to Lake Powell was just 12% of normal.
One bright spot in an otherwise bleak forecast is that parts of the Western Slope are finally seeing some relief from the hot and dry summer with rain this week. But it probably won’t be enough to make up for the months-long lack of precipitation.
“We have been dry for six-plus months so I don’t imagine it will have a significant impact long term, but it’s nice to finally see some precipitation in the forecast and observed over the last day or two,” Moser said.
Under the 1922 Colorado Compact, the Upper Division states of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming share the river with the Lower Division states of Arizona, California and Nevada, with each Division apportioned 7,500,000 acre-feet of water annually. Over eighty percent of the water of the Colorado River originates as snowpack in the Upper Division, so sharing of the River’s flows is accomplished through Article 3.d of the Colorado Compact, which provides that the Upper Division States will not cause the flow of the river at Lee Ferry, which is in Arizona just below Lake Powell, to be depleted below an aggregate of 75,000,000 acre-feet for any period of ten consecutive years. Under a 1944 treaty, the Republic of Mexico is entitled to 1,500,000 acre-feet of Colorado River water each year. Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the largest reservoirs in the United States, hold Colorado River water for delivery to the states and Mexico and are operated under the authority of the Secretary of the Interior (Secretary) through the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling Arizona v. California, 373 U.S. 546 (1963) determined that Arizona entitled to divert 2.8 million acre-feet per year of Colorado River water in normal years. This is an important supply, constituting approximately 36% of Arizona’s total water use.
Glen Canyon Dam, which forms Lake Powell, was completed in 1963, and thereafter Lakes Powell and Mead were operated under guidelines finalized in 1970, called the Long Range Operating Criteria (LROC). In 2007, in response to several years of drought and declining reservoir levels, the Secretary, in collaboration with the Colorado River states and other stakeholders, adopted a new set of operating guidelines. The 2007 Guidelines were designed to help stabilize water levels in Lakes Powell and Mead, to provide certainty regarding shortage conditions and to incentivize conserving water in Lake Mead by providing flexibility in deliveries to certain entities through the creation of “assigned water” (also commonly known as “Intentionally Created Surplus”). The 2007 Guidelines expire on December 31, 2025 but its provisions generally remain in effect through the end of 2026. The 2007 Guidelines include three important aspects of Colorado River management that impact all who share the river. These are:
The amount of water the Secretary releases annually from Lake Powell into Lake Mead under different reservoir conditions.
Broadly speaking, the goal of these releases is to equalize the amount of water in Lakes Powell and Mead. Releases are based on water levels in Lake Powell relative to water levels in Lake Mead among other factors.1
2. The conditions under which the Secretary declares a shortage of Colorado River water in the Lower Division and of the amount of shortage assessed to each state.
A shortage is declared in the Lower Division when the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation annual August 24-Month Study projects that Lake Mead will be at or below elevation 1,075’ on the following January 1.
Arizona is shorted 320,000 acre-feet of water below Lake Mead elevation 1,075’ and above 1,050’ , 400,000 acre-feet of water below elevation 1,050’ and above 1,025’ and 480,000 acre-feet of water below elevation 1,025’. Nevada takes shortages at these levels proportional to its 300,000 acre-foot allocation and no shortages are defined at these reservoir levels for California’s allocation of 4.4 million acre-feet.
3. The terms under which entities can voluntarily create and hold volumes of assigned water in Lake Mead.
Assigned water is created and held in Lake Mead under the Secretary’s authority to allocate surplus water under Article II(B)(2) of the consolidated Supreme Court decree in Arizona vs California and via treaty with Mexico. It is assigned to and held by an individual entity separate from the priority system of water allocation to which all other water in Lake Mead available for delivery in the Lower Division is subject.2
As of 2024, the Central Arizona Water Conservation District, the Gila River Indian Community, the Colorado River Indian Tribes, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the Imperial Irrigation District, the Southern Nevada Water Authority and the Republic of Mexico hold accounts of assigned water in Lake Mead.
Generally, water in Lake Mead available to but not ordered by one Colorado River contract entitlement holder can be ordered by another for delivery. Thus, for assigned water to be held in Lake Mead, several entities with contracts to Colorado River water must agree to forego their rights to order the same water over all of the years that the assigned water is held in Lake Mead. These entities signed a Forbearance Agreement in which they agreed not to order another entity’s assigned water under certain conditions. The Forbearance Agreement expires on December 31, 2025 but forbearance provisions for assigned water created through intentional conservation that exists as of that date continue through 2036 and through 2056 for assigned water created through other means.
Despite the efforts taken through the 2007 Guidelines, and due to chronic over-allocation of the river and continuing drought, water levels in Lakes Powell and Mead are at or near historic lows. To address continuing declines in water storage, various entities in Arizona, California and Nevada entered into several agreements including the 2019 Lower Basin Drought Contingency Plan, the 2021 500+ Agreement and the 2023 System Conservation Agreement. Through these agreements the states committed to:
Voluntarily leave specified volumes of water in Lake Mead as Drought Contingency Plan contributions 3 through the year 2026.
The voluntary contribution of water totals 192,000 acre-feet per year for Arizona between Lake Mead water levels below 1,090’ and above 1,045’ and totals 240,000 acre-feet per year below 1,045’.
The voluntary contribution of water totals 8,000 and 10,000 acre-feet per year for Nevada at these levels. California did not agree to voluntary contributions of water at Lake Mead water levels above 1,045’.
2. Through the year 2026, voluntarily leave some water in Lake Mead as unassigned water.
Unassigned water in Lake Mead belongs to no one entity and bolsters the supply of water available through the priority system to all Colorado River contract entitlement holders in the Lower Division (referred to as “System Conservation”).
The states agreed to leave approximately three million acre-feet of unassigned water in Lake Mead. The federal government paid various entities with entitlements to Colorado River water, such as municipal water providers, agricultural interests, Tribes and mining companies to leave this water in Lake Mead.
The Secretary agreed to take affirmative actions to create or conserve 100,000 acre-feet per annum or more of Colorado River system water to contribute to conservation of water supplies in Lake Mead.
For unassigned water to be left in Lake Mead, several entities with contracts to Colorado River water must agree to forego their rights to order the same water. However, in the case of System Conservation, the water is held in Lake Mead only in the year the conservation takes place and subsequently becomes available the next year for delivery through the priority system. A group of entities, including the Director of Water Resources on behalf of the State of Arizona, signed various forbearance agreements in which they agreed not to order another entity’s conserved water. In these cases, forbearance is only required in the same year in which the system conservation activity takes place. These agreements expire at the end of 2026.
If no new set of operational guidelines is in place, upon expiration of the 2007 Guidelines and the Forbearance Agreements:
Rules for annual releases of water from Lake Powell into Lake Mead revert to the guidelines set forth in the LROC.
Generally, annual releases from Lake Powell to Lake Mead are set at 8.23 million acre-feet as an objective subject to Secretarial discretion and other factors. Arguably the Secretary has more discretion under LROC to set annual releases than under the 2007 Guidelines, which more precisely define releases based on relative water levels in Lakes Powell and Mead.
2. The specified shortages assessed to Arizona and Nevada under the 2007 Guidelines become moot and shortage determinations revert to the Secretary’s authority, which has been broadly interpreted in times of shortage by the U.S. Supreme Court in its 1963 decision, Arizona v. California.
Under LROC, the Secretary has authority to “determine from time to time when insufficient mainstream water is available to satisfy annual consumptive use requirements of 7,500,000 acre-feet” after consideration of various factors.
• When insufficient water is available,
o Deliveries through the Central Arizona Project are cut to the extent necessary to meet the demands of more senior Colorado River rights or entitlement holders in Arizona, California and Nevada.
o If after these cuts there still remains insufficient water available to meet the demands of more senior Colorado River contract entitlement holders, the shortage provisions of Article II(B)(3) of the decree in Arizona v. California become effective, meaning that the rights of the Chemehuevi Indian, Cocopah Indian, Fort Yuma Indian, Colorado River Indian and Fort Mohave Indian Reservations are satisfied first, without regard to state lines, in order of their priority dates, and then present perfected rights are satisfied according to priority.
3. Some, but not all, forms of assigned water can no longer be created.
Creation of assigned water in Lake Mead through extraordinary conservation activities can no longer occur.
Creation of assigned water through importation of non-Colorado River system water and through certain tributary water into the Colorado River mainstem can continue to occur.
Creation of a special class of assigned water, called Developed Drought Supply, can continue to occur. Developed Drought Supply water can only be created during declared shortages and must be delivered in the same year it is created.
Rights to hold and deliver existing assigned water continue through 2036 for assigned water created through extraordinary conservation activities and through 2057 for assigned water used for Drought Contingency Plan contributions, and created through tributary water importation, non- Colorado River system water importation and Developed Drought Supply water.
Colorado River contract entitlement holders could theoretically continue to voluntarily leave water in Lake Mead as unassigned water, either compensated or not, but the expiration of the forbearance agreements means that another entity could simply order that same water for delivery.
Deliveries of Colorado River water to the Republic of Mexico are governed under a 1944 treaty and subsequent treaty minutes. Through various treaty minutes Mexico agreed to cuts to its deliveries under certain shortage conditions. These treaty minutes also allow Mexico to create assigned water in Lake Mead. The provisions regarding cuts to Mexican deliveries during shortage and the creation of Mexican assigned water expire at the end of 2026, though Mexico can continue to hold and request delivery of existing assigned water under generally the same terms and conditions that govern assigned water created by the Lower Division states through extraordinary conservation activities and used for Drought Contingency Plan contributions.
What Expiration of the 2007 Guidelines and the Forbearance Agreements Means for Arizona
Absent additional guidance from the Secretary or an agreement among the seven states that share the Colorado River, and assuming continued poor hydrology and runoff, water levels in Lakes Powell and Mead will continue to decline and Arizona can expect potentially very deep cuts to the Colorado River water imported into central Arizona via the Central Arizona Project. Eventually cuts could be deep enough to impact higher priority water users in Mohave, La Paz and Yuma Counties.
If less than 82,500,000 acre-feet of water is delivered to the Lower Division over any ten consecutive years, the United States and the Upper Division may have to contend with a legal demand from the Lower Division under Article 3.d of the Colorado Compact, which states that the Upper Division States “will not cause the flow of the river at Lee Ferry to be depleted below an aggregate of 75,000,000 acre-feet for any period of ten consecutive years.” The Lower Division asserts that the Upper Division is also responsible to deliver half of the obligation to Mexico, bringing the total ten-year obligation to 82,500,000 acre-feet. Under continued poor hydrology and runoff, it is likely that the ten-year consecutive total will fall below 82,500,000 in 2027. [ed. emphasis mine]
1 If Lake Powell were drawn down too far while Lake Mead remained relatively full, the risk that deliveries at Lee Ferry would be depleted below an aggregate of 75,000,000 acre-feet over ten consecutive years would increase, which would put the Upper Division at risk of failing to meet Colorado Compact requirements. At the same time, keeping Lake Mead relatively full avoids deep water shortages in the Lower Division. A goal of equalization between the reservoirs balances these risks.
2 Though, holders of Priority 1-3 entitlements would likely contest the Secretary’s authority to cut their deliveries while withholding assigned water from the priority system.
3 If assigned water is chosen as the form of DCP contribution, it remains recoverable above elevation 1,110 until 2057.
Udall/Overpeck 4-panel Figure Colorado River temperature/precipitation/natural flows with trend. Lake Mead and Lake Powell storage. Updated through Water Year 2024. Credit: Brad Udall
Hard times in the Colorado River region. A near-average snowpack dissipated into an inflow into Powell Reservoir of only 40 percent of average; dry soils in the headwaters and high deserts, and increased evaporation and plant transpiration in a warming world are taking big tolls. And the negotiators for the seven Basin states, trying to work out a river management plan to replace the failing current management strategies, with the 30 Indian nations and Mexico looking over their shoulders, are continuing to… negotiate. Trump’s Interior Department officials have given then until November to negotiate a draft plan for beyond 2026.
Projected Lake Powell end-of-month physical elevations from the latest 24-Month Study inflow scenarios.
Meanwhile the Bureau of Reclamation has issued its annual 24-month projection, and it has no good news. Its worst case scenario – the one everyone looks at – suggests that, barring a huge winter this year, Powell Reservoir might drop to the elevation at which it can no longer produce hydropower by late fall 2026 – at which point it cannot even make large deliveries downstream, because all the water would then have to go through four antique tubes never meant to carry that much water 24/7. This could undermine the best-laid plans of the negotiators, should they achieve a plan, with no ability to move sufficient water past Glen Canyon Dam until the reservoir filled back up to the power level. No plans have been announced for creating a Glen Canyon Dam bypass.
All the news dribbling out of the negotiations indicate that the negotiators persist in carrying forward the Colorado River Compact’s division of the river into Upper and Lower Basins. Do they not see that this is no longer necessary, or even desirable – nothing but a cause of conflict and contention?
When representatives from the seven Colorado River Basin states gathered in Washington in January 1922, six of the states knew what they wanted: they wanted a seven-way division of the consumptive use of the river’s waters that would transcend on the interstate level the appropriation doctrine all seven states adhered to intrastate.
They wanted this because southern California, the seventh state, was growing so fast, and already using so much of the river’s water, that the other six knew they would be losers in a seven-state horse race to appropriate the river’s water. The representatives all accepted the first-come first-served appropriation law as holy writ within their states, but saw its limits when looking at the whole river and the regional challenge of uneven development.
California sat down with the other six states because at that point, the other six states held a big card: California needed a interstate river to control floods and ‘rationalize’ the flow and distribution of the river’s water, rather than watching an uncontrolled flood of snowmelt ‘waste’ most of the water to the ocean. And California knew that Congress would provide for that big dam only if all seven states were sure they would have a share of the water, once the river was controlled. So California had to participate in setting long-term limits on itself in order to get what it needed in the short term.
But after several days of trying to work out that seven-way division, the compact negotiators gave up in frustration. Each negotiator had come with estimates of his state’s future water needs based on potentially arable land, mining-generated industry, possible urban development. Not really knowing what the future would bring did not dim their estimates at the turn of the 20th century, with the imperial impetus to ‘create our own reality’ just kicking into high gear. But by the time the seven negotiators had laid out their states’ envisioned water needs, the basin-wide total was half again even the Bureau of Reclamation’s rosiest estimates of Colorado River flows. And no one wanted to cut their estimates, go home to tell their governor and legislators he’d had to diminish the state’s envisioned future by a quarter or so.
Several of the frustrated negotiators thought they should abandon the whole idea of an interstate compact, but the federal representative and chairman, Herbert Hoover – himself an engineer eager to see the big dam built – persuaded them to stay with the idea for the rest of the year. They convened for some hearings around the west in the summer, and had a tour of the proposed big dam sites. But then Hoover and Colorado’s representative to the commission, Delph Carpenter, began circulating the idea of a two-basin division to break the impasse over the seven-way division, and Hoover was able to convene a November charrette to work until a compact was done.
Toward the end of an eleven-day marathon at a resort near Santa Fe, with 18 transcribed sessions and who knows how many informal barroom and hotel room caucuses, Chairman Hoover summarized their situation:
“We finally reached, in effect, this general conclusion as to the form of the compact, and that was that none of the figures and data in our possession, or within the possibility of possession at this time were sufficient upon which we could make an equitable division of the waters of the Colorado River [in perpetuity]…. [W]e make now, for lack of a better word, a temporary equitable division, reserving a certain portion of the flow of the river to the hands of those men who may come after us, possessed of a far greater fund of information; that they can make a further division of the river at such a time, and in the meantime we shall take such means at this moment to protect the rights of either basin as will assure the continued development of the river. (Text from the 12th of 18 transcribed November meetings, boldface added)“
That was the Colorado River Compact as seen in process by the commission chairman: ‘a temporary equitable division’ to be refined and finished when ‘a greater fund of information’ about both the river’s flows and the flow of the future was known. No one – with the probable exception of Delph Carpenter – was very happy with the Compact the commissioners took home to their states. Arizona refused to ratify it, and it took several years to get it through the other six state legislatures. But the U.S. Congress was actually somewhat eager to develop the river, making its desert lands available for development, and decided that six of the seven states on board was good enough. The Boulder Canyon Project Act was passed in 1928, and Hoover – then President – was able to launch construction of not just the huge Hoover Dam, but Parker Dam as the holding bay for the Metropolitan Water District’s 250-mile aqueduct, and the Imperial Dam and All-American Canal to carry water to the Imperial and Coachella Valleys – a major regional development that really set a course for the 20th century.
Enabling that, and what followed over the next four or five decades, did achieve the Compact goal to ‘secure the expeditious agricultural and industrial development of the Colorado River Basin,’ probably the major goal stated in its preamble (Article I) for most of those involved. But a century later we can say pretty definitely that its ‘temporary equitable division’ (still apparently regarded as permanent), has not achieved most of the other goals listed in the preamble. It did not ‘provide for the equitable division and apportionment of the use of the waters,’ either in the division between Basins explicit in Article III(a) nor in the relationship between the two Basins stated in Article III(d); it obviously did not ‘promote interstate comity’; and the two-basin division did not ‘remove causes of present and future controversies.’ If anything, the Compact created controversies with badly written sections like Article III(c) on the Mexican obligation, and Article III(d) on interbasin ‘obligations.’ (If you would like to review the Compact, you can find it here.)
More to the point – it is possible now to achieve what the 1922 commissioners originally wanted: an equitable seven-way division of the use of the river with a share for Mexico, which renders the two-basin ‘temporary division’ irrelevant and burdensome.
The seven-way division has been effected, not through interstate negotiation but through the ‘continued development of the river’; today, the seven states and Mexico all know, practically to the acre-foot, what has evolved as their share of the river as we have known it – the 14.6 million acre-foot average flow of the development period, the 1930s through the 1990s.
Allotments for the three Lower Basin states were set by the Boulder Canyon Project Act in 1929 as acre-foot portions of the Compact allotment of 7.5 maf, and confirmed by the Supreme Court in its 1963-4 Arizona v. California decision. Mexico received its share, 1.5 maf, in a 1944 treaty negotiated through the U.S. State Department. And the four Upper Basin states negotiated a compact for their share of the river in 1948 – by then known to be a variable quantity, usually less than the Compact’s allotment of 7.5 maf, so they divided their fluctuating share by percentages.
Native America in the Colorado River Basin. Credit: USBR
The ‘federal reserved rights’ of the Basin’s 30 Indian nations – barely given a ‘placeholder’ in the Compact – have been shoehorned in as state responsibilities through the 1952 ‘McCarran Amendment’ to a resource bill; this says that all federal reserved water rights, for all public lands as well as the Indian reservations, have to be adjudicated in the state water courts. The ‘equity’ of this is questionable; some states have only a few Indian nations; Arizona has 22 of them. Most of the Indian nations that have not already achieved some water rights are working on ‘settlements’ out of court, negotiating with those who have been using water for which the Indians had a prior claim (dating from the creation of their reservation) for water and money with which to develop the water they can get. The federal government puts up much of the money for the development of Indian water rights; there is still a long way to go in correcting this long-standing dereliction and shame, but there has been more activity in the past couple decades than in the previous century.
The point being – nearly everyone knows with some accuracy how much water they have had to use from the Colorado River – in the 20th century. Hardly anyone is happy with the resulting numbers, but we also all know that this is all the water there is – or was, in the 20th century. The river has been divided among the states and nations, de facto, if not yet de jure.
The structural deficit refers to the consumption by Lower Basin states of more water than enters Lake Mead each year. The deficit, which includes losses from evaporation, is estimated at 1.2 million acre-feet a year. (Image: Central Arizona Project circa 2019)
The alarming draw-down of the river’s major reservoirs in the early 21stcentury to date has been only partially caused by the ‘drought’ and permanent climate-related aridification. The bulk of the draw-down has been a ‘structural deficit’ stemming from the Lower Basin states’ blithe refusal to incorporate their ‘system losses’ – evaporation and transpiration, riparian losses, etc – and their portion of the Mexican share into their allotments, preferring to let the amenable Bureau release them as ‘surplus’ from Powell and Mead storage – a surplus that has not existed since the Central Arizona Project began to come on line after 1985, along with increased Upper Basin uses (still well below its ‘Compact allotment’). The Compact failed to include system loss provisions – probably around 12-14 percent of the water that flows from the headwaters snowpack.
The good news there is that, in the planning for river management beyond 2026, the Lower Basin states have agreed to absorb the ‘structural deficit’ and their share of the Mexican obligation into their river shares. The Upper Basin users have already absorbed their system losses by the time the Bureau moves Lower Basin water out of Powell.
It is not rocket science to lay out the seven-states-plus-Mexico division of the waters in a chart, a feat impossible in 1922, but largely accomplished de facto by the Compact’s century mark – a chart without any reference to the ‘temporary equitable division’ into two basins. If we were to eliminate the two-basin division form our future management plans, we would unload quite a lot of unnecessary baggage. We would be much closer to thinking of the Colorado again as one river, with one set of challenges for everyone, rather than this ‘Cold War’ between Upper and Lower.
The big challenge comes in trying to fit that division of the 14.6 maf river of 1930-2000 into the river we have today – ~12.5 maf, and dropping incrementally but steadily.
If we lived in a fair, just and moral universe, resolution of management guidelines for the future of the one river would just be a matter of applying basic high school math: if a state’s allotment (including a proportionate share of system losses) of a 14.6 maf river is X maf, what will be that state’s new allotment if the river’s volume drops to 12.5 maf? Or to 11.5 maf by 2050? Easy: you just convert the state’s allotment to a percentage of the 14.6 maf river, and multiply those percentages by 12.5 maf, or whatever the flow has dropped too. Do that for all users and, presto, there’s everyone’s new 21st-century allotment, learn how to live with it –
Wups. Uh-oh. One can already hear the ‘harrumphing’ firing up in the Imperial Valley: what about our senior water rights?! If you say we have to take the same cuts as everyone else, we’ll see you in court!
The Interior Department’s current acting assistant secretary for water and science, Scott Cameron, actually spoke to that eventuality or probability in a meeting of water mavens in Arizona: ‘Having senior water rights is a wonderful thing, but having senior water rights does not give you a free pass to ignore what’s happening in the greater community.’
What’s happening in the greater community is diminishing flows for everyone due to a warming, drying climate that is everyone’s and no one’s fault – a problem of a different order of magnitude from the issues the senior-junior appropriation doctrine developed to resolve. If Asst. Secretary Cameron’s perception (unusually perceptive from an official in the Trump administration) were to prevail as federal policy, it might facilitate a serious discussion in the arid West about how far and how high a body of law should be applied, that originated for working out squabbles between neighbors – with ‘first-come first-served’ the one-size-fits-all resolution. A resolution that is usually transcended locally in dry times with ‘gentlemen’s agreements’ to share the pain between neighbors who have also become friends.
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
The westerners who convened for the 1922 compact commission wanted to suspend at the interstate level the appropriation doctrine they all adhered at home, for good reasons involving the uneven pace of regional development. We are now confronting a reduced volume of water for everyone, caused by a changing climate that is no one’s and everyone’s fault. Is this not a problem on a scale with the problem that convened a Compact commission a century ago to suspend – or more accurately, maybe, transcend – the appropriation doctrine at the interstate level?
Well – we keep getting news every day about the fairness, justice and morality of our small sector of the universe. Pray for rain; it’s more likely.
Map of the Colorado River drainage basin, created using USGS data. By Shannon1 Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0
Colorado River “Beginnings”. Photo: Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism
Click the link to read the article on the AZCentral.com website (Kate Gallego, Chad Franke, Tom Kiernan and Manuel Heart). Here’s an excerpt:
August 25, 2025
Key Points
The Colorado River, a vital resource for millions, has reached a critical tipping point, thanks to drought and overuse.
The river needs urgent, collaborative action and flexible solutions for long-term water security.
Failure to reach agreements risks costly litigation and uncertain outcomes.
Reservoirs like Lakes Mead and Powell are again approaching record lows, and every water user is being affected…Against this backdrop, we urgently need unified action. We must proactively adjust our plans given the Colorado River’s changing water supply. We must confront the crisis with urgency and collaboration to build a workable water future for the broad network of Colorado River interests. To succeed, comprehensive, forward-looking solutions must replace the current crisis-to-crisis management approach…
Solutions must be rooted in flexibility, innovation and cooperation — and acknowledge both the urgency of today’s water supply shortages and the need for long-term water reliability and resilience. Doing so will require the immediate development of durable agreements — not just between Upper and Lower Basin states, but also among the states, U.S. and tribes, and between the U.S. and Mexico — that re-balance water demands with the river’s shrinking supply…Creating comprehensive, forward-looking solutions also requires immediate engagement with tribes, water users and other stakeholders. Their input is needed to tailor flexible strategies that meet the needs of different water users across various basin geographies, including the mountain headwaters, the Colorado Plateau and the desert Southwest…Without such tools and agreements, the Colorado River’s future will be decided by the courts following litigation that inevitably breeds a failure of dialogue, delays progress and leads to costly, drawn-out battles. At the end of that road lies a loss of local control as well as uncertain and harmful outcomes to water users throughout the basin.
Glen Canyon Dam May 2022. Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots
Click the link to read the article on the Big Pivots website (Allen Best):
August 18, 2025
The words “urgency” and “immediate action” were used by Trump administration officials on Aug. 15 in releasing the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation 24-month study for the Colorado River Basin.
The study sees a high probability of water levels of Lake Powell falling to within 48 feet of the minimum power pool by January. That elevation, 3,490 feet above sea level, is the reservoir’s lowest level at which hydroelectricity can be produced. That has not happened since soon after Powell began filling after completion of Glen Canyon Dam in 1966.
“This underscores the importance of immediate action to secure the future of the Colorado River,” said David Palumbo, acting commissioner for the agency.
Scott Cameron, the acting assistant secretary for water and science in the Department of Interior, had similar words of warning to the seven states that share use of the river.
“As the basin prepares for the transition to post-2026 operating guidelines, the urgency for the seven Colorado River Basin states to reach a consensus agreement has never been clearer,” said Cameron. “We cannot afford to delay.”
The announcement cited “unprecedented drought” but made no mention of climate change. This seems to be a theme. [ed. emphasis mine]
Cameron, at the Getches-Wilkinson Center’s annual water seminar in Boulder during June, talked for 24 minutes without once mentioning climate change. He even answered a question about climate change without using the phrase. He did seem to acknowledge it, saying that in the “real world” there is less water than before, “and that is probably not going to change a whole bunch.”
Might the situation be even worse than what Bureau of Reclamation has projected will be most likely?
A bias of optimism
On Aug. 14, a day before the bureau’s release of the 24-month study, John Fleck and others posted an analysis on Fleck’s Inkstain that warned the study would likely be overly optimistic.
The problem, explained Fleck and his co-authors, is that the “assumptions underlying the study do not fully capture the climate-change driven aridification of the Colorado River Basin.”
The precipitation received from October through July in the Colorado River Basin fits in with a theme that is best understood when coupled with rising temperatures, which produces greater evaporation and transpiration. Image/Western Water Assessment
The bureau uses a 30-year average in predicting what lies ahead. However, using the hydrology of the Colorado River Basin since the 1990s no longer provides the same usefulness in predicting what lies ahead during the next 24 months. The climate is changing too fast.
In that paper, Milley and his co-authors argued that human-induced climate changes were altering the means and extremes of precipitation, evapotranspiration, and the rates of runoff in rivers. As such, they contended, using the old models to guide water management no longer worked as well.
In their posting at Inkstain, Fleck and his coauthors — Anne Castle, Erick Kuhn, Jack Schmidt, Kathryn Sorensen and Katherine Tara — noted that the Bureau of Reclamation’s 24-month study a year ago found that the “most probable” level for Powell would be 3,593 at the end of July 2025.
It was 38 feet lower than the projection. It had been another so-so or worse winter and then an early, warm spring.
This, they said, illustrated the bias toward optimism in the models used by the agency. That bias had been detailed in a 2022 study of past projections by a team led by Jian Wang of the Utah State Center for Colorado River Studies.
“Most probable” in the Bureau of Reclamation projections occupied a band of 80% likelihood. The bureau also issues maximum and minimum probable scenarios.
Fleck and his team contend that the bureau’s “minimum probable scenario has become the most valuable in providing a reliable indicator of the future” for Colorado River flows.
This past winter was mediocre, near average snowfall in some basins but among the worst in the San Juans. Spring was warm or more in many places, and rains in July were almost entirely absent.
The preliminary estimated inflow into Powell for April through July was 41% of the average from 1991 through 2020, according to the bureau’s most-probable study. During July, runoff slipped to 12% of that 30-year average.
Might fortunes soon be reversed? Not likely in months ahead, said Fleck and his team. They noted this summer’s weak monsoon for most of the upper basin coupled with the seasonal outlook by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Together, they point to a warmer and drier than average fall.
“It’s a good bet that this trend will continue at least through winter,” they wrote.
As it stands, levels in Lake Mead, downstream from Powell, will necessitate cuts in the lower-basin as required by several agreements reached between 2007 and 2019. Arizona is to see an 18% cut and Nevada a 7% cut in their annual apportionments. Mexico is to get 5% less than its annual allotment. In acre-feet, that’s 412,000 for Arizona, 21,000 for Nevada, and 80,000 for Mexico.
A new agreement
The big story continues to be what agreements the seven basin states can achieve in recognition of the inadequacy of past agreements given reduced flows.
Drought as conventionally understood is part of the story, but only a part. A 2017 study by Jonathan Overpeck and Brad Udall, “The 21st Century Hot Drought and Implications for the Future,”concluded that between a third and a half of reduced flows in the Colorado from 2000 to 2014 could be attributed to the rising greenhouse gas emissions. They spoke about “megadrought,” a word now common in Colorado River discussions, as is “aridification.”
This year has brought more studies that strengthen the evidence. Included is a study published just last week in Nature, that identifies new ways that the warming climate has altered the hydrology of Colorado and other southwestern states. See: “Why rain and snow skip the Southwest.”
In 2018, an agreement among the states was reached regarding how to deal with drought. It was universally recognized as an interim agreement, with a final agreement to be reached in advance of a 2026 deadline. That deadline is now close at hand.
That impending deadline was alluded to in the comments of the federal officials.
“Health of the Colorado River system and the livelihoods that depend on it are relying on our ability to collaborate effectively and craft forward-thinking solutions that prioritize conservation, efficiency, and resilience,” said Cameron, Interior’s undersecretary, in the Aug. 15 announcement.
In June, Cameron had called on the Colorado River Basin states to submit details of a preliminary operations agreement by mid-November and share a final seven-state proposal by mid-February 2026. The plan would be to reach a final decision in the summer of 2026 with implementation beginning in October 2026.
Non-government organizations issued statements also calling for the states to figure out a way forward.
“This is not just a crisis. It’s also a call to action to use remaining time wisely to replace our current, reactive, emergency-based management framework with new, long-term solutions,” said John Berggren, the regional policy manager for Western Resource Advocates. “We can’t litigate our way out — we must collaborate forward.”
For many months, all reports suggested that the four-upper basin states — who speak with one voice in these negotiations — and the three lower-basin states remained far apart. A story on June 27 in the Las Vegas Review Journal described the meetings as “tense” and “deadlocked.”
Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico along with Colorado constitute the upper basin. Arizona, Nevada and California make up the lower basin.
Becky Mitchell, Colorado’s representative in the negotiations, told a forum in Silverthorne covered by Big Pivots in May that hydrologic risk must be shared between the upper basin and the lower-basin states.
The Blue River flowing through Silverthorne just below Dillon Dam in May 2025. Photo/Allen Best
This sore spot has long festered. The Colorado River Compact of 1922 specified that the upper basin states “will not cause the flow of the river at Lee Ferry to be depleted” below an aggregate of 75 million acre-feet for any 10 consecutive years. The location is between Glen Canyon and the Grand Canyon.
But what if the river fails to deliver that much water? Upper basin states have delivered that volume so far, but that’s mostly because Wyoming, in particular, has not developed what was expected 100 yeas ago.
Those who had originally gathered in Santa Fe in 1922 to negotiate the compact had understood drought, but only as a temporary thing. They had no extensive long-term perspective — and chose to ignore what evidence was at hand, according to a 2019 book by Fleck and Kuhn, “Science be Dammed: How Ignoring Inconvenient Science Drained the Colorado River.”
Colorado’s beef and that of other upper-basin states has been that the two big dams on the river provided certainty for the lower-basin states to get water. However, the headwaters states have no certainty. They must live with what Mother Nature provides. They have balked at cutting water use to provide certainty for downstream states. They want the risk shared.
Natural flow proposal
In June came the first public word of what may have been a breakthrough. It is called the “natural flow proposal.” As explained by Tom Buschatzke, the director of Arizona Water Resources, to the Arizona Republic in a story on June 18, the idea is to focus less on who gets what and more on what the river can realistically provide.
“We do have to recognize what the hydrologic risks are to us,” he said after presenting the idea to a committee,” and we have to kind of find an equitable way to share those risks.”
That idea being discussed would employ a rolling three-year average of the natural flow of the river. Natural would be defined as the volume if there were no diversions and impoundments.
Buschatzke — a frequent visitor at the Colorado River forum sponsored by the University of Colorado’s Getches-Wilkinson Center each June — pointed out that the goal would be to spread the pain equitably, not equally. The lower basin would need more water than the upper basin, which has still to develop all the water allocated it in the 1922 compact.
“It is not 50-50,” he told represents at the June 17 meeting. “I won’t try to speculate on what the number might be.”
California uses the most water of any state in the Colorado River Basin, partly for its cities along the Pacific Coast but a substantial amount for agriculture in the Imperial Valley. Photo December 2015/Allen Best
A few weeks later, John Entsminger, Nevada’s representative in interstate talks, similarly was vague about details. “It’s not something where I can tell you what the score is in the third inning: the baseball game is still being played,” he told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Details remain sparse, he added.
“Everybody’s pretty much accepted that we’ve got to come up with a new formula for dividing the river,” Mark Squillace, an environmental law professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, told the Las Vegas newspaper. “The devil’s in the details about getting the numbers right.”
According to the best information that Big Pivots was able to obtain, there is still no agreement about what the percentage should be, although it is not 50-50.
Mitchell, Colorado’s representative on the Upper Colorado River Commission (and its acting chair), told the Review-Journal that the 2007 guidelines that provide the management map of the river’s operations “are not ustainable, because the water is just not there. It’s not in storage, and it’s not in the river.”
For a late-June story in Politico’s E&E, Mitchell described the natural flows idea as a math problem. “The concept under discussion is that Powell would release a certain percentage of volume of the average of the last few years of natural flows, as measured at Lee Ferry,” she said.
E&E described a more complex challenge.
“The theory — the premise of sharing the river based on how much water would travel downstream without dams or diversions or other human interventions — is actually a complex mathematical problem, rife with potential pitfalls and technical issues.”
This idea of basing releases from Lake Powell likely would take several years to implement. As such, it would not immediately impact levels in the reservoir.
As for the minimum power pool at Powell, that’s the level at which hydroelectricity can no longer be generated. Some 16 municipal and cooperative electrical utilities in Colorado get power from the dam. Those amounts tend to be smaller, about 5% or less, although important if the utilities are stretching to achieve decarbonization goals.
The greatest value of Glen Canyon is that if the Western grid has a blackout, the grid can be restarted with hydropower from the dam.
And too, the role of Congress
As administrator of the two big dams in the basin and several smaller ones, the federal government must figure out how to manage them consistently with the agreements among the states. It is also the formal administrator among the lower-basin states.
At the conference in Boulder, Cameron clearly said the federal government wants the states to figure out the solution. However, he also said that if the states cannot come to agreement, the federal government, as the administrator of the infrastructure, has authority to set policy, too.
And finally, he mentioned that the whole package may need to go to Congress, as was the case with the Colorado River Compact. It was approved in 1929. (Arizona had refused to endorse the compact until much later).
Map of the Colorado River drainage basin, created using USGS data. By Shannon1 Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0
The Bureau of Reclamation recently released its August 24-month study of the Colorado River, its projected water supplies, and the effect on reservoir levels and water cutbacks. It’s a doozy that, according to the Bureau, reaffirms the “impacts of unprecedented drought,” and necessitates continued water-use reductions for Arizona, Nevada, and Mexico.
Thing is, it may actually be even worse than the feds predict.
Here’s the chart for Lake Powell, showing reservoir levels for July, and projected levels for the maximum, minimum, and most probable inflow scenarios. Check it out:
Projected Lake Powell end-of-month physical elevations from the latest 24-Month Study inflow scenarios.
A couple of details struck me right off the bat. The first is that in order for the maximum scenario to come to fruition, there would have to be a big surge of flow in the Colorado River upstream from Lake Powell in October, November, and December (see how the blue line departs from the others in October?), followed by a massively snowy winter. It’s possible, but seems pretty unlikely, given that inflows and water levels almost always drop in the fall and winter.
The second is that even in the minimum flow scenario, they are predicting that next year’s spring runoff will increase lake levels by about eight feet, whereas this year the runoff only boosted the level by four feet. So even the worst case scenario is better than the most recent reality. For the most probable scenario to work out, meanwhile, this coming winter would have to be far snowier than this past one — possible, but I wouldn’t bank on it.
Now, I don’t really know what I’m talking about here. But John Fleck, Anne Castle, Eric Kuhn, et al, most certainly do. And they wrote a piece warning that the Bureau of Reclamation’s forecasts historically tend toward the optimistic. “Whatever you see in Reclamation’s report of the ‘Most Probable’ reservoir levels for the next two years,” they write on Fleck’s Inkstain blog, “we must prepare for things to be much worse.”
They remind readers that last year, Reclamation predicted Lake Powell would most probably be up to 3,593 feet above sea level by the end of this July. In fact, it was at 3,555 feet (and has dropped another four feet since then). So, yeah, Rec was way the heck off, and it certainly wasn’t the first time. Fleck and company say this is because the study does not “fully capture the climate-change driven aridification of the Colorado River Basin.”
This all matters because Reclamation bases water deliveries and cuts on these studies. And if they have an “optimistic bias,” then it could affect planning, and may lead to Lake Powell’s levels dropping far faster than predicted, which could in turn lead to another “Challenge at Glen Canyon” a la 1983, albeit due to too little water rather than too much.
It has once again prompted the Utah Rivers Council, Glen Canyon Institute, and Save the Colorado to call for the feds to overhaul the river outlet tubes and provide a bypass outlet for Glen Canyon Dam that will allow water to be released safely when levels drop below the minimum power pool.
The back of Glen Canyon Dam circa 1964, not long after the reservoir had begun filling up. Here the water level is above dead pool, meaning water can be released via the river outlets, but it is below minimum power pool, so water cannot yet enter the penstocks to generate electricity. Bureau of Reclamation photo. Annotations: Jonathan P. Thompson
Thunderheads at sunset over the Four Corners Country. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
It always began with a hot summer’s day in late July or early August. The sun beating down from a cloudless noontime sky, the high growl of lawnmowers harmonizing in the distance, the pungent smell of freshly cut grass. Stillness. Maybe a bit of loneliness, too, as the other neighborhood kids are off at their other parent’s house, or at summer camp, or whatever. Maybe my brother will take me fishing with him. Put the worm on the hook, toss it into the murky pool upstream from the bridge, grow impatient and decide to catch the little bullheads instead. Mottled sculpin, actually. The river’s low this time of year, low enough to drag an old log in and ride it downstream for a bit till it bucks us off and we scramble to stand up on the slippery rocks in the current, and that’s when we notice the sun is not so bright and look up to see towering thunderheads all billowy above Smelter Mountain and the breeze kicks up prickly sand and throws it at us and suddenly it’s not hot anymore and it’s time to get home before the rain and the lightning, even though our jeans and shirts and TG&Y sneakers are soaking wet already.
We jog through the park and up the hill and another block to the house and I stay out in the yard to await the storm. The wind bends the big maple and elm and ash trees, threatens to tear another branch off the old apricot, rushes through my hair. The sky, now, is dark grey, almost cobalt blue. A flash of lightning … one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three —- boom! It’s getting close. And then the first drop of rain hits my outstretched hand, big and cold, and I run onto the porch to revel in the petrichor and the tempest to come.
Butte and monsoon sky, Southeastern Utah. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
It is the monsoon season in the Southwest, which, once upon a time, meant that a violent thunderstorm would arrive every afternoon, bringing huge amounts of precipitation in a short period of time, perhaps in the form of hail or sleet, leading to gully busters and flash floods and overflowing gutters and a spike in the river’s flow. Then the clouds would move on, the sun would return for the last hour or two of the day, and steam would rise from the pavement, giving the arid town a glimpse of sultriness.
It has always been my favorite time of year, especially in Durango and the Animas Valley. There’s just something about the combination of colors: The slate-blue sky against the desert-varnish-striped Entrada sandstone against the deep red Cutler and Chinle formation against the emerald green of irrigated hayfields. And the weird patterns the storms follow as they move through the valley. Downtown can be deluged, while just north or south of town stays bone dry.
Horses, sky, Ute Mountain. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
But then, each part of the West is special during the monsoon: The mountains are downright frightening, especially when you’re rushing to summit a peak before the storm and you look over to see your companion’s hair standing on end. Canyon Country can be a blast, so long as you’re in an elevated area where you can watch the water spill off sandstone cliffs and race through sandy arroyos and you don’t have to drive back across that arroyo to get to work or something. And down in Tucson and Phoenix it often provides extra excitement in the form of dust clouds, then crazy lightning and thunder displays, followed by torrents that provide a bit of relief from the searing heat.
This year, however, the monsoon has so far failed to arrive. In fact, over the last decade or so, it seems to have been far less reliable generally than it was in my youth. Memory, however, is fallible, especially when it comes to recalling weather patterns from the distant and even not so distant past. So I checked the records, and they verify that I’m not totally fabricating things here.
Durango’s online records only go back to 2000, so they don’t do me much good. Instead, I relied on Mesa Verde National Park, which has records back to the 1920s (but tends to be drier than Durango). Based on a random sampling from each decade, it would appear that the monsoon nearly always delivers in parts of July and August, with normal monthly precipitation totals of 1.4” and 2.05” respectively. However, my memory of nearly daily storms was off: Even way back when I was a kid, it only rained every three days or so, sometimes less often. Meanwhile, the more recent past hasn’t been quite as bad as I thought. The July-August precipitation totals were below normal for six of the last ten years, and above normal during the other four. Not great, but not catastrophic.
Still, August is more than halfway over and the two month total so far is only .27” of precipitation, all of which fell in July.
Dark sky, road, ball. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
***
The result, naturally, is lower-than-normal streamflows (which were already down due to the lack of snow last winter and above-normal temperatures). This isn’t only bad for us terrestrial water users, but also harms fish and other aquatic life, especially when accompanied by high water temperatures. The Yampa River in northwestern Colorado, for example, is running at just 56 cubic feet per second at the USGS’s Deerlodge Park gauge, which is not good. But more concerning is that the water temperature has been shooting up to 81° F during the day. Trout start to struggle at around 70°.
🫣 Correction 🙀
Remember the Monkeywrenching essay I wrote last week? I have been informed by a very reliable source, eyewitness, and possible accomplice — who will remain anonymous, of course — that I was wrong about my father and companions burning a single billboard near Silverton. Here’s how it really unfolded:
“It’s a really scary time to be living in the basin and trying to help with water management at a time where there’s so much fear and stress,” she said.
Directing the Colorado River Program, Hawkins will lead teams working within seven U.S. states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. Programs range from on-the-ground conservation projects to basinwide policy issues and interstate negotiations.
Colorado water officials announced Wednesday a rough plan to figure out how the state would handle an unwelcome specter in the Colorado River Basin: forced water cuts.
Mandatory water cuts are possible under a 103-year-old Colorado River Compact in certain circumstances, mainly if the river’s 10-year flow falls too low. It’s a possibility that is one or two “bad years” away, some experts say.
Colorado, however, does not have a clearly defined plan, or regulations, for how exactly it would handle such forced water cuts. It’s time to start preparing, according to state engineer Jason Ullmann, Colorado’s top water cop.
Over the years, Coloradans on both sides of the Continental Divide have asked about these “compact administration regulations,” Ullmann told state lawmakers during the Water Resources and Agriculture Review Committee hearing Wednesday in Steamboat Springs.
“We’ve heard those questions,” Ullmann, director of the Division of Water Resources, said as hundreds of water professionals listened at the Colorado Water Congress Summer Meeting.
If the river’s flow falls below a 10-year rolling average of about 82.5 million acre-feet, the Lower Basin states — Arizona, California and Nevada — could demand that the Upper Basin send more water downstream based on the 1922 Colorado River Compact. In the water world, this is often called a “compact call.”
The Upper Basin states — Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — argue that the trigger is actually 75 million acre-feet because of a difference in legal opinions about how the basin states should meet their obligations to share Colorado River water with Mexico.
That 10-year average flow was forecast to be about 82.8 million acre-feet by September 2026. If the flow falls below the tripwire, it would cause a legal mire that could take years to sort out.
State officials said Colorado is in compliance and expects to remain so in the future. If a compact call ever happened, it would be a historic first for the Colorado River Basin.
Colorado officials would need to be able to send more water downstream. But the state doesn’t have regulations to say who cuts back, where the water comes from, when cuts happen or how it would track the water to make sure it would end up where it needed to go.
State officials have debated whether they should even have these discussions in light of larger basin negotiations over water use. Some people wanted to focus the state’s resources on the negotiations. Others feared that finding water supplies that could be cut would weaken the state’s stance that it has no extra water to spare.
Based on Ullmann’s remarks, the state is shifting its next course of action: many, many feedback meetings with communities.
This is pretty big news, said state Sen. Dylan Roberts, a Frisco Democrat, asking for more details about the timeline.
This winter and spring, state officials will reach out to key water user groups to host small listening sessions to hear their thoughts on the need for compact administration regulations, Ullmann said.
After that, the state will hold broader public meetings to get more input.
“It’s not something that we intend on doing in a vacuum,” Ullmann said. “It’s important for everybody in the state of Colorado that this would be a very transparent question.”
The state has already started on another key task when it comes to managing mandatory water cuts: improving how the Western Slope measures its water diversions.
“You can’t manage what you can’t measure,” Ullmann said.
Western Slope water users do already measure their use, but the measurements are not as advanced or consistent as in other river basins where Coloradans already curtail their use to meet interstate water sharing obligations, he said.
The state has already made progress on improving measurement rules and requirements in northwestern Colorado, southwestern Colorado and the Gunnison River area. Water diversions along the Colorado River in western Colorado are next up, a process that will wrap up in November.
Colorado could also adapt to the prospect of forced cuts by creating a “conservation pool,” like a savings account that could be tapped in the event of a compact call, according to other water experts who spoke to lawmakers.
Some pinned their hopes on the state’s Colorado River negotiators who have been charged with reaching a seven-state agreement for how to manage the basin’s major reservoirs after the current operating rules expire in 2026.
“We’re not going to have a compromise unless they [the Lower Basin] waive compact compliance threats. We just can’t enter into any agreement with that,” said Andy Mueller, general manager of the Colorado River District.
Those negotiations have been stalled over fundamental issues like how to cut back on water in the basin’s driest water years.
Colorado’s Colorado River Commissioner, Becky Mitchell, told lawmakers Wednesday that the discussions continue to be challenging. Negotiators have until November to share more information about a seven-state agreement with the federal government.
“Whether or not we reach a seven-state consensus, all of us will be forced to deal with this reality in one way or another,” Mitchell said. “But today, what we’re hearing from our counterparts is they may be unwilling to reduce their uses in some dry years. It appears they believe that this gap should somehow be filled by the Upper Basin water, using any means necessary.”
Click the link to read the article on the Colorado Politics website (Eugene Buchanan). Here’s an excerpt:
Tribal leaders are pushing for a seat at the negotiating table, where allocation and management of the Colorado River will be determined. The representatives from tribal nations joined a panel discussion called “Colorado River: The Emerging Role of Tribes in the 2026 Negotiations,” moderated by the Nature Conservancy’s Western Colorado Water Project Director Celene Hawkins, at the Colorado Water Congress in Steamboat Springs. During the panel, water executives from several of the 30 tribes relying on the Colorado River Basin’s water talked about their challenges and successes in managing the precious resource. While Native American Tribes hold significant water rights in the Colorado River Basin, their role in the system’s management is limited. Key hurdles, they said, include funding to implement water programs, infrastructure improvements, and water accountability…
“In the past, tribes have been treated as an afterthought when it comes to water issues and negotiations,” said Lisa Yellow Eagle. “But now we’re having open, honest dialogue.”
Native America in the Colorado River Basin. Credit: USBR
The Colorado River Water Conservation District spans 15 Western Slope counties. Voters across the district are considering a mill-levy increase that would raise the River District’s budget by $5 million, funding a variety of water-related projects.
Colorado River District/Courtesy image
The Colorado River District Board of Directors unanimously approved and adopted a new five-year strategic plan at its quarterly meeting on July 15–16, 2025. The new Strategic Plan outlines a clear vision and action-oriented roadmap for advancing the District’s mission to lead in the protection, conservation, use, and development of the water resources of the Colorado River Basin for the benefit of West Slope water users.
The newly adopted plan is the product of a year-long collaborative effort between the Board, staff, and strategic consultants. Through surveys, interviews, retreats, and intensive staff workgroup sessions, the plan identifies focused priorities and initiatives aligned with the evolving water challenges facing the West Slope.
“This plan is the result of close collaboration between our Board, staff, and consulting team, and it charts a strong course for the next five years,” said Marc Catlin, Board President of the Colorado River District. “It positions the River District to act as a leader, respond quickly to change, and deliver real, lasting benefits to West Slope communities.”
The new Strategic Plan is built around three key focus areas: Community Protection, Trusted Resource, and Recognized Leader on Colorado River Matters. It outlines goals and actionable steps to address the water needs of western Colorado in a hotter, drier future, protect water resources for agriculture and local communities that rely on them, and reinforce the River District’s role as a trusted, data-informed voice in water policy across the district and the basin. The plan also includes efforts to support core organizational services and retain staff, ensuring that essential day-to-day work continues alongside new strategic priorities.
“The Strategic Plan is a collaborative, working strategy that affirms our commitment to our constituents and communities,” said Amy Moyer, the District’s Chief of Strategy. “Implementation is already underway, and we’re building internal structures to ensure that the initiatives are aligned with the realities of Colorado’s water future.”
To support implementation, the River District plans to develop internal workgroups for each focus area and track progress through regular updates to the Board each July, with quarterly updates embedded into staff reports throughout the year. The River District extends its gratitude to the Board and all who contributed to the planning process. The complete 2025-2030 Strategic Plan is available at ColoradoRiverDistrict.org.
There was a very interesting session on Day 2, “Tools and Techniques in Agricultural Water Conservation“. During the session Ea’mon O’Toole (Ladder Ranch) made this point: There needs to be a streamlined process for storage less than 15,000 AF. Let’s construct storage high in the mountains so the conserved water doesn’t evaporate from Lake Mead. He also mentioned that there is no way to shepherd conserved water downstream.
In defense of the irrigation methods on his ranch he added: I create habitat with flood irrigation. For me the ducks, etc. are just as important as my crop.
Save The Poudre will not appeal a judge’s ruling allowing Thornton’s pipeline project to proceed.
The environmental advocacy group focused on the Poudre River contends Colorado water law, created more than 100 years ago, is not in line with public values today.
Save The Poudre urges Thornton to take a more active role in protecting and restoring the Poudre River
In announcing the decision not to appeal the judge’s ruling, Save The Poudre Executive Director Gary Wockner said Colorado’s water law gives agencies the right to drain rivers, and it doesn’t seem like a wise use of resources to appeal when a challenge would likely fail…
Todd Barnes, communications director for the city of Thornton, noted the deadline to appeal is still ahead, on Aug. 21. He said Thornton doesn’t plan to issue a statement about the development as of now…Thornton and Northern Water have planned to co-locate a few miles of their pipelines to reduce disruption. But Barnes said Thornton has heard nothing concrete from NISP. Regardless, he said, the city will follow through with all of the requirements of its permit, which includes co-location.
As of Tuesday, the Animas River was running noticeably low – at 35% normalcy for this time of year, according to a recent SnoFlo report. According to U.S. Geological Survey data, the streamflow on Tuesday was at 153 cubic feet per second, and its gauge height was measured at 2.17 feet. Last week, the flow sat around 199 cfs, with the water height resting near the 2.24-foot level, representing a small piece of a larger decline seen historically across the river’s history…
Aquatic wildlife can be impacted by low river levels, said John Livingston, spokesman with Colorado Parks and Wildlife. One effect of low water levels is an overgrowth of riverbed vegetation. Algae, in an attempt to get closer to the sun, may grow thicker and taller than usual, Livingston said. In the Animas River, blue-green algae blooms, also called cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms, are the most likely culprits of this overgrowth, he said.
Colorado River water flows through La Paz County, Arizona on August 6, 2025. The Central Arizona Project is among the agencies facing cutbacks on water supply while the river is under shortage conditions. Alex Hager/KUNC
Click the link to read the article on the KUNC website (Alex Hager):
August 15, 2025
This story is part of ongoing coverage of water in the West, produced by KUNC in Colorado and supported by the Walton Family Foundation. KUNC is solely responsible for its editorial coverage.
The latest projections for the Colorado River are out, and they paint a picture of more dry conditions and dropping reservoirs.
The river supplies water to nearly 40 million people across the Southwest, and it’s stretched thin by climate change and steady demand. New data from the Bureau of Reclamation shows low inflows and dropping water levels at the nation’s two largest reservoirs – Lake Powell and Lake Mead. This is just the latest bad news in the midst of a megadrought going back more than two decades.
Projected Lake Mead end-of-month physical elevations from the latest 24-Month Study inflow scenarios.
Projected Lake Powell end-of-month physical elevations from the latest 24-Month Study inflow scenarios.
The river will enter 2026 in a “Tier 1 Shortage,” under which Arizona and Nevada will face mandatory cutbacks to their water supply. While they put some water users in an uncomfortable pinch, those cutbacks aren’t raising the same alarm bells they once did. Dry conditions and water reductions have become a sort of new normal. Shortage conditions for the lower Colorado River basin were first declared in 2021, and have been in place since.
On the ground, the agencies that have to deal with these cutbacks seem to be adapting. Major water users tout their conservation efforts. The towns and cities that are most likely to face permanent reductions to their water use are putting hundreds of millions of dollars into systems that will steel them against smaller water deliveries in the future.
This 2023 diagram shows the tubes through which Lake Powell’s fish can pass through to the section of the Colorado River that flows through the Grand Canyon. Credit: USGS and Reclamation 2023
Meanwhile, further upstream, dropping levels at Lake Powell are creating a near-term crisis. The new federal water data shows the reservoir ending this year only 27% full. If it drops much lower, the reservoir could fall below the pipes which allow water to flow through hydropower generators inside the dam – jeopardizing electricity generation for about five million people across seven states. The new data shows that could happen as soon as November 2026.
The back of Glen Canyon Dam circa 1964, not long after the reservoir had begun filling up. Here the water level is above dead pool, meaning water can be released via the river outlets, but it is below minimum power pool, so water cannot yet enter the penstocks to generate electricity. Bureau of Reclamation photo. Annotations: Jonathan P. Thompson
Policymakers who can shape the region’s long-term response to dry conditions have been facing mounting calls for action. They are under pressure to come up with new rules for managing the river in the long-term before the current guidelines expire in 2026.
Cynthia Campbell, who directs a water policy research center at Arizona State University, said instead of urgently working on a long-term plan, those policymakers seem to have spent the past few years “gambling” on the idea that water might come back and reverse the crisis at major reservoirs.
“If they were betting on that,” she said, “Then they’re losing, because it is continuing to march on. Mother Nature is continuing to march on, and we’re continuing to see declines in the system.”
While some small glimmers of hope have emerged from negotiations, water managers from the seven states that use the Colorado River seem stuck at an impasse.
“We have yet to see any courage in the sense of making choices that will bolster long-term system reliability,” said Campbell, who formerly served as a top water lawyer for the city of Phoenix. “There seems to be an unwillingness on the collected parties to do that, and that is not good news.”
Climate scientists say the river’s dry conditions are unlikely to turn around anytime soon. A warming, drying climate is sapping the region of its water at every turn, and significant reductions to demand are likely the only solution to that new reality.
The 24-Month Study projects future Colorado River system conditions using single-trace hydrologic scenarios simulated with the Colorado River Mid-term Modeling System (CRMMS) in 24-Month Study Mode. The Most Probable and Probable Minimum 24-Month Studies are released monthly, typically by the 15th day of the month. The Probable Maximum 24-Month Study is released alongside other 24-Month Studies in January, April, August, and October.
Initial Conditions: The 24-Month Study is initialized with previous end-of-month reservoir elevations.
Hydrology: In the Upper Basin, the first year of the Most Probable inflow trace is based on the 50th percentile of Colorado Basin River Forecast Center (CBRFC) forecasts and the second year is based on the 50th percentile of historical flows. To represent dry and wet future conditions, the Minimum Probable and Maximum Probable traces use the 10th and 90thforecast percentiles in the first year and the 25th and 75th percentiles of historical flows in the second year, respectively. The Lower Basin inflows are based only on historical intervening flows that align with the Upper Basin percentiles.
Water Demand: Upper Basin demands are estimated and incorporated in the unregulated inflow forecasts provided by the CBRFC; Lower Basin demands are developed in coordination with the Lower Basin States and Mexico.
Policy: 2007 Interim Guidelines, 2024 Supplement to the 2007 Interim Guidelines, Lower Basin Drought Contingency Plan, and Minute 323 are modeled reflecting Colorado River policies. For modeling purposes, simulated years beyond 2026 assume a continuation of the 2007 Interim Guidelines including the 2024 Supplement to the 2007 Interim Guidelines (no additional SEIS conservation is assumed to occur after 2026), the 2019 Colorado River Basin Drought Contingency Plans, and Minute 323 including the Binational Water Scarcity Contingency Plan. With the exception of certain provisions related to ICS recovery and Upper Basin demand management, operations under these agreements are in effect through 2026. Reclamation initiated the process to develop operations for post-2026 in June 2023, and the modeling assumptions described here are subject to change.
Reclamation will continue to carefully monitor hydrologic and operational conditions and assess the need for additional responsive actions and/or changes to operations. Reclamation will continue to consult with the Basin States, Basin Tribes, the Republic of Mexico and other partners on Colorado River operations to consider and determine whether additional measures should be taken to further enhance the preservation of these benefits, as well as recovery protocols, including those of future protective measures for both Lakes Powell and Mead.
For more detailed information about the approach to the 24-Month Study modeling, see the CRMMS 24-Month Study Modepage. All modeling assumptions and projections are subject to varying degrees of uncertainty. Please refer to this discussion of uncertainty for more information.
Projections
The latest 24-Month Study reports for each study can be found at the links below:
WASHINGTON — The Bureau of Reclamation released the August 2025 24-Month Study, reaffirming impacts of unprecedented drought in the Colorado River Basin and pressing the need for robust and forward-thinking guidelines for the future. The study provides an outlook on hydrologic conditions and projected operations for Colorado River reservoirs over the next two years and sets the 2026 operating conditions for Lake Powell and Lake Mead.
“This underscores the importance of immediate action to secure the future of the Colorado River,” said Reclamation’s Acting Commissioner David Palumbo. “We must develop new, sustainable operating guidelines that are robust enough to withstand ongoing drought and poor runoff conditions to ensure water security for more than 40 million people who rely on this vital resource.”
Lake Powell’s elevation on Jan. 1, 2026, is projected to be 3,538.47 feet—approximately 162 feet below full pool and 48 feet above minimum power pool. This places the reservoir in the Mid-Elevation Release Tier, with a planned release of 7.48 million acre-feet of water for water year 2026, October 1, 2025, through September 30, 2026. If hydrologic conditions worsen, the water year release volume may be reduced in accordance with the 2024 Record of Decision for the Supplement to the 2007 Interim Guidelines.
Lake Mead is projected to stay in a Level 1 Shortage Condition, with an expected elevation of 1,055.88 feet—20 feet below the Lower Basin shortage determination trigger. This condition necessitates significant water reductions as indicated by the 2007 Interim Guidelines and the Lower Basin Drought Contingency Plan in the United States and Minute 323 and the Binational Water Scarcity Contingency Plan in Mexico. This calls for Arizona to contribute 512,000 acre-feet, about 18% of its annual apportionment, Nevada to contribute 21,000 acre-feet or 7%of its annual apportionment, and Mexico to contribute 80,000 acre-feet or 5% of its annual allotment.
Current guidelines—including the 2007 Interim Guidelines, 2019 Drought Contingency Plans, and international agreements Minutes 323 and 330—are all set to expire at the end of 2026, leaving a critical void that must be filled with comprehensive strategies that address current and future challenges.
“As the basin prepares for the transition to post-2026 operating guidelines, the urgency for the seven Colorado River Basin states to reach a consensus agreement has never been clearer. We cannot afford to delay,” said Department of the Interior’s Acting Assistant Secretary for Water and Science Scott Cameron. “The health of the Colorado River system and the livelihoods that depend on it are relying on our ability to collaborate effectively and craft forward-thinking solutions that prioritize conservation, efficiency, and resilience.”
In June, Cameron called on the seven Colorado River Basin states to submit the details of a preliminary operations agreement by mid-November and share a final seven state agreement on that proposal by mid-February 2026, with the goal of reaching a final decision next summer to begin implementation in the 2027 operating year.
In the meantime, near-term operating guidelines approved last year provide additional strategies to reduce the risk of reaching critical elevations at Lake Powell and Lake Mead. These short-term tools, available through 2026, include conserving 3 million acre-feet or more of water in the Lower Basin and the potential to reduce release from Lake Powell. Under the Drought Contingency Plan, Upper Basin drought response operations could also include sending additional water to Lake Powell from upstream reservoirs.
“These short-term tools will only help us for so long,” Cameron emphasized. “The next set of guidelines need to be in place. We remain committed to this effort and will continue to invest in infrastructure improvements and system water reuse and conservation efforts as we move forward toward viable solutions.”
The Department and Reclamation continue meeting regularly with the basin states and Tribal Nations to collaborate on the Post-2026 Operating Guidelines as part of their continued commitment to ensuring water security and promoting long-term sustainability in the Colorado River Basin. For more information on the August 2025 24-Month Study, visit https://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/g4000/riverops/24ms-projections.html.
Udall/Overpeck 4-panel Figure Colorado River temperature/precipitation/natural flows with trend. Lake Mead and Lake Powell storage. Updated through Water Year 2024. Credit: Brad Udall
Pine River Marina at Navajo Reservoir. Photo credit: Reclamation
From email from Reclamation (Conor Felletter):
August 15, 2025
The Bureau of Reclamation has scheduled an increase in the release from Navajo Dam to 900 cubic feet per second (cfs) from the current release of 850 cfs for Saturday, August 16, at 4:00 AM.
Releases are made for the authorized purposes of the Navajo Unit, and to attempt to maintain a target base flow through the endangered fish critical habitat reach of the San Juan River (Farmington to Lake Powell). The San Juan River Basin Recovery Implementation Program recommends a target base flow of between 500 cfs and 1,000 cfs through the critical habitat area. The target base flow is calculated as the weekly average of gaged flows throughout the critical habitat area from Farmington to Lake Powell.
This scheduled release change is subject to changes in river flows and weather conditions. If you have any questions, please contact Conor Felletter (cfelletter@usbr.gov or 970-637-1985), or visit Reclamation’s Navajo Dam website athttps://www.usbr.gov/uc/water/crsp/cs/nvd.html
Reclamation conducts Public Operations Meetings three times per year to gather input for determining upcoming operations for Navajo Reservoir. Input from individuals, organizations, and agencies along with other factors such as weather, water rights, endangered species requirements, flood control, hydro power, recreation, fish and wildlife management, and reservoir levels, will be considered in the development of these reservoir operation plans. In addition, the meetings are used to coordinate activities and exchange information among agencies, water users, and other interested parties concerning the San Juan River and Navajo Reservoir. The next meeting will be held Tuesday, August 19th at 1:00 PM. This meeting is open to the public with hybrid options, in person at the Civic Center in Farmington, NM (200 W Arrington St, Farmington, NM 87401, Rooms 4&5) and virtual using Microsoft Teams. Register for the webinar at this link
After weeks of hot, dry and windy weather across western Colorado, Gunnison County Commissioners received a water-issues update on Tuesday that was filled with “sobering” news. In addition to details about Gunnison County’s worsening drought conditions, commissioners heard from representatives of the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB) that the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is once again considering emergency releases from Blue Mesa Reservoir to bolster falling water levels in Lake Powell [in 2026, h/t Sue Serling].
West Drought Monitor map August 12, 2025.
According to drought.gov, approximately 50% of Gunnison County is in “extreme” drought, compared to just 5% one month ago. Conditions in most of the remainder of the county are rated as “severe.” Precipitation for most of the county has been between 25% and 50% of normal for the past 30 days, with little immediate relief in sight.
CWCB representative Amy Ostdiek told commissioners she believes emergency releases will come from elsewhere in the Upper Basin this year, but couldn’t rule out the possibility that Blue Mesa would be included…If current conditions persist, Lake Powell is projected to fall below the critical elevation of 3,525 feet above sea level in the spring of 2026. This would be the second time that has occurred since the reservoir filled in 1980. The other time happened in 2021, precipitating emergency releases from Blue Mesa Reservoir and Flaming Gorge and Navajo reservoirs totaling 180,000 acre-feet. An acre-foot is the volume of water that would cover one acre a foot deep.
As of Aug. 10, Blue Mesa was 61% full and is projected to end the year at 51% of its storage capacity — without any additional releases. Taylor Reservoir is forecasted to be at 65% of average capacity at the end of 2025. The threshold of 3,525 feet at Lake Powell was agreed to in the Upper Basin Drought Response Operations Agreement as the trigger point for possible releases. The purpose is to prevent Lake Powell from dropping below 3,490 feet, known as “dead pool” — the point at which the Glen Canyon Dam can no longer generate electricity. Up to 5 million people across six western states depend on hydroelectric power from the dam. Emergency releases in 2021 were controversial. Critics argued that federal authorities did not properly consult with Upper Basin water users prior to the decision and failed to account for impacts to local economies and communities. Further, many objected on the grounds that water managers had no way of measuring whether the extra water in fact reached Lake Powell.
Lake Pleasant (pictured), located north of Phoenix, serves as the Central Arizona Project’s water storage reservoir, as well as being a popular recreational amenity. Water shortages are impacting Colorado River basin reservoirs such as Lake Mead in Nevada and Lake Powell, which stretches across northern Arizona and southern Utah. Environmental changes throughout the Southwest are presenting challenges to maintaining flows. Photo courtesy of Central Arizona Project
Arizona is about to enter a new era when it comes to water rights and distribution.
The state’s main source of surface water — the Colorado River — has been dwindling as a result of climate change and increased water demand.
That means less water for approximately 40 million people in two countries, seven states and 30 Native American tribes. And the rules that govern how states face water cuts are set to expire on Dec. 31, 2026.
The seven states involved have struggled to reach an agreement regarding the future of these cuts. But whatever the outcome may be of negotiations or potential litigation between these seven states, experts say that Valley residents face significant water risks, including:
Arizona could lose up to 40% of its water supply.
The Central Arizona Water Project could be significantly cut and would deliver less water.
The reuse of water will become paramount to the state, including turning wastewater into drinking water.
One Arizona State University expert says not to panic but be prepared to open your wallet.
Rhett Larson, the Richard Morrison Professor of Water Law at ASU’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, estimates water prices could significantly increase in some parts of the Valley if Arizona cannot come to an equitable and sustainable agreement with the other six states on how to share in decreased flows of the Colorado River.
“Arizona is not running out of water. We are running out of cheap water,” said Larson, who is also a senior research fellow with the Kyl Center for Water Policy at ASU’s Morrison Institute for Public Policy. “This means not just higher water rates, but also difficult choices on economic trade-offs — for example, higher food prices due to less water for agriculture but lower housing prices with more water for residential growth.”
ASU News spoke to several water policy scholars to get a behind-the-scenes look at how the seven states are working together on the new agreement, what are some viable options in case of a shortfall, and what Arizona’s future looks like when it comes to its most precious resource.
Udall/Overpeck 4-panel Figure Colorado River temperature/precipitation/natural flows with trend. Lake Mead and Lake Powell storage. Updated through Water Year 2024. Credit: Brad Udall
A ticking clock
Over the past century, the Colorado River’s flow has declined by about 20%. With rising temperatures and declining Rocky Mountain snowpack, scientists have predicted flow reductions of up to 30% by mid-century.
The seven states within the Colorado River basin are under increasing pressure to develop long-term management strategies, as the existing agreements are set to expire at the end of 2026. A significant challenge lies in managing the persistent drought while balancing the requirements of stakeholders, including agricultural interests, urban water consumers, environmental needs and Indigenous rights holders.
In response to a prolonged drought, diminishing storage capacities and increasing demands for Colorado River water, the secretary of the interior issued a directive in May 2005 for reclamation to formulate enhanced strategies aimed at optimizing the coordinated management of the reservoirs within the Colorado River system.
On April 23, 2007, all seven states signed an interim agreement that memorialized the consensus recommendation to the secretary. Those rules have remained in place for the last 18 years, but the flow of recent events demand dramatic action.
“There’s no way that this ends without lower water supplies in Arizona,” Larson said. “Even the best-case scenario means that Arizona will have to make do with less water.”
However, Larson said there’s been progress as of late. He said there is a proposal on the table where the upper basin states would shift the way the water is measured to align more closely with reality.
“There have been some promising breakthroughs, but it could also collapse into litigation,” said Larson, who is representing Arizona in the agreement.
“There’s a decent chance the states of the basin will sue each other in the United States Supreme Court, and who knows how that will play out?” he said.
Options on the table
If the seven Colorado River basin states can’t come to an agreement by the deadline, Arizona does have other water options. Some are legal, some are logistical and some are long shots. And they all come with a price tag.
“Trends are pointing to the fact that the Colorado River is becoming drier and I think it would be safe to say that the Central Arizona Project won’t be as large a provider of water as at present,” said Enrique Vivoni, ASU’s Fulton Professor of Hydrosystems Engineering in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment and the director of the Center for Hydrologic Innovations. “So, if that’s the case, it means Arizona will have to start thinking about replacing that water supply. That would require investments.”
Vivoni, whose research focuses on hydrology and water resources, said Arizona has several water augmentation options at its disposal. They include groundwater extraction, water desalination, reservoir expansion, wastewater reclamation and interbasin transfers from other areas.
All these options require complex agreements and investments.
For example, Vivoni said groundwater extraction would require major investment in infrastructure, such as new wells and pipelines to bring water supplies to existing systems. The desalination option could involve paying to build a plant in Mexico in exchange for a portion of their Colorado River water. Expansion of Arizona’s Bartlett Reservoir capacity will require raising the dam to retain more Verde River water.
“All of these options require capital expenses and large operations and maintenance costs on an annual basis,” Vivoni said. “It’s going to require some hard choices. There will be some winners and some losers, and it’s going to require some behavioral changes by individuals, residents, communities, industry and cities.”
By measuring the gravitational pull of water for more than two decades, NASA satellites have peered beneath the surface and measured changes in the groundwater supplies of the Colorado River Basin for years 2015 to 2024. Credit: NASA
Pressure on groundwater
In addition to the costs of tapping groundwater, ASU researchers recently reported that the state’s unseen groundwater losses have been great as well.
Karem Abdelmohsen, Jay Famiglietti and colleagues used orbiting satellites to measure changes in groundwater from 2002 to 2024 in the Colorado River basin, in comparison to losses in streamflow and reservoir storage.
The satellite study found that groundwater depletion accounted for more than half of the total water storage loss in the upper Colorado River basin and more than two-thirds of losses in the lower Colorado River basin, which is greater than the losses in lakes Powell and Mead.
“The rate of depletion has actually accelerated over the last decade,” said Famiglietti, science director for ASU’s Arizona Water Innovation Initiative.
With less access to water from the Colorado River, demand for groundwater will grow. Famiglietti said that the effectiveness of groundwater management varies across the Colorado River basin states, leaving the resource open to overexploitation.
Cautious optimism abounds
If the seven states don’t come to an agreement soon, one possible scenario is that the secretary of the interior would make unilateral decisions on cuts and deliveries. Such actions would likely lead to lawsuits challenging the secretary’s authority to do so.
“Not having a consensus agreement in place means we could go from relative certainty about the conditions of shortage to total uncertainty,” said Kathryn Sorensen, who oversees the research efforts of the Kyl Center for Water Policy, serves as a professor of practice at the Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions and contributes to the Global Futures Laboratory. “What we don’t want is someone making those decisions for us.”
That lack of certainty could lead to many drawbacks, according to Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy.
“Being in the dark about this situation could lead to higher (water) prices,” Porter said. “It could also lead to a disruption in economic development and the state’s prosperity. Not having clarity regarding how much water will be available over the long term could impact the state’s ability to attract industry. If there’s too much uncertainty about our long-term water supplies, then we’re not a good bet for investment.”
But water scarcity is not a new issue for Arizona. The state has a history of managing limited resources for collective benefit.
And that’s reason for hope as the state faces these current challenges.
“If you look at the history of water management in the Phoenix area, it’s a story of adaptation and overcoming obstacles and finding ways to be innovative,” Sorensen said. “We know how to do more with less, and we’re good at it.”
We’re also good at problem-solving and finding solutions, Porter said.
“I’m very optimistic about our water future because we’ve had over 100 years as a seven-state basin to figure out solutions,” Porter said. “I’m also optimistic because I’ve seen how creative and dedicated Arizona municipal water managers are — they’re resourceful, prepared and have their short- and long-term plans in place.
“I think there’s going to be water to help us enjoy a good quality of life and a thriving economy for central Arizona for a long time.”
ASU News reporter Joe Rojas-Burke contributed to this article.
Map of the Colorado River drainage basin, created using USGS data. By Shannon1 Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0
The outflow at the bottom of Navajo Dam in New Mexico. Photo: Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism
From email from the Bureau of Reclamation (Conor Felletter):
The Bureau of Reclamation has scheduled an increase in the release from Navajo Dam to 850 cubic feet per second (cfs) from the current release of 800 cfs for Tuesday, August 12, at 4:00 AM.
Releases are made for the authorized purposes of the Navajo Unit, and to attempt to maintain a target base flow through the endangered fish critical habitat reach of the San Juan River (Farmington to Lake Powell). The San Juan River Basin Recovery Implementation Program recommends a target base flow of between 500 cfs and 1,000 cfs through the critical habitat area. The target base flow is calculated as the weekly average of gaged flows throughout the critical habitat area from Farmington to Lake Powell.
This scheduled release change is subject to changes in river flows and weather conditions. If you have any questions, please contact Conor Felletter (cfelletter@usbr.gov or 970-637-1985), or visit Reclamation’s Navajo Dam website athttps://www.usbr.gov/uc/water/crsp/cs/nvd.html
Reclamation conducts Public Operations Meetings three times per year to gather input for determining upcoming operations for Navajo Reservoir. Input from individuals, organizations, and agencies along with other factors such as weather, water rights, endangered species requirements, flood control, hydro power, recreation, fish and wildlife management, and reservoir levels, will be considered in the development of these reservoir operation plans. In addition, the meetings are used to coordinate activities and exchange information among agencies, water users, and other interested parties concerning the San Juan River and Navajo Reservoir. The next meeting will be held Tuesday, August 19th at 1:00 PM. This meeting is open to the public with hybrid options, in person at the Civic Center in Farmington, NM (200 W Arrington St, Farmington, NM 87401, Rooms 4&5) and virtual using Microsoft Teams. Register for the webinar at this link
The Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District (PAWSD) Board of Directors voted at a July 31 special meeting to immediately enter stage two drought under the district’s drought management plan due to low water levels in area rivers and other concerns. At the meeting, PAWSD District Engineer/Manager Justin Ramsey explained that drought stages for PAWSD are based on water levels in Hatcher Reservoir, which is used to supply water to the uptown Pagosa Springs area; water levels in the San Juan River, which is used to supply water to the downtown area; and what the state drought stage for the area is. He stated that the heaviest weight in the drought calculation is on the level of Hatcher Lake, the second heaviest weight is on the San Juan River and the third heaviest is on the state drought stage.
Ramsey noted that Hatcher is in “really good shape…However, Ramsey commented that the San Juan River is “low” at 48 cubic feet per second (cfs) as of the day of the meeting and that the state drought stage for the area is stage two, which indicates severe drought.
The Colorado River is in trouble: Not as much water flows into the river as people are entitled to take out of it. A new idea might change that, but complicated political and practical negotiations stand in the way.
The river and its tributaries provide water for about 5 million acres of cropland and pasture, hydroelectric power for millions of people, recreation in the Grand Canyon, and critical habitat for fish and other wildlife. Thirty federally recognized Native American tribes assert rights to water from the Colorado River system. It is also an important source of drinking water for cities within the Colorado River Basin, including Phoenix, Tucson and Las Vegas, and cities outside the basin, such as Los Angeles, San Diego, Salt Lake City, Denver and Albuquerque.
The 1922 Colorado Compact divided the 250,000-square-mile Colorado River Basin into an Upper Basin – which includes parts of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming, as well as the northeastern corner of Arizona – and a Lower Basin, encompassing most of Arizona and parts of California and Nevada. The compact apportions each basin 7.5 million acre-feet of water from the river each year. An acre-foot of water is enough to cover 1 acre in water 1 foot deep, which amounts to approximately 326,000 gallons. According to a 2021 estimate from the Arizona Department of Water Resources, 1 acre-foot is sufficient to supply 3.5 single-family households in Arizona for one year.
Anticipating a future treaty with Mexico for sharing Colorado River water, the compact specified that Mexico should be supplied first with any surplus available and any additional amount needed “borne equally” by the two divisions. A 1944 water-sharing treaty between Mexico and the U.S. guarantees Mexico at least 1.5 million acre-feet of Colorado River water annually.
The compact also specified that the Upper Basin states of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming “will not cause the flow of the river … to be depleted below an aggregate of 75,000,000 acre-feet for any period of 10 consecutive years.”
The Lower Basin states of Arizona, California and Nevada contend that this provision is a “delivery obligation,” requiring the Upper Basin to ensure that over any 10-year period, a total of at least 75 million acre-feet flows to the Lower Basin.
By contrast, the Upper Basin states contend that the language merely creates a “non-depletion obligation” that caps their collective use at 7.5 million acre-feet per year in times when additional use by the Upper Basin would cause less than 75 million acre-feet to be delivered to the Lower Basin over a 10-year period.
This disagreement over the compact’s language is at the heart of the differences between the two basins.
Snowfall in Western mountains, including the Flatirons outside Boulder, Colo., is the primary source of water for the Colorado River Basin. AP Photo/Thomas Peipert
A small source area
Nearly all of the water in the Colorado River system comes from snow that falls in the Rocky Mountains in the Upper Basin. About 85% of the Colorado Basin’s flows come from just 15% of the basin’s surface area. Most of the rest of the basin’s lands are arid or semi-arid, receiving less than 20 inches of precipitation a year and contributing little to the flows of the Colorado River and its tributaries.
Rain and snowfall vary dramatically from year to year, so over the course of the 20th century, the Colorado Basin states – with the assistance of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the agency of the Department of the Interior responsible for operating federal water and power projects in the U.S. West – developed a complex system of reservoirs to capture the extra water in wet years so it could be available in drier years. The most notable reservoirs in the system are Lake Mead, impounded by Hoover Dam, which was completed in 1936, and Lake Powell, impounded by Glen Canyon Dam, completed in 1966.
Over the past 25 years, the quantity of water stored in Lake Mead and Lake Powell has declined significantly. A primary driver of this decline is a lengthy drought likely amplified by climate change: One study estimated that the region may be suffering its driest spell in 1,200 years.
But human errors are also adding up. The Colorado Compact’s original negotiators made unrealistically optimistic assumptions about the river’s average annual flow – perhaps knowingly. In their book “Science be Dammed,” Colorado River experts Eric Kuhn and John Fleck document how compact negotiators willfully or wishfully ignored available data about the river’s actual flows. Kuhn and Fleck argue the negotiators knew it would be decades before demand would exceed the river’s water supply, and they wanted to sell a big vision of Southwestern development that would merit massive federal financing for reservoirs and other infrastructure.
In addition, the current Colorado River system accounting does not factor in the roughly 1.3 million acre-feet of water lost annually from Lake Mead due to evaporation into the air or seepage into the ground. This accounting gap means that under normal annual releases to satisfy the apportionments to the Lower Basin and Mexico, Lake Mead’s water level is steadily declining.
Stabilization efforts
The seven Colorado River states and Mexico have taken significant steps to stabilize the reservoirs. In 2007, they agreed to new guidelines to coordinate the operations of Lake Mead and Lake Powell to prevent either reservoir from reaching catastrophically low levels. They also agreed to reduce the amount of water available to Arizona and Nevada depending on how low Lake Mead’s levels go.
When the 2007 guidelines proved insufficient to keep the reservoir levels from declining, the Colorado Basin states and Mexico agreed in 2019 to additional measures, authorizing releases from Upper Basin reservoirs under certain conditions and additional cuts to water users in the Lower Basin and Mexico.
By 2022, projections for the reservoir levels looked so dire that the states started negotiating additional near-term measures to reduce the amount of water users withdrew from the river. The federal government helped out, too: $4 billion of Inflation Reduction Act funding has helped pay the costs of water-conservation measures, primarily by agricultural districts, cities and tribes.
These reductions are real. In 2023, Arizona, California and Nevada used only 5.8 million acre-feet of Colorado River water – their lowest combined annual consumption since 1983. The Lower Basin’s total consumption in 2024 was slightly higher, at 6.09 million acre-feet.
Lake Powell, a key Colorado River reservoir, holds only one-third as much water as it is designed to contain. Rebecca Noble/Getty Images
A new opportunity?
With the 2007 guidelines and additional measures expiring in 2026, the deadline for a new agreement looms. As the Colorado River states try to work out a new agreement, Arizona’s new proposal of a supply-driven approach offers hope, but the devil’s in the details. Critical components of that approach have not been ironed out – for instance, the percentage of the river’s flows that would be available to Arizona, California and Nevada.
If the states can’t agree, there is a chance that the secretary of the Interior, acting through the Bureau of Reclamation, may decide on his own how to balance the reservoirs and how much water to deliver out of them. That decision would almost certainly be taken to court by states or water users unhappy with the result.
And the Lower Basin states have said they are fully prepared to go to court to enforce what they believe to be the Upper Basin’s delivery obligation, which, the Upper Basin has responded, it is prepared to dispute.
In the meantime, farmers in Arizona’s Yuma County and California’s Imperial County cannot be sure that in the next few years they will have enough water to produce winter vegetables and melons for the nation. The Colorado River Basin’s municipal water providers are worried about how they will meet demands for tap water for homes and businesses. And tribal nations fear that they will not have the water they need for their farms, communities and economies.
Survey work begins in 2018 for the Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project on the Navajo Nation. Photo credit: U.S. Bureau of Reclamation via The High Country News
Bidtah N. Becker, chief legal counsel for the Navajo Nation, told St. George News there is an urgency to secure the tribe’s legal rights to the Colorado River in Arizona, calling it their “No. 1 issue.” Becker explained that while the tribe secured water rights settlements in Utah in 2022 and in New Mexico in 2009, members still lack a legal water allocation in Arizona. A proposed bill in Congress, the Northeastern Arizona Indian Water Rights Settlement Act of 2025, seeks to address this gap. The bill involves partnerships with the Hopi Tribe, the San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe, the state of Arizona and more than 30 municipalities and communities in northern Arizona…The legislation has been delayed due to a lack of agreement from the seven Colorado River Basin states, which are focused on post-2026 guidelines for managing the river. Becker said the Navajo Nation remains hopeful that once those discussions advance, a settlement can gain momentum…
The Navajo Indian Irrigation Project, located in northwest New Mexico, draws its water from Navajo Lake on the San Juan River and moves it through more than 70 miles of main canals and 340 miles of laterals. Approved by Congress in 1962, the project transformed from a small-scale farming initiative into a major agricultural operation. The project holds rights to 508,000 acre-feet of San Juan River water annually, used to irrigate high desert lands south of Farmington, New Mexico…
Beyond agriculture, the Navajo Nation is working to secure municipal water supplies. Becker said one key project underway is the Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project. A lateral portion of the project, running along U.S. Route 550, is already constructed; the second lateral section still requires funding to be completed.
n July, the Parachute Town Council adopted a Water Restriction and Conservation Program to help the town respond quickly and responsibly to changing water conditions.
The new program allows the town to implement or lift water use restrictions as needed throughout the year, based on water availability, drought conditions and regional coordination.
On July 15, it was announced that Parachute remains at a Stage 1 Water Watch due to low flows on the Parachute Creek. It has remained at Stage 1 partially due to ongoing coordination with other users of Parachute Creek and the community’s ongoing conservation efforts.
Stage 1 is a voluntary stage that applies to raw water irrigation users only. Parachute has not implemented any mandatory restrictions at this time and potable drinking water customers are not affected.
Parachute is encouraging all irrigation water users to take simple voluntary actions to help conserve water, such as:
Reducing outdoor watering to three to five days a week
Watering in the early morning or late evening to reduce evaporation
Focusing water use on trees, vegetables and essential landscaping only
Avoiding overwatering lawns or irrigating during rainfall
Voluntary conservation is key, as cutting back now could help the community avoid stricter, mandatory restrictions later this summer.
If conditions change, additional stages of the program may be implemented. Higher stages could make the current voluntary measures enforceable or even lead to a ban on all outdoor irrigation, though that has not yet been necessary in Parachute.
Future restrictions will be announced publicly and community members can stay up to date by following the town of Parachute’s social media accounts, like their Facebook at facebook.com/townofparachute/, downloading the “Town of Parachute” mobile app or visiting the town’s utilities page at parachute.gov/o/top/page/utilities.
For more questions on the program or water usage, contact Parachute Town Hall at 907-285-7630.
Click the link to read the article on the Big Pivots website (Allen Best):
July 22, 2025
This is the final part of a series about four groundwater basins in Colorado. The story was commissioned by Water Education Colorado and benefited from editing by Caitlin that organization’s staff. It appears in a variant form in the summer 2025 issue of Headwaters magazine.
The San Luis Valley, like the Republican River Basin, has almost no tax base other than irrigated agriculture. “Nearly everything in the valley is somehow related to agriculture. Our hospital, our schools — everything is dependent on agriculture’s existence in the valley,” says Amber Pacheco from her office in Alamosa. From her office in Wray, Deb Daniel has a parallel observation.
What then constitutes sustainability of the water that is the foundation of agriculture or, in the case of Parker, Castle Rock, and other south metro communities, their economic vitality? What decisions should be made now to foster that vitality through the 21st century?
Smuggler Mine back in the day via GregRulon.com
Thoughts about conservation have shifted over time. When Colorado’s gold and silver miners arrived, they had no goal of conserving. They either mined the veins to exhaustion, or it became too costly to continue. In a sense, that has happened in the Republican River Basin. The only limits to this groundwater mining are those triggered by the interstate compact. Because the Republican River and its tributaries get most of their water from aquifers, pumping must be limited — or supplemented.
In the last 20 years, the Republican River Water Conservation District has done some of both. It has or soon will have committed $86 million to pump water from wells expressly to deliver water to the Nebraska state line. One of the directors, Tim Pautler, has called this a strategy of kicking the can down the road. Other directors have started to agree.
“It’s like the clock is ticking when it comes to sustainability,” said Rod Lenz, the board chair, at the board’s quarterly meeting in May 2025. “What more can we do with the tools we have? Do we dare ask for more tools such [as would be delivered by] statute changes? Do we really want all the groundwater districts in the basin to ask the state engineer to reconsider how much we’re allowed to pump, or do we just stay in compliance until we can’t?”
San Luis Valley Groundwater
In the San Luis Valley, coming off the century-defining drought of 2002, state legislators went in exactly the opposite direction. They said that the unconfined aquifer was to be managed sustainably. Granted, that’s easier said if you have a major river flowing nearby, even if that river has been hammered hard by the warming, drying climate of the 21st century.
Water stored in Colorado’s Denver Basin aquifers, which extend from Greeley to Colorado Springs, and from Golden to the Eastern Plains near Limon, does not naturally recharge from rain and snow and is therefore carefully regulated. Courtesy U.S. Geological Survey.
The south metro area falls somewhere between these two extremes. State legislators nearly a half-century ago ordered a “slow sip” of the groundwater such as to preserve it for a century. In some places, there seems to be sufficient water to slow sip for another 300 years. In other places, the aquifer might have enough water for a few decades. Some water utilities hope for a completely sustainable water supply in decades ahead. Much work has been done. The harder work lies yet ahead.
What we need are aspirations premised not on entitlement and enrichments solely for today, but instead to build economies and cultures that more comprehensively look several generations ahead. That should be the question in all these meetings, all these court cases, all of these individual actions. Based on what we know and understand today, what should we be doing for the kids, grandkids and their grandkids, too? Are we doing better than kicking the can down the road?
We left the Colorado River a couple months ago to explore the Trumpsters’ effort to use the public lands in the river basin to ‘unleash American energy’ and return us to the glorious age of cheap petroleum – and why it’s not happening. At that time, the seven states in the river’s basin were in a stalemate over a management plan to replace the cobbled together ‘interim’ management guidelines that expire next year. The Trumpsters’ have not interceded noticeably in this situation, since it appears to require complex and sustained thought.
Unfortunately, the stalemate is still the basic situation. As a couple water mavens put it, we’re all still waiting for the black smoke coming out of the chimney to turn white. The Basin’s state representatives are meeting together regularly though, with input from the First People, and reports from the meetings suggest that the participants have all agreed to ‘work with the river we have, not the river we wish we (still) had’ (if we ever actually did have it) – the Colorado River Compact’s river. So a little review here today, to remind us where this puts us….
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
The Colorado River Compact was created in 1922 for a river that had been, for a couple decades, running flows guesstimated to average 18 million acre-feet (maf) annually. The compact commissioners thought they were being conservative in only dividing 15 maf among themselves, and assumed that ‘those men who may come after us, possessed of a far greater fund of information’ would be dividing up even more water after resolving a share for Mexico and resolution of the Indian rights.
The river then played desert trickster and stopped running those big flows, shortly after Congress passed the Boulder Canyon Act to reconstruct the Colorado River through the subtropical deserts below the canyons. By the end of the 1930s drought that followed, the states’ water leaders knew the numbers in the Compact division might have been for a river that no longer existed, if it ever really had. But they persisted with the Compact, in the spirit of the unnamed quasi-mythical G.W. Bush administration official: ‘We are an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.’ The next half century was invested in creating our own imperial reality for the Colorado River – until we began to run into more ‘natural’ realities than we’d anticipated….
Udall/Overpeck 4-panel Figure Colorado River temperature/precipitation/natural flows with trend. Lake Mead and Lake Powell storage. Updated through Water Year 2024. Credit: Brad Udall
The unimperial reality today is a river whose annual flow since the turn of the century has dropped to an average around 12.5 million acre-feet (maf), two-thirds the size of the Compact’s river. That is ‘the river we have’ – and we are aware of the extent to which our superimposed imperial reality on the Colorado River region (and on the whole planet) has caused a lot of this unanticipated loss of water.
Exactly what it means when the basin-wide negotiators say they are working with that ‘river we have’ has not been revealed. One bad sign, however, viewing it from ‘outside the box,’ is their persistence in thinking of the river as divided into a four-state Upper Basin and a three-state Lower Basin, a construct destined by a competitive appropriation culture to devolve into chronic conflict – which it has.
Much of the conflict has revolved around the foggily written Article III(d) of the Compact, stating that the Upper Basin ‘will not cause the flow of the river at Lee Ferry to be depleted below an aggregate of 75,000,000 acre-feet for any period of ten consecutive years.’ This could be most rationally interpreted as a warning to the Upper Basin to just be careful to not develop to the point of using more than their 7.5 maf/year (which the four states have not even come close to doing) and cutting into the Lower Basin’s 7.5 maf in dry periods. Or it could be irrationally interpreted as a delivery obligation that the Upper Basin had to deliver regardless of the natural state of the river, even if an extended drought forced the upper states to short themselves in order to deliver the required 7.5 maf.
Looking upstream at the Boulder Dam (now called Hoover Dam) under construction. “Boulder Dam, looking upstream August 31, 1933 2345” is written at the bottom of the photo. Via UNLV
Given a history of tension among the states based on how fast California was growing, the obvious choice between those interpretations was to believe the worst. Their intent in convening the compact commission had been to prevent a ‘seven-state horse race’ to appropriate water for their futures; they wanted a seven-state division of the use of the river’s water that would override interstate appropriative competition. But they didn’t know enough about either the river or their own fantasy-infused futures to do that desired division. The two-basin division has come to be regarded as a stroke of genius, good for all time, when in fact it was just an expedient measure – one wouldn’t be wrong to call it a ‘desperate measure’ – to cobble together something that would persuade Congress that the states were enough on the same page so Congress could put up the money for a big control structure (Hoover Dam).
But in their haste in pasting together the two-basin compact, they appeared, through Article III(d), to make one basin ‘junior’ to the other, subject to a ‘compact call’ in an extended drought – or at least that is how everyone chose to interpret it. The 2007 ‘Interim Guidelines’ began to address that (perceived) inequity by imposing cuts on the Lower Basin states when Mead and Powell Reservoirs dropped to dangerous levels, but on not the Upper Basin (leaving their shortages up to the erratic river). But interstate ‘seniority’ played a big role in the size of cuts for each Lower Basin state, belying the notion that the Compact would protect states from interstate appropriative competition.
So what could today’s negotiators be doing instead? There is actually a constructive and useful way to divide a desert river into two ‘basins,’ based on the nature of the desert river. All rivers are surface water that is leaving – maybe reluctantly – the land it flows through; it is leaving the land because the land and its life were not able to put the water to use in support of life or to hold it as groundwater in an aquifer. Even much of the groundwater that doesn’t get used by the plants does not escape leaving the land with the river; isotopic analysis indicates that over the course of a year more than half of all the water in surface streams is groundwater trickling back in.
Ephemeral streams are streams that do not always flow. They are above the groundwater reservoir and appear after precipitation in the area. Via Socratic.org
This is not to say that a river is nothing but a drainage ditch – an earlier Army Corps of Engineers perspective that messed up a lot of rivers, trying to make the drainage more efficient by straightening channels. All rivers have a much more complex relationship with the land they are flowing through than just ‘drainage.’ Most rivers have their origins in highlands – mountains or other significant uplands – where steep slopes or fast snowmelts produce too much water to sink into whatever soil there might be; this generates surface flows that become small streams confluing to form larger streams and rivers. Through hyporheic exchange, surface streams either gain groundwater from the land they flow through when that land has a higher water table than the stream level (a gaining stream), or they lose water to the riparian areas along the river when the water table there is lower than the stream level (a losing stream – although, since the water it loses nurtures life in the riparian area, I think hydrologists should consider calling it a ‘giving stream’).
For rivers in humid regions, there is adequate precipitation throughout the river’s basin so the rivers will usually gain more from the land they pass through than they will lose (or ‘give’); they are gaining streams that grow from both surface and ground water until they discharge it all into the seas. But a desert river like the Colorado, on the other hand, is a dependable gaining stream only in its highland headwaters, where the Colorado River accumulates 85-90 percent of its entire water supply from the Southern Rockies, Wind River and Wasatch Mountains above ~8,000 feet elevation. This water-producing region is less than 15 percent of the whole basin. (That ‘division contour’ is more accurately an ‘ecotone,’ a blurry edge zone, in the 7,500-8,500 feet range.)
Below the ~8,000 foot elevation, the river’s tributaries flow first into the high orographic ‘cold deserts’ (steppes) of western Colorado, southwestern Wyoming and eastern Utah. Most of its tributaries have been ‘stepping down’ through the mountain region in a series of canyons alternating with floodplains, all of it the water’s work – and all of it the beautiful erosion and deposition that draws and holds us here. As they drop into the high desert, they get into a serious canyon-cutting project through the Colorado Plateau, up to a mile deep – a mystery story in itself that I’ve written about before. After more than five hundred miles of canyons winding through the Plateau, the river flows out into the subtropical Mojave and Sonora ‘hot deserts,’ and thence – only occasionally now – emptying what’s left into the Gulf of California.
Super Bloom along UT-128 during the last road trip with Mrs. Gulch May 2023.
But once they drop out of its headwaters highlands, desert streams and rivers like the Colorado and its tributaries become losing (giving) streams; they get little new precipitation below the ~8,000 foot contour. The occasional exception is the desert cloudburst that manages to penetrate the desert’s heat shield, dumping a huge rain that mostly runs off the desert land in a quick, destructive flood, filling dry arroyos and stream beds for a few dangerous hours. Or a rare winter snowfall that melts and sinks in, activating flora and small fauna that have lain inactive for long periods, instigating pilgrimages from hundreds of miles away just to see the desert in bloom.
The ‘natural’ Colorado River (the river before the 20th century CE) became a ‘big river’ for two or three months a year, in the May-July period when its mountain snowpack released the majority of the river’s water into its tributaries and ground storage. But once the snowpack was gone, the natural river became an increasingly modest flow, fed largely by groundwater, and as it wandered through the desert regions, it gave what water it had to riparian life (a process that intensified as humans began ‘broadening’ its riparian areas through irrigation systems), or into desert aquifers – and a lot of it just evaporated or transpired back into the atmosphere (losses that increased as humans spread more of it out in reservoirs and fields).
There were probably years (like our current water year) in which the last of the natural river’s water never made it through its lush delta to the sea in the autumn. It is not unusual for a desert stream to completely disappear in its desert; some 40 surface streams and rivers flow into the Great Basin, and most of them just disappear after spreading their limited beneficence en route.
The natural and logical ‘two-basin’ division for a desert river like the Colorado, then, would be into a ‘water production region’ and a ‘water consumption region.’ With the exception of mountain mining or resort towns, and the mountain flora and fauna, nearly all the users of Colorado River water live below that ~8,000 foot division. They are all in the same boat, trying to figure out how best to share a ‘losing river’ when its flows drop into the desert regions where they live.
Map of the Colorado River drainage basin, created using USGS data. By Shannon1 Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0
The Colorado River Compact ignores this natural division of the river. The clumsy division into the four-state Upper Basin and three-state Lower Basin is done according to state boundaries, which have no geographic or hydrographic relevance to the Colorado River Basin. The state boundaries also include a lot of heavily developed land outside the natural river basin that can lay claim to Colorado River water as part of the state – and they have population and wealth concentrations that enable them to move that water out of the basin through tunnels. ‘We are an empire, and when we act’ et cetera et cetera.
The Compact division is especially problematic for the Upper Basin. A quarter to a third of the Upper Basin area is the river’s major water production area, scattered among the mountains of the four states above the ~8,000-foot contour, and the rest of the Compact’s Upper Basin is part of the river’s water consumption region. The Compact makes no such distinction, and all the water above the Upper-Lower division point near Lee’s Ferry is presumed to be the Upper Basin’s – minus the annual ‘delivery obligations’ of 7.5 maf for the Lower Basin and half of the 1.5 maf for Mexico. Given that the river’s annual flows vary between 5 and 20 maf, this makes the Upper Basin’s Compact allotment of 7.5 maf annually a fantasy.
Acknowledging the desert nature of the Colorado River suggests a rather radical, but common sense two-basin management strategy for the Colorado River, addressing two main challenges: first, to work out an equitable division among all users for the use of the water that flows into the ‘water consumption region’; and second, for all water consumption region users to collaborate on optimizing (not ‘maximizing’) the flow out of the ‘water production region’ and into the deserts.
And a third challenge (which should be first) would be to transcend (abandon) the Compact’s two-basin division, the artificiality of which just gets in the way of desert-river reality at best, and at worst fosters a competitive rather than collaborative attitude between the two basins.
And that’s enough for today. We will look more closely at those challenges next time – unless the negotiators have come up with a brilliant breakthrough to parse out. Don’t hold your breath….
Colorado River “Beginnings”. Photo: Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism
The Shoshone hydro plant in Glenwood Canyon. The Shoshone hydropower plant in Glenwood Canyon. The CWCB will hold a hearing on the water rights associated with the plant in September. Credit: Heather Sackett/Aspen Journalism
Front Range asked for Colorado Water Conservation Board neutrality on historic use of Shoshone water rights
In an effort to head off concerns about the state’s role in a major Western Slope water deal, a Western Slope water district has offered up a compromise proposal to Front Range water providers.
In order to defuse what Colorado River Water Conservation District General Manager Andy Mueller called “an ugly contested hearing before the CWCB,” the River District is proposing that the state water board take a neutral position on the exact amount of water tied to the Shoshone hydropower plant water rights and let a water court determine a final number.
“Although we believe this would be an unusual process, the River District believes it would address the primary concern (i.e., avoiding the state agency’s formal endorsement of the River District’s preliminary historical use analysis) that we heard expressed by your representatives at the May 21, 2025 CWCB meeting regarding the Shoshone instream flow proposal,” Mueller wrote in an email to officials from the Front Range Water Council.
The River District worked with CWCB staff to draft the proposal, but it may not go far enough to address Front Range concerns.
The River District, which represents 15 counties on the Western Slope, is planning to purchase some of the oldest and largest non-consumptive water rights on the Colorado River from Xcel Energy for nearly $100 million. The water rights, which are tied to the Shoshone hydropower plant in Glenwood Canyon, are essential for downstream ecosystems, cities, endangered fish, and agricultural and recreational water users. As part of the deal, the River District is seeking to add an instream flow water right to benefit the environment to the hydropower water rights.
The effort has seen broad support across the Western Slope. The River District has raised $57 million toward the purchase from at least 26 local and regional partners. The project was awarded a $40 million Inflation Reduction Act grant in the waning days of the Biden administration, but those funds have been frozen by the Trump administration.
“These water rights are foundational to the Colorado River,” said Amy Moyer, chief of strategy at the River District. “It’s the number one project for the Western Slope. It’s the top priority to move forward.”
Critically, because its water rights are senior to many other water users — they date to 1902 — Shoshone can force upstream water users to cut back. The Shoshone call has the ability to command the flows of the Colorado River and its tributaries upstream all the way to the headwaters.
The twin turbines of Xcel Energy’s Shoshone hydroelectric power plant in Glenwood Canyon can generate 15 megawatts. The River District is proposing that the CWCB remain neutral on the issue of the plant’s historic water use. Credit: Heather Sackett/Aspen Journalism
Putting a precise amount on how much water the plant has historically used is a main point of contention between the River District and the Front Range Water Council, a group that includes some of Colorado’s biggest municipal water providers: Denver Water, Colorado Springs Utilities, Aurora Water and Northern Water. These entities take water that would normally flow west, and bring it to farms and cities on the east side of the Continental Divide through what are called transmountain diversions. About 500,000 acre-feet of water annually is taken from the headwaters of the Colorado River and its tributaries to the Front Range.
Estimates by the River District put the Shoshone hydro plant’s average annual use at 844,644 acre-feet using the period between 1975 and 2003 — before natural hazards in the narrow canyon began knocking the plant offline regularly in recent years.
But Front Range Water Council members say this estimate is flawed and could be an expansion of the historical use of the water right. They have requested a hearing at the September CWCB meeting to hash out their concerns.
“The preliminary analysis that has been presented appears to expand historic use and creates potential injury,” Abby Ortega, general manager of infrastructure and resource planning at Colorado Springs Utilities told the CWCB at its May meeting.
Determining past use of the Shoshone water rights is important because it will help set a limit for future use. While changing the use of a water right is allowed by going through the water court process, enlarging it is not. The amount pulled from and returned to the river must stay the same as it historically has been.
As part of the River District’s deal to buy the water rights, the CWCB — which is the only entity in the state allowed to hold an instream flow water right — must officially accept the water right and then sign on as a co-applicant in the water court change case.
But Front Range water providers said that doing so would amount to an endorsement of the River District’s historical use estimate, which would mean taking a side in the Front Range versus Western Slope disagreement.
“If you agree to accept the right and as I understand it, the instream flow agreement, you’re agreeing to be a co-applicant, which risks you accepting their analysis,” said Alexandra Davis, an assistant general manager with Aurora Water, at the CWCB’s May meeting.
Some members of the Front Range Water Council have asked that the CWCB remain neutral during the water court change case. In May 9 and June 9 letters to the CWCB from Marshall Brown, general manager of Aurora Water, he said the CWCB shouldrefrain from endorsing any specific methodology or volume of water.
“… [T]he CWCB should remain neutral in the water court proceedings and defer to the court’s determination of the appropriate methodology and volumetric quantification,” the May 9 letter reads.
The River District’s offer does just that: It proposes that the CWCB should not take a position regarding the determination of historical use of the Shoshone water rights.
“We heard the issues that are most front and center from these entities,” Moyer said. “And so we are trying to find a path forward that works for everyone.”
But even if Front Range Water Council members are in favor of the proposal, it is unlikely to result in a cancellation of the hearing. CWCB Executive Director Lauren Ris said in an email that under the board’s rules, they are required to hold a hearing. And Jeff Stahla, public information officer at Northern Water, said they will still be asking for the hearing to proceed.
Spokespeople from Colorado Springs Utilities, Aurora Water and Denver Water all declined to comment on the River District’s proposal because it was marked as confidential.
Some members of the Front Range Water Council have concerns beyond CWCB neutrality that could be addressed at the September hearing.
In a May 14 letter to the CWCB, Denver Water’s CEO Alan Salazar said the water provider also wants to carry over some provisions from existing agreements like the Shoshone Outage Protocol. This agreement has an exception in cases of extreme drought that allows Denver Water to keep taking water if its reservoirs fall below certain levels and streamflows are low. Denver Water added that by omitting the last two decades of Shoshone water use, the River District’s study period is skewed, and that using an upstream stream gauge to measure historical use is improper.
The hearing is scheduled for the next CWCB board meeting Sept. 16-18. The board can approve or disapprove the acquisition of the water rights, or make changes to the proposal and adopt the amended proposal. The board is required to take action at the September hearing unless the River District approves an extension. Pre-hearing statements are due by Aug. 4.
CWCB board members Brad Wind, who is general manager of Northern Water, and Greg Johnson, manager of resource planning at Denver Water, recused themselves from the July 17 CWCB board meeting discussion of the Shoshone water rights and plan to recuse themselves from future Shoshone discussions and decisions.
Map of the Colorado River drainage basin, created using USGS data. By Shannon1 Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0
Deadlocked for months in tense, closed-door meetings, Colorado River states may be one step closer to an agreement. Representatives from each of the seven Western states have agreed to discuss a new path forward — one that could more firmly ground Colorado River policy in hydrological reality as snowpack fails to deliver, reservoirs decline and fears mount…The proposal, presented for the first time publicly at a meeting in Arizona on June 17, would base the release of water from Lake Powell on a three-year average of the “natural flows” of the river. Water released from Lake Powell ends up in Lake Mead, the source of roughly 90 percent of Southern Nevada’s supply…The natural-flow proposal, while details remain sparse, would be a stunning departure from guidelines minted in 2007, which some argue don’t take into account declining water availability.
This 2023 diagram shows the tubes through which Lake Powell’s fish can pass through to the section of the Colorado River that flows through the Grand Canyon. Credit: USGS and Reclamation 2023
Federal officials reported Tuesday that the water level in Lake Powell, one of the main water storage reservoirs for the Colorado River Basin, could fall low enough to stop hydropower generation at the reservoir by December 2026.
The reservoir’s water levels have fallen as the Colorado River Basin, the water supply for 40 million people, has been overstressed by rising temperatures, prolonged drought and relentless demand. Upper Basin officials sounded the alarm in June, saying this year’s conditions echo the extreme conditions of 2021 and 2022, when Lake Powell and its sister reservoir, Lake Mead, dropped to historic lows.
The seven basin states, including Colorado, are in high-stakes negotiations over how to manage the basin’s water after 2026. One of the biggest impasses has been how to cut water use in the basin’s driest years.
“You can’t reduce what doesn’t come down the stream. And that’s the reality we’re faced with,” Commissioner Gene Shawcroft of Utah said in the statement. “The only way we’re going to achieve a successful outcome is if we’re willing to work together — and not just protect our own interests.”
Lake Powell is seen in a November 2019 aerial photo from the nonprofit EcoFlight. The Upper Basin states are proposing two pools of stored water in Lake Powell: A Lake Powell protection account and a Lake Powell conservation account. Credit: EcoFlight
Lake Powell, located on the Utah-Arizona border, collects water from Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, part of Arizona and tribal reservations in the Colorado River’s Upper Basin. Glen Canyon Dam releases the reservoir’s water downstream to Lake Mead, Native American tribes, Mexico, and Lower Basin states, including Arizona, California and Nevada.
Lake Powell and Lake Mead make up about 92% of the reservoir storage capacity in the entire Colorado River Basin.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s July report, called a 24-month study, shows the potential for Lake Powell to decline below two critical elevations: 3,525 feet and 3,490 feet.
It could drop below 3,525 feet in April 2026, which would prompt emergency drought response actions. That’s in the most probable scenario, but the federal agency also considers drier and wetter forecast scenarios. The dry forecast shows that the reservoir’s water levels would fall below this elevation as soon as January.
Lake Powell would have to fall below 3,490 feet in order to halt power generation.
Planning for emergency water releases
In 2021 and 2022, officials leapt into crisis management mode and released water from upstream reservoirs — including Blue Mesa, Colorado’s largest reservoir — to stabilize Lake Powell’s water levels.
The July 24-month study triggered planning for potential emergency releases, called drought response operations, at Lake Powell, and Flaming Gorge, Blue Mesa and Navajo reservoirs, said Chuck Cullom, executive director of the Upper Colorado River Commission.
“The Upper Division States and Reclamation have been monitoring the risks to Lake Powell since January 2025 due to the declining snowpack and runoff, and are prepared to take appropriate actions as conditions evolve through 2025 and spring of 2026,” he said in an email to The Colorado Sun.
The back of Glen Canyon Dam circa 1964, not long after the reservoir had begun filling up. Here the water level is above dead pool, meaning water can be released via the river outlets, but it is below minimum power pool, so water cannot yet enter the penstocks to generate electricity. Bureau of Reclamation photo. Annotations: Jonathan P. Thompson
At-risk hydropower
Hydroelectric power generation takes a hit with lower water levels at Lake Powell and Lake Mead.
Reclamation’s dry conditions forecast says Lake Powell could fall below 3,490 feet by December 2026, and Lake Mead’s water level could fall below a key elevation, 1,035 feet, by May 2027. At that point, Hoover Dam would have to turn off several turbines and its power production would be significantly reduced, said Eric Kuhn, a Colorado water expert.
In more typical or unusually wet forecasts, neither reservoir would fall below these critical elevations in the next two years, according to the report.
Lake Powell and other federal reservoirs provide a cheap and consistent source of renewable energy. Without that, electricity providers would have to look to other, more expensive sources of energy or nonrenewable supplies. Some of those costs can get handed down to customers in their monthly utility bills.
Output capacity of the dam’s turbines decreases in direct proportion to the reservoir’s surface elevation. As Lake Powell Shrinks, the dam generates less power. Source: Argonne National Laboratory.
Glen Canyon’s hydropower is normally pooled with other power sources to serve customers in Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Texas and Utah. Its power generation has already been impacted: Fourteen of the lowest generation years at the dam have occurred since 2000.
A strong monsoon season this summer could help elevate the water levels in the major reservoirs, as could a heavy winter snowpack in the mountains this coming winter.
“If next year is below average, then we’re setting ourselves up for some very difficult decisions in the basin,” said Kuhn, former general manager of the Colorado River District and author of “Science Be Dammed,” a book about the perils of ignoring science in Western water management.
Arizona power house at Hoover Dam December 2019. Each of the 17 hydroelectric generators at Hoover Dam can produced electricity sufficient for 1,000 houses. Photo credit: Allen Best/The Mountain Town News
An interstate legal mire
Kuhn has also been tracking the releases from Lake Powell with big, interstate legal questions in mind.
If the river’s flow falls below a 10-year total of about 82.5 million acre-feet, it could trigger a legal mire. In that scenario, the Lower Basin could argue that the Upper Basin would be required to send more water downstream in compliance with the foundational agreement, the 1922 Colorado River Compact.
Some Upper Basin lawyers disagree about the terms of when states, like Colorado, would be required to send more water downstream. That’s a big concern for water users, including farmers and ranchers, who say they already don’t have enough water in dry years.
From 2017 to 2026, the 10-year cumulative flow is expected to be about 83 million acre-feet, Kuhn said.
“We’re OK through 2026,” Kuhn said. “But under the most probable and minimum probable [forecasts], it’s almost a certainty that the flow will drop below 82.5.”
Lake Powell’s ecosystems feel the strain
Bridget Deemer, a research ecologist for the U.S. Geological Survey, keeps her eye on how lower water levels impact ecosystems in Lake Powell.
In a recent study, she found that low dissolved oxygen zones grow larger as water levels fall and more sediment gets backed up in the reservoir over time. This sediment can spur more decomposition, which uses up oxygen in the water.
The zones can cut down on fish habitat. Fish don’t want to be in the warm surface waters of the lake, but as they search for their preferred temperature and food source, they can end up in an area with low oxygen, Deemer said.
The effect is greatest right below Glen Canyon Dam. In 2023, there were 116 days when the oxygen was below 5 milligrams per liter, which is the threshold for trout. At 2 to 3 milligrams per liter, the fish can die.
Deemer also studies how these zones are impacted by algae blooms.
Lake Powell researchers noted toxic algae blooms around the Fourth of July and last fall. They don’t know definitively what caused either bloom event, but research does show that warming water temperatures and increased nutrients are two leading causes of harmful algae blooms.
These blooms can impact fish, people, pets or anything that ingests the algae.
“In general, Lake Powell is doing well,” she said. “Its waters are really clear without a lot of nutrients and algal growth. These blooms are smaller scale and localized.”
Center pivot in the San Luis Valley. Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots
Click the link to read the article on the Big Pivots website (Allen Best):
July 20, 2025
Center, as its name implies, lies at the center of the San Luis Valley. The valley is among the nation’s two most prominent places for growing potatoes. Among the growers is a fourth-generation family operation, Aspen Produce LLC.
Jake Burris married into the family. In addition to spuds, the family grows barley and alfalfa on 3,500 acres. Some neighboring farmers also grow canola. Burris is president of the board of managers of one of six subdistricts in the San Luis Valley’s Rio Grande Water Conservation District. His subdistrict — called Subdistrict No. 1 — was formed in 2006 in response to a declining water table. What’s known as the unconfined aquifer supports this area, the most agriculturally productive in the San Luis Valley. With just seven inches of annual precipitation, irrigation in the San Luis Valley is everything. And in Subdistrict 1, much of that water comes from 3,617 wells..
Alfalfa grown is quite thirsty, but potatoes get grown on much larger areas of the Rio Grande Water Conservancy District. Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots
Alfalfa is the thirstiest crop, using 24 to 36 inches of water to get three cuttings. The strong sunshine and cooler temperatures found above elevations of 7,000 feet produce a high-quality hay that draws orders from dairies as far as California. Alfalfa is grown on 21,100 acres in the district. Potatoes cover 51,100 acres. Barley is grown on 28,000 acres. Some have replaced barley with rye. Several thousand acres have together been devoted to canola, lettuce, and other crops. A recent census found about 25,000 acres had been fallowed.
The San Luis Valley has two primary aquifers. Lower in the ground, separated by relatively impermeable beds of clay from what lies above, is the confined aquifer. The first well into the confined aquifer was bored in 1887. Because of the pressures underground, it was an artesian well. No pumping was needed to bring water to the surface. Louis Carpenter, a professor at the Colorado Agriculture College (now Colorado State University), estimated the valley had 2,000 artesian wells when he visited in 1891.
The unconfined aquifer lies above the confined aquifer. The unconfined aquifer existed prior to major water development in the valley but water volumes rose greatly when farms began using Rio Grande water in the 1880s. Four ditches deliver Rio Grande water to the farms and hence to the aquifer. Introduction of high-capacity pumps in the 1950s and center-pivot sprinklers in the 1970s accelerated groundwater extraction. In 1972, the state engineer imposed a moratorium on new wells from the confined aquifer, followed in 1981 by a moratorium on new wells in the unconfined aquifer. These moratoria acknowledge that groundwater drafting had to be limited.
Then came 2002, hot and dry, escalating the challenge. Impact to the unconfined aquifer was drastic with rising temperatures causing growing water demand even as snowpack declined.
The unconfined aquifer “has been dropping overall since about 2002,” says Craig Cotten, the Colorado Division of Water Resources engineer for Division 3, which encompasses the San Luis Valley. “We just have not had a real good series of years as far as the surface water.”
In 2004, state legislators passed a law that sets the San Luis Valley’s aquifers apart from those of the Republican River and Denver Basin groundwater stories. That law, SB04-222, explicitly orders both the confined and unconfined aquifers in the San Luis Valley be managed for sustainability. The Colorado law governing the Denver Basin aquifers requires a “slow sip” but does not imagine sustainability. In the Republican River Basin, no law speaks to sustainability. There, only the interstate compact insists upon limits.
San Luis Valley Groundwater
Here’s another difference. Water from aquifers create the Republican River and its tributaries. In the south-metro area, surface streams cause little recharge to the Denver Basin aquifers. In the San Luis Valley, the Rio Grande as well as some surface streams coming off the San Juans contribute water to both the unconfined and confined aquifers. The hydrogeology is more complex.
This 2004 law also encouraged the formation of groundwater subdistricts within the Rio Grande Water Conservation District. The thinking was that very local groups of farmers could work together to figure out how to keep their portions of the aquifers sustainable. They could also be more effective in this pursuit by working together than doing so individually.
Six subdistricts have been created in the Rio Grande Water Conservation District and one in the Trinchera Water Conservancy District. Subdistrict No. 1 began operations in 2012 after the state approved its operating plan.
All these groundwater districts have the goal of reducing water consumption as necessary to replenish the aquifers or by introducing water into the aquifer from the Rio Grande or other sources.
Agriculture constitutes nearly the entire economy of the San Luis Valley. Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots
Exactly how much restoration of the aquifers is needed? The state law specified a return to volumes that approximate those of 1976 to 2001 in the confined aquifer. But there’s some guesswork about how much water the confined aquifer had then. Detailed records on Subdistrict No. 1 were not kept until 1976.
In August 2024 the unconfined aquifer in Subdistrict 1 was estimated to have averaged almost 1.2 million acre-feet less water during the five preceding years than it had in 1976. The rules approved by the Colorado Supreme Court in 2011 in a document called the Plan for Water Management call for the unconfined aquifer recovery within 200,000 to 400,000 acre-feet of where it was in 1976. That would be deemed sustainable, as ordered by the 2004 law.
To achieve this, the state engineer said that Subdistrict No. 1 would need to recover 170,000 acre-feet each year between now and 2031. Initially, Subdistrict No. 1 aimed to take 40,000 acres out of irrigation per year, or about 80,000 acre-feet of annual groundwater pumping, to allow the unconfined aquifer to recover. That goal is unattainable, say water officials, and hence a rethink is needed. Success has occurred, though. In 2024, for example, roughly 176,000 acre-feet were pumped from the confined and unconfined aquifers in Subdistrict No. 1, the fewest since groundwater metering began in 2009. That’s about a 30% reduction.
More sustained success will be necessary. “You don’t recover that unconfined aquifer through single years of good runoff,” says Ullmann, the state engineer. “There are difficult decisions that have to be made in order to recover and restore the aquifers, but that’s what these subdistricts are trying to do.”
Unlike the Republican River Basin, the unconfined aquifer in the San Luis Valley is fed water diverted from the Rio Grande, seen here at Monte Vista, and into irrigation canals. Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots
This success is at least partly due to efforts to modify irrigation practices and taking land out of production. Amber Pacheco, deputy general manager of the Rio Grande Water Conservation District, explains that it’s difficult to quantify the reductions.
“Some farmers, for example, have simply reduced the number of alfalfa cuttings (and hence the irrigation required), for example. Or they only irrigate when they need to do so. Others have changed the cover crops planted after a potato harvest to reduce the amount of water needed.”
As in the Republican River District, local efforts to take land out of production use the foundation of federal programs, particularly CREP, or Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program. The subdistrict provides 20% of funds and the federal government 80%.
As did the Republican district in 2022, the Rio Grande district got an additional $30 million allocation of federal money funneled through the state. That money allows $3,000 in payment per acre-foot of curtailed groundwater use.
More must be done to recover the aquifer. The current proposal assembled by Burris and other directors of Subdistrict No. 1, their fourth iteration, would require aquifer recharge as a condition of pumping on a one-to-one basis. Water for recharge would come from water secured from the Rio Grande or native flows into the unconfined aquifer. This new plan allows subdistrict members with surface water credits to pump from the aquifer, because they are resupplying it.
The pumping allowed under the plan would be cut drastically. The Rio Grande district does not have authority to shut down wells, but it does have authority to assess fees for over-pumping. That fee stands at $150 per acre-foot. The plan would elevate that to $500. And, if aquifer recovery is not achieved, it would rise to $1,000.
Ultimately, the state engineer has authority to curtail wells that do not provide replacement water pursuant to an approved groundwater management plan or some other augmentation plan.
Some farmers in the subdistrict disagree with this plan. Opponents banded together as the Sustainable Water Augmentation Group, or SWAG, and filed a lawsuit to block implementation of the plan. A five-week trial has been scheduled for early 2026. Nobody expects that court’s decision to be the end of it. Whoever loses might well appeal the decision to the Colorado Supreme Court, a process likely to continue into 2028.
Might the problem of the depleted unconfined aquifer be resolved by diverting more water from the Rio Grande? The river has long been over-appropriated. This year, for example, rights junior to 1880 were being curtailed in May. As with the Republican River, water must be allowed to flow downstream as required by the Rio Grande Compact.
For the unconfined aquifer to recover quickly, Mother Nature would need to quickly step up. “It would take multiple years of above-average flows [in the Rio Grande] to recover to the level that we need,” says Pacheco. In fact, 19 of the last 20 years have been sub-average as compared to 1970 to 2000. This year’s runoff in mid-May was forecast to be 61% of the average from 1890 through 2024.
Part IV: “It’s like the clock is ticking when it comes to sustainability,” said Rod Lenz, chair of the Republican River Water Conservation District, at a recent board meeting. This and other parting thoughts about the three groundwater basins examined in this story. Also, a study is underway to provide a better estimate of the groundwater remaining in Baca County.You can also download the entire story here in a magazine format.
Unlike the sparsely populated Republican River Basin, the south metro area of the Denver Basin has large and still-growing cities. Most of the south metro area lies within Douglas County, whose population ballooned between 1980 and 2025 from 25,200 to nearly 400,000.
Castle Rock, the county’s largest city, has 87,000 residents. Based on approved development, the city expects to grow to a population of 120,000 to 140,000. Parker, the second largest city, has 68,000 residents and has zoning for 80,000. Utilities serving these two cities in 2005 were almost 100% dependent upon extractions from the underlying Dawson, Denver, Arapahoe and Laramie-Fox Hills aquifers. Both cities as well as other jurisdictions have lessened their dependence, but they have much work to do.
How much water remains? That’s not an easy answer to deliver, as a consultant told the Castle Rock City Council in 2005. A council member asked him: “Just how much water remains?” Perhaps leery of trying to offer easy answers that required a half-hour explanation, he simply smiled and said: “It’s dark down there.”
That absence of total certainty was at the heart of a Colorado Supreme Court decision handed down in late 2024. Parker Water and Sanitation District, Castle Rock Water and others had squared off in water court beginning in 2021 with the Colorado Division of Water Resources. Parker Water has 33 wells that are 515 to 2,745 feet deep. State-issued permits for the newest five wells limit the volumes to what could be withdrawn during 100 years at a rate of 1% a year. Parker Water and several other south-metro jurisdictions disputed the state’s authority to attach this stipulation.
The stipulation was premised on a 1973 law in which state legislators ordered a “slow sip” of Denver Basin aquifers. Later legislation and rulemaking clarified that withdrawals were not to exceed 1% of total recoverable water in that portion underlying the land of the permittee’s well in any given year.
Castle Rock believes it has underlying water in the Denver Basin aquifers to satisfy its needs for 300 years but is also making efforts to reduce per-capita use while also diversifying sources. It has 87,000 residents now but expects to grow to between 120,000 and 140,000. Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots
This dispute is about the future. When the cities reach those 100-year limits and the total volumetric limits associated with their wells, will they be able to continue pumping. Must they cease pumping even if water remains in the aquifer?
Aurora, which lies within a half-mile of Parker Water wells, argued its water rights could be harmed if Parker pumped more than the total volume of water found to be available for its wells.
It’s crucial to understand that water underground knows no property lines, no signs saying “Welcome to Parker.” Water could, in theory, flow from below Aurora’s land to Parker’s wells. Underground, there are no fences.
Colorado Supreme Court justices, in their November 2024 majority opinion, warned of a “race to the bottom of the aquifer, with earlier permittees receiving a significant head start.” What would happen if Parker Water, Castle Rock Water and others had their druthers? “Absent a total volumetric limit, a permittee who continues to pump at the maximum permitted rate for more than 100 years would end up pulling water to its well that would not otherwise be underlying its land,” said the justices in their majority opinion.
In his dissent, Justice Brian Boatright came to the opposite conclusion, siding with the south-metro jurisdictions.
A study by the U.S. Geological Survey published in 2011 used a model that found 1% to 2% of precipitation becomes water in the bedrock aquifers and 7% in the alluvial aquifer. For urban irrigation, such as at the Watercolor subdivision in Castle Rock, 2.5 inches of water makes it back to underlying aquifers each year. Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots
Some south-metro entities may seek state legislation that reflects what they believe is the best policy. As it stands now, a permit-holder that has withdrawn the total volumetric amount identified on a well permit must cease pumping, says Jason Ullmann, the state engineer and director of the Colorado Division of Water Resources. He has authority to notify users in writing of their violations. Could he shut down wells? They would be given “time as may reasonably be necessary to correct deficiencies,” he says. But yes, they would be “subject to enforcement.”
Just how much water remains in the Denver Basin aquifers? The Division of Water Resources issues well permits, and in doing so, estimates the potential volume of water underlying the applicant’s parcel. But the state agency does not track changes in volume over time, nor does it track the amount of water that wells pump. It requires well owners to maintain pumping records.
When asked how much water remains in Castle Rock’s wells, Mark Marlowe, director of the city’s water utility, suggested consultation of a hydrogeologist, perhaps from the U.S. Geological Survey. Pressed further, he said Castle Rock’s groundwater supply will last more than 300 years “from a legal standpoint” based on current rates of use.
The practical effect of the Supreme Court ruling on Castle Rock? Very little in the short term, Marlowe says. In 2005, Castle Rock set out to create a pathway to dramatically lessen groundwater dependence. “We’ve been headed down this road for a long time,” he says. So why participate in Parker’s lawsuit? Because, he replied, the city wants to make long-term use of its investment in groundwater extraction. And as a practical matter, the city commonly extracts less than the 1% allowed annually.
Marlowe’s answer is not totally satisfying, but the work done by Castle Rock since 2005 must be acknowledged. It was 100% dependent on groundwater extraction then. It is adding new impoundments to store surface water, pumping water upstream from Chatfield Reservoir, and doubling the daily capacity for treating wastewater. Castle Rock already has lessened its dependence on groundwater to less than 69% over the last four years and Marlowe says he’s confident that by 2050 it will lessen to 25%.
Several of Castle Rock’s successes have involved working with other south-metro jurisdictions, including the Parker Water and Sanitation District. In 2013, when Ron Redd was hired by Parker Water as general manager, the utility was still 90% groundwater reliant. He was given a mission: transition to renewable sources.
A key project has been water reuse. Water introduced into the South Platte River from other basins or from groundwater can be reused. Aurora Water set out to do so in 2003. The $680 million Prairie Waters Project pumps water from the river-side aquifer near Fort Lupton to a reservoir in the southeast metropolitan area. From there, in 2010, Parker Water, Castle Rock and eight other south-metro communities joined Denver Water and Aurora Water in a partnership called WISE (Water Infrastructure and Supply Efficiency) to further manage infrastructure cooperatively and deliver the reclaimed water to their members.
Making this possible was a new 75,000-acre-foot impoundment called Rueter-Hess Reservoir. Completed in 2012, it is a core asset for Parker Water and three other utilities who share its use.
Jim Yahn, left, manager of the Prewitt Reservoir, which might become part of the Platte Valley Water Partnership, speaks with Ron Red, manager of Parker Water and Sanitation District, and Joe Frank, general manager of the Lower South Platte Water Conservancy District, which is part of the proect. There is still hope that Prewitt would be part of the plan,” says Yahn. “The decree that Parker and Lower South Platte are seeking still has Prewitt Reservoir as a component of the plan.” Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots
The Platte Valley Water Partnership is even more ambitious. Parker Water and Castle Rock Water have joined with the Lower South Platte Water Conservancy District.
They plan to detain South Platte River water that currently flows downstream into Nebraska during winter and spring runoff. The South Platte River Compact allows the use of this water. Little excess exists in many years, but when there is, such as in 2023, no place exists to store that water. The project plans to use Prewitt Reservoir and a new reservoir northwest of Akron in the capture and storage of those flows before pumping some of that water 125 miles to Rueter-Hess Reservoir.
Farmers will also have access to a cut of this “new” water — with agricultural users receiving 50% of the captured water and municipalities receiving 50%. Construction is set to begin around 2035, at an anticipated cost of $780 million.
As of mid-July, it’s not clear how the Nebraska lawsuit against Colorado involving water for Nebraska’s proposed Perkins Canal might affect this project.
A final important component of the path forward for the water utilities who mine Denver Basin aquifers lies in conservation, particularly for outdoor landscaping. The prevailing theme at one time was use as much as you want — but pay for it. That thinking has shifted to limits and goals of reduced use.
Parker has reduced groundwater dependence to 60% and has goals to reduce it to 25%. Might that be achieved in tapping the aquifers of the San Luis Valley? The idea has provoked outrage for more than 30 years.
“Thanks, but no thanks,” is how Redd describes Parker’s response to the idea of a lengthy straw sucking water from two river basins away.
“We have our project, and financially it makes a lot more sense to go that route.”
For that matter, the San Luis Valley aquifers have their own problems.
Part III: Declines in flows of the Rio Grande parallel those of the Colorado River during the 21st century. There were problems anyway for the potato and other growers around in the eponymously named San Luis Valley farm community of Center. Simply put, less water must be pumped from underground. Easier said than done. You can also download the entire story here in a magazine format.
It's been a bit since I've done a meteorological deep dive, but the devastating flash #flood in central Texas this July 4th/5th deserve a closer look. #TXwxYes remnants of #Barry were involved helping enhance moisture. A remnant MCV from Mexico on 3 July also played a role.Full evolution below ⤵️
Click the link to read the article on the Grist website (Tik Root):
July 21, 2025
The country watched in horror as torrential rain drenched Texas earlier this month, sweeping at least 135 people to their death. Kerr County alone lost 107, including more than two dozen children at Camp Mystic.
From afar, it would be easy, even tempting, to think that the floods like these could never happen to you. That the disaster is remote.
It’s not.
As details of the tragedy have come into focus, the list of contributing factors has grown. Sudden downpours, driven by climate change. The lack of a comprehensive warning system to notify people that the Guadalupe river was rising rapidly. Rampant building in areas known to flood, coupled with incomplete information about what places might be at risk. ’
These are the same elements that could trigger a Kerr County-type of catastrophe in every state in the country. It’s a reality that has played out numerous times already in recent years, with flooding in Vermont, Kentucky, North Carolina and elsewhere, leaving grief and billions of dollars in destruction in its wake.
“Kerr County is an extreme example of what’s happening everywhere,” said Robert Freudenberg, vice president of energy and environmental programs at the Regional Planning Association. “People are at risk because of it and there’s more that we need to be doing.”
The most obvious problem is we keep building in areas prone to flooding. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, produces readily available maps showing high-risk locales. Yet, according to the latest data from the nonprofit climate research firm First Street Foundation, 7.9 million homes and other structures stand in a FEMA Special Flood Hazard Area, which designates a location with 1 percent or greater chance of being inundated in any given year.
FEMA Flood Zone Top Ten
Rank
State
Percent of Properties
Number of Properties
1
Louisiana
22.83%
542,756
2
Florida
17.15%
1,581,552
3
Mississippi
12.41%
240,526
4
New Jersey
10.57%
364,098
5
West Virginia
9.29%
126,918
6
Arkansas
7.27%
146,226
7
Texas
6.49%
806,827
8
Iowa
6.32%
154,217
9
New Mexico
6.28%
94,265
10
Nebraska
6.18%
71,235
Source: First Street Foundation
In Louisiana, a nation-leading 23 percent of properties are located in a FEMA flood zone. In Florida, it’s about 17 percent. Arkansas, New Mexico and Nebraska are perhaps less expected members of the top ten, as is New Jersey, which, with New York City, saw torrential rain and flooding that killed two people earlier this month.
Texas ranks seventh in the country, with about 800,000 properties, or roughly 6.5 percent of the state’s total, sitting in a flood zone. Kerr County officials have limited authority to keep people from building in these areas, but even when governments have the ability to prevent risky building projects, they historically haven’t. Although one study found that some areas are finally beginning to curb floodplain development, people keep building in perilous places.
“There’s an innate draw to the water that we have, but we need to know where the limits are,” said Freudenberg. “In places that are really dangerous, we need to work towards getting people out of harm’s way.”
Kerr County sits in a region known as Flash Flood Alley and at least four cabins at Camp Mystic sat in an extremely hazardous “floodway” and numerous others stood in the path of a 100-year flood. When the Christian summer camp for girls underwent an expansion in 2019, the owners built even more cabins in the water’s path.
“It’s an unwillingness to think about what future — and the present — have in store for us,” said Rob Moore, the director of the Water & Climate Team at the Natural Resources Defense Council, or NRDC, about Americans’ tradition of floodplain development. ”It’s a reluctance to own up to the reality we live in.”
Many people don’t even know they are in harm’s way. According to NRDC, 14 states have no flood disclosure laws and, in eight, they deem the laws ‘inadequate.’ FEMA maps are also flawed. For one, they can be politically influenced, with homeowners and communities often lobbying to be excluded in order to avoid insurance mandates and potential building costs. And experts say the science underpinning the maps is lagging too.
“[FEMA] only maps main river channels and coastal storm surge areas,” explained Jeremy Porter, the head of climate implications research at First Street Foundation. The agency, he added, specifically doesn’t model heavy rainfall, isn’t great about indicating the risk of urban flooding, and is behind on accounting for climate change.
First Street Flood Zone Top Ten
Rank
State
Percent of Properties
Number of Properties
1
West Virginia
30.25%
413,499
2
Louisiana
26.33%
626,120
3
Florida
19.04%
1,755,363
4
New Jersey
17.32%
596,521
5
Mississippi
15.46%
299,566
6
Kentucky
15.30%
328,283
7
Texas
15.19%
1,888,282
8
Pennsylvania
14.93%
856,889
9
New York
14.27%
771,605
10
Delaware
12.95%
55,535
Source: First Street Foundation
First Street built a flood model that tries to fill in those gaps. It found that 17.7 million people are at risk of a 100-year flood, a number that’s more than double what FEMA’s hazard area covers.The state rankings also change, with mountainous areas susceptible to inland flash-flooding jumping up the list. West Virginia moves into first, with a staggering 30 percent of properties built in flood prone areas. Kentucky climbs from 19th to sixth.
Texas remains at seventh, but the portion of properties at risk goes to 15 percent. In Kerr County, FEMA’s maps showed 2,560 properties (6.5 percent) in a flood zone. First Street’s model nearly doubled that.
“There’s a ton of unknown risk across the country,” said Porter, who says better maps are among the most important goals that policy makers can and should work toward. First Street has partnered with the real estate website Redfin to include climate risk metrics in its listings.
Rob Moore says political will is essential to making that type of systemic change when it comes to not only flooding, but other climate risks, such as wildfires or coastal erosion. Strengthening building codes and restricting development in high-risk areas will require similar fortitude.
“Governments and states don’t want to tell developers to not put things in a wetland, not put things in a floodplain,” he said. “We should be telling people don’t put them in a flatland, don’t build in a way that your home is going to be more susceptible to wildfire.”
Until then, hundreds of communities across the country could — and likely will — be the next Kerr County.
Grist has a comprehensive guide to help you stay ready and informed before, during, and after a disaster.
Indigenous youths with Ríos to Rivers’ Paddle Tribal Waters program head toward the shore where the Klamath River meets the Pacific Ocean in Northern California on July 11. The young kayakers were joined by a flotilla with dozens of tribe and community members on the final days of their monthlong, 310-mile journey. CREDIT: ERIK BOOMER / COURTESY OF RÍOS TO RIVERS
Click through to listen to an audio version of this story, produced for Aspen Public Radio.
In a thick forest along the remote northern California coast earlier this month, a group of mostly young Indigenous kayakers pushed off into the clear-emerald waters of the recently undammed Klamath River.
The 13- to 20-year-olds from more than six tribes in the Klamath Basin, along with several instructors, had been paddling for a month, covering over 300 miles.
In just a few hours, they would reach the Pacific Ocean, making the group among the first in over a century to descend the river from its headwaters in southern Oregon to its mouth in northern California. The expedition began in early June after the largest dam-removal project in history was completed last fall to restore salmon populations, improve water quality and support tribe-managed lands.
In the group was 15-year-old Hoopa Valley tribe member Carmen Ferris, who comes from a long line of fishing people along California’s Trinity River.
“The Trinity is the biggest tributary to the Klamath,” she said. “So I feel like I have a deep connection and ancestry with both of the waters.”
Carmen and about 40 other Indigenous kayakers had spent years training for the expedition with the help of Ríos to Rivers. Founded by Aspen resident Weston Boyles, 38, the nonprofit organization works with Indigenous youths around the world to protect rivers through advocacy, education and exchange programs.
Thirteen-year-old Scarlett Schroeder, left, and Coley Miller, 14, who belong to tribes on the Upper Klamath, stand with their paddles on the banks of the Klamath River. The Paddle Tribal Waters group of 13- to 20-year-olds from more than six tribes in the Klamath Basin, along with several instructors, were among the first in a century to paddle the free-flowing river after several major hydropower dams were removed last year. CREDIT: ERIK BOOMER / COURTESY OF RÍOS TO RIVERS
Historic paddle
In anticipation of the removal of four of the Klamath’s six dams, Boyles teamed up with local Indigenous youths and kayak instructors to launch the Paddle Tribal Waters program, with the goal of supporting young tribal members aiming to be the first to paddle the mostly free-flowing river since the first dam was built in 1918.
Although Carmen had heard about the dams growing up, it wasn’t until joining the program that she learned the full history of the decades-long effort by tribes and environmentalists, including her own Hoopa Valley people, to remove the dams from the Klamath and restore the salmon that local tribes once depended on.
“I was like, ‘Oh, my God, that is happening, and it’s nearby,’” she said. “I was in shock, and I learned about the history and what my ancestors and people before me have gone through for these dams to finally come out.”
Eighteen-year-old Ruby Rain Williams, of the Karuk tribe, and several other kayakers with Paddle Tribal Waters, navigate a section of whitewater on the Klamath River along the California-Oregon border. The group of local Indigenous youths trained for several years with the support of Aspen-based nonprofit Ríos to Rivers to be among the first in a century to paddle the recently undammed river. CREDIT: ERIK BOOMER / COURTESY OF RÍOS TO RIVERS
Carmen spent two years in the Paddle Tribal Waters program — taking tribe-led classes on river ecosystems, advocacy and cultural knowledge, as well as learning to whitewater kayak both in her own backyard and on exchange trips to Chile.
“I built a love for kayaking,” she said. “And then I was like, I’m definitely doing the descent, like I can’t stop kayaking now.”
The journey from the river’s headwaters to the Pacific Ocean wasn’t easy, from camping in a remote, rugged wilderness to tackling a number of Class 4 rapids on the upper Klamath, including one called “Big Ikes.”
“I got battered into this hole for a little bit, and if I didn’t know how to roll, I’d probably swim that day, which wouldn’t have been fun, because there were a lot of rocks,” she said. “I ended up being OK, but everyone was like, ‘Carmen, what happened?’”
Ruby Rain Williams of the Karuk tribe, who turned 18 on the trip, said the paddle group faced other challenges beyond navigating technical and dangerous rapids.
“There were definitely some hard parts, like getting up every morning around 6:30, and also the flat-water days on the lake with the headwind were quite treacherous,” Ruby said.
They also learned some valuable river-trip lessons, including the importance of sun protection.
“I remember the first couple days, we’re all like, ‘Oh, we don’t need sunscreen. We never wear sunscreen,’” Ruby said. “You know, we’re swimming in the river all day and I put pink Zinc on my face just to look cool and I had polka dots burned all over my cheeks and my ears were burnt, and even my eyes because I didn’t wear sunglasses. It was just gnarly.”
A map of the Klamath River Basin shows the four hydroelectric dams that were removed last year: Iron Gate, Copco 1, Copco 2, and J.C. Boyle. The two remaining dams in the upper river basin (located west and northwest of J.C. Boyle Dam and depicted as gray dots) are mostly used for farming irrigation.
The recently undammed Klamath River runs through the site of the former Copco Lake reservoir, named for the Copco 1 dam, in Northern California. Restoration efforts have begun at the former reservoir site, but signs of the former reservoir still remain on the landscape. CREDIT: ELEANOR BENNETT / ASPEN JOURNALISM & ASPEN PUBLIC RADIO
The recently undammed Klamath River runs through the site of the former Copco Lake reservoir, named for the Copco 1 dam, in Northern California. Restoration efforts have begun at the former reservoir site, but signs of the former reservoir still remain on the landscape.
CREDIT: ELEANOR BENNETT / ASPEN JOURNALISM & ASPEN PUBLIC RADIO
Reshaped landscape
Along the river, the young kayakers saw how the dam- removal and restoration effort had started reshaping landscapes and communities as they paddled through former reservoirs and dam sites, including Northern California’s Kikacéki Canyon, where for decades the water had been diverted to a power station, leaving a dry stretch of riverbed.
The four recently removed hydropower dams, which were built between 1918 and the mid-1960s, were still producing relatively low amounts of electricity. According to PacifiCorp, which operated the dams and is owned by Warren Buffett’s company Berkshire Hathaway, the sites were producing less than 2% of the operator’s total power generation — enough to power about 70,000 homes when they were running at full capacity.
In addition to losing a relatively low amount of power generation, there were other concerns about removing the dams. These included potential impacts of drained reservoirs such as exposed sacred burial sites that had been previously submerged, increased fire risk, loss of tax revenues for nearby counties, and decreased property values for former lakeside homes.
Still, scientists and advocates for dam removal maintained that the dams and their reservoirs worsened water quality in the river and that removing them would reduce the likelihood of sediment buildup, toxic algae blooms and diseases that thrive in warmer, stagnant waters and are harmful to salmon. They also maintained that the dams blocked salmon from returning to their upstream habitat where fish lay eggs and babies grow before migrating to the ocean.
Eventually, local tribes and other dam-removal advocates came to an agreement with PacifiCorp and federal regulators, and in 2022, the four dams on the lower Klamath were approved for removal.
In order to alleviate some of the community concerns, the Klamath River Renewal Corporation (KRRC), which helped broker the dam-removal deal, and Resource Environmental Solutions (RES) are now overseeing restoration efforts. These include working with fire officials concerned about the loss of a wildfire-fighting resource once the reservoirs were drained to set up dry-hydrant systems that allow crews to pull water directly from the river.
They also worked with the Shasta Indian Nation to mitigate the risk of damage to newly exposed cultural sites. Last year, the state of California also transferred some of the land near one of the former reservoirs back to the group.
Other restoration projects include excavating sediment that had built up behind the dams and planting billions of native seeds along the riverbanks and former reservoir sites.
The two dams that remain in the upper section of the river in southern Oregon are primarily used to divert water for irrigation and farming. During their monthlong river trip, which began in Chiloquin, Oregon, the Paddle Tribal Waters group carried their kayaks on land and portaged around these remaining dams.
Tribal Paddle Waters youths kayak below the Keno dam, one of the two remaining dams on the upper Klamath. The expedition group carried their kayaks on land and portaged around both of the remaining dams. CREDIT: ERIK BOOMER / COURTESY OF RÍOS TO RIVERS
Salmon returning
Brook Thompson, a scientist and Yurok and Karuk tribe member, researches salmon life cycles and water quality, and joined the paddlers for the last few days on the river.
Despite an unexpected salmon die-off after the first of four dams came down last year, Thompson said hundreds of miles of fish habitat on the Klamath and its tributaries have now opened up and dwindling salmon populations are already returning to spawn in greater numbers.
Chinook salmon on the Klamath River, Oct. 16, 2024. Photo: Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife
“We really did not know what was going to happen with the salmon and if they would return right away, or if it would take years,” Thompson said. “So the fact that they immediately started going past where the dam sites were is so exciting for me as a tribal member.”
Researchers have also found lower rates of disease-carrying parasites and toxic algae since the dams were removed last year, according to Thompson.
Thompson decided to study environmental engineering, water infrastructure and ecosystems after tens of thousands of dead salmon clogged the lower reaches of the river during a major drought in 2002, after a decision by the Bush administration that reversed environmental protections and allowed upper Klamath farmers to divert much of the remaining water.
“Witnessing thousands of fish die on the river firsthand as a 7-year-old really devastated me, personally, because these salmon are not just a food source for my family, they weren’t just our income — I paid for all my school clothes and supplies through selling fish as a kid — but they’re also a connection to family, they’re my connection to my ancestors and they’re really the lifeblood of the tribes here,” Thompson said.
Now that the dams are out, Thompson hopes reconnecting with the river, including through salmon fishing and recreation opportunities, can help address a rise in health concerns such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes, as well as mental health challenges faced by tribes in the region, including addiction and suicide.
“When you lose out on that culture, you’re having all these issues health-wise, and you’re having people die because of it,” Thompson said. “I know for me, if I’m not by the river, and I don’t get a chance to fish and pray and be thankful for this food that feeds my body, that connects me to my ancestors, then I don’t feel as well mentally either.”
Although the Klamath was once the third-largest salmon-producing river on the West Coast, young people such as Ruby, the Karuk tribe member, had only heard stories about those days.
“My grandma and my dad always told me how there used to be so many salmon in the river, you used to be able to walk across their backs and almost make it across,” Ruby said. “There was such an abundance of them that my grandpa would go spearfishing and be able to see them swimming through the river, because it was so clean and healthy.”
During a fall scouting trip before their monthlong journey, Ruby and another young kayaker were some of the first to witness the salmon migrate past one of the former dam sites in Kikacéki Canyon.
“We looked down, and then there’s these salmon just flying up the river, and you could see their heads at the top of the river’s edge,” Ruby said. “I’ve never seen that before. And to be able to say that I saw some of the first set of salmon make it up above where the dams used to be was incredible.”
Ma-Kaych McConnell, right, and several of his fellow Paddle Tribal Waters kayakers get ready to push off into the Klamath River on July 10, the day before reaching the Pacific Ocean. About 15 of the young paddlers finished the full, 310-mile descent of the river, and about 30 more met up with the group for the second half of the journey. CREDIT: ELEANOR BENNETT / ASPEN JOURNALISM & ASPEN PUBLIC RADIO
Carmen Ferris, in the red kayak, of the Hoopa Valley tribe, and Ruby Rain Williams, in the blue kayak, of the Karuk tribe, float on a peaceful stretch of the Klamath River the day before reaching the Pacific Ocean. The two young paddlers grew up hearing stories from their elders about a time when the undammed river was plentiful with salmon. CREDIT: ELEANOR BENNETT / ASPEN JOURNALISM & ASPEN PUBLIC RADIO
‘Only the beginning’
John Acuna, a Hoopa Valley tribe member and Ríos to Rivers kayak instructor, helped lead the group of young people on the Klamath just a few years after being introduced to the sport.
Despite nearing the end of a long expedition with only a day left on the river, Acuna sees the monthlong descent as the beginning of something bigger.
“This is the biggest dam removal in history, and kind of the question is ‘What do we do next?’” Acuna said. “The hope is that this sets a precedent for other dam-impacted rivers and dam-threatened rivers, and I think our work has kind of just begun.”
Ríos to Rivers board member and river guide Jaren Roberson, who grew up in Arizona, agrees — and he hopes the recent dam-removal can be a model for how his own Diné (Navajo) and Hopi tribes can have a greater say in how water is allocated in the Colorado River basin.
“Indigenous people should be figures in these resource management areas because they’re the ones who have been taking care of them and have been living in these places for generations and generations and generations,” Roberson said.
During the last few days of the trip, Boyles, Ríos to Rivers’ founder, invited Indigenous groups from Bolivia, Chile and New Zealand to join a flotilla with dozens of local tribe and community members, which accompanied the long-distance paddlers as they neared the end of their journey.
Afterward, the visitors were invited to share their experiences with dams in their own communities during a two-day symposium on the Yurok Reservation, near the California towns of Requa and Klamath, where the river meets the ocean.
“In other basins, the mistakes of building dams, of destroying habitat, destroying culture, can be avoided if we learn from the past,” Boyles said, addressing the symposium crowd July 12. “And that’s a goal and a vision of ours, is to make sure that folks in river basins that have yet to be impacted or could avoid having the big impacts of dams, can come here to the Klamath and other parts of the world and learn from all of your lived experiences.”
Paddle Tribal Waters youths run to touch the ocean at the mouth of the Klamath River after finishing their monthlong journey July 11. Some of the young paddlers have already started their own kayak clubs in their communities to help other Indigenous youth reclaim their rivers. CREDIT: ELEANOR BENNETT / ASPEN JOURNALISM & ASPEN PUBLIC RADIO
Young kayakers with Paddle Tribal Waters embrace a loved one on the beach July 11 after completing a 310-mile journey to the Pacific Ocean. Community members welcomed the paddlers home with a traditional prayer ceremony on the beach. CREDIT: ELEANOR BENNETT / ASPEN JOURNALISM & ASPEN PUBLIC RADIO
Reaching the ocean
On July 11, the final day of the monthlong paddle, dozens of community members lined the beach and cheered as the flotilla, with the young kayakers leading the way, emerged from the mist and paddled toward the Pacific Ocean.
Clarence Hostler, of the Hoopa Valley, Yurok and Karuk tribes, and two younger men brought traditional drums to welcome the paddlers.
He grew up swimming on the river as a kid in the 1950s, but he had to stop after he got a rash from the toxic algae.
Clarence Hostler, of the Hoopa Valley, Yurok and Karuk tribes, waits on the shore at the mouth of the Klamath River to greet the young Indigenous paddlers as they reach the ocean. Having grown up on the river in the 1950s, Hostler witnessed decades of violence, protests and legal battles over fishing and water rights before the dams were removed last fall. CREDIT: ELEANOR BENNETT / ASPEN JOURNALISM & ASPEN PUBLIC RADIO
“So I hadn’t been on the water on the Klamath since 1965, and just a couple of days ago, I joined the paddle group and it was a stretch of river that I’d never been on because I didn’t want to get that rash again,” Hostler said. “And then being with the group, it settled with me that this was a triumph of a spirit coming back to the river, that we get to live with the river again after so many of us had to stay away from the river because of the contamination.”
Seeing the young kayakers paddle the river, after experiencing decades of violence, protests and legal battles over fishing and water rights on the Klamath, brought him to tears.
“A lot of the early warriors had to do the difficult work, and there are some of us, older ones, who carry the knowledge of old ways,” Hostler said. “But now, some real work starts with these young people who are activists on the water because there’s more contaminated water yet that needs to be worked on.”
As Carmen and her fellow kayakers reached the ocean and splashed in the waves, she felt the weight of that history.
“We shouldn’t be having to do this — like, there shouldn’t have been dams in the first place — but we fought a lot for nearly a century, for decades and decades, and now dams are finally out,” Carmen said.
Even with feelings of sadness and frustration over what her people endured, Carmen is proud of what she and her peers accomplished.
“We’re making history,” she said. “This is something I never thought I’d ever do, but I’m doing it today.”
Now that the dams are out, Carmen and several of the other young kayakers who have already started their own kayak clubs, are looking forward to returning to their communities to help the next generation of young paddlers reclaim their rivers and their ancestry.
This story was produced by Aspen Journalism and Aspen Public Radio, in partnership with The Water Desk at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Center for Environmental Journalism.
This story was produced through a social justice reporting collaboration between Aspen Journalism and Aspen Public Radio.
In response to last week’s dispatch on a potential new Colorado River sharing deal, Save The World’s Rivers! tweeted this compelling — but, for some, potentially opaque — tweet:
I say “opaque” because at first glance it might seem strange that a 50/50 split of the river’s waters between the Upper Basin and the Lower Basin would lead to ecological disaster. But it could, if, during a period of extremely low flow years, the 50% sent downstream was so low that it reduced daily flows through the Grand Canyon to a level that could not support fish or the ecology.
I’ve written about the faulty math of the Colorado River Compact many times here. Yet the assumptions of the river’s flow and the math are hardly the only, or largest, problems with the document. Most egregious was the exclusion of tribal nations from the original negotiations and the compact, itself, even though they collectively are entitled to a significant portion of the river’s waters. Under the compact, the tribal nations’ water rights must come out of the respective states’ allotments — that reduces tribes to subdivisions of the states, which they are not. They are sovereign nations and their water rights are negotiated with the federal government.
The other very big problem is that the compact never once considers the river, or the ecology that depends upon it. Instead, it apportions all of the water in the river and then some to “beneficial use,” which does not include environmental or even recreational uses. The compact also states that “the use of its waters for purposes of navigation shall be subservient to the uses of such waters for domestic, agricultural, and power purposes.” If we consider river-running and Lake Powell boating to be navigation, then the compact also deprioritizes those uses, i.e. recreation.
Because all of the Lower Basin’s water must flow through the Grand Canyon, the Lower Basin’s water rights serve as sort of de facto instream water rights through the canyon. In other words, the more water the Imperial Irrigation District and other Lower Basin users demand for irrigating alfalfa, the more water there is for fish and other critters in the Grand Canyon (including river runners). So, if the states were to strike a deal that might allow the Upper Basin to send only a trickle to the Lower Basin, it would also result in a mere trickle flowing through the Grand Canyon.
The thing is, the fish and even the river runners don’t really care much about the annual volume of water in the river, they care more about the daily streamflow. And that is currently regulated by a separate set of rules aside from the Colorado River Compact that were implemented in the 1990s.
But first, let’s go back in time to the years before there was a Glen Canyon Dam. Back then, the Colorado River through Glen Canyon, Marble Gorge, and the Grand Canyon was truly wild. Seasonal streamflow fluctuations were extreme, swinging from as low as 3,000 cubic feet per second in late summer, fall, and winter, to 80,000 cfs or more during spring runoff and late summer monsoonal floods. The water was often laden with orange-red sediment, and in the summer its temperature might reach 80° F or higher, giving it a viscous, dirty-bathwater feel. It may not have been great for swimming in, but the native fish reveled in it.
The completion of Glen Canyon Dam in 1963 changed all of that. Annual flows were evened out to build up storage in Lake Powell while also meeting Colorado River Compact obligations. Seasonal fluctuations were also no more, and the silt-free, murky green water emanating from the dam was a near-constant 46° F. Daily fluctuations of streamflow, however, could be erratic and downright manic, depending on the power grid’s need for more juice.
Before there was a Glen Canyon Dam, the Colorado River ran wild and free, often topping out at Lees Ferry at or above 100,000 cubic feet per second, which is ginormous. After the dam was completed, managers withheld flows to fill up the reservoir. Then, in 1983, they withheld too much water, and a massive spring runoff threatened the dam itself, forcing managers to release nearly 100,000 cfs once again and providing a wild ride for Grand Canyon river runners. After the 1996 operations plan was implemented, occasional high-flow releases occurred to help move sediment through the Grand Canyon in an effort to benefit the riparian ecology and build new beaches. But they still pale in comparison with pre-dam high flows. Data source: USGS.
During the first few decades after the dam was completed, the hydropower plant operators had ample leeway to “follow the load” by modulating the flow of water through the turbines. This occasionally caused huge fluctuations in the flow of water through the Grand Canyon. On one July day in 1989, for example, about 3,471 cfs was running through the dam at 5 a.m., a meagre flow by the Colorado’s standards. By 3 p.m., it had jumped to 29,000 cfs—the maximum flow through the turbines—to generate juice to the burgeoning number of air-conditioners on the Southwest power grid. This must have wreaked havoc on river runners in the Grand Canyon, who might have tied up their boats during high flow, only to find them beached out several hours later (or vice versa, depending on how far downriver they were). It probably wasn’t so good for the fish, either.
In the early ‘80s, dam operators wanted to maximize the potential for following the load by also installing turbines in the river outlets so they could generate even more power by releasing more water, which likely would have exacerbated daily fluctuations. The proposal was shot down following intense opposition, and sparked an effort to develop a more river-friendly plan for managing the dam.
Congress passed the Grand Canyon Protection Act in 1992, and in 1996 Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt signed off on the Glen Canyon Dam Operations plan, selecting the “Modified Low Fluctuating Flow” alternative — a compromise between environmental and power-generating interests — and creating an adaptive management working group. The annual releases would remain the same (8.2 million acre-feet), but it imposed minimum and maximum release rates and maximum fluctuation rates, along with adding in occasional high-flow events meant to simulate pre-dam seasonal fluctuations. This limited Glen Canyon Dam’s flexibility as a hydroelectric plant, but it was far better for the downstream river and its users.
A profile of the Colorado River with potential future dam and reservoir sites. From the 1916 USGS paper “Colorado River and its utilization,” by E.C. La Rue.
Yet in the ensuing three decades, power-generation has often taken precedent over downstream ecological health, and the Grand Canyon’s riparian environment remains imperiled. (As long as we’re talking about ironies: A portion of revenues from Glen Canyon Dam’s power sales fund endangered fish recovery efforts.)
Whether a new deal to share the Colorado River becomes an ecological disaster would seem to depend less on the annual volume released from Glen Canyon Dam than it does on the daily and seasonal operations of the dam. And I would add this to the above tweet: It would be the second ecological disaster for the Grand Canyon; the first was the construction of Glen Canyon Dam, itself.
The back of Glen Canyon Dam circa 1964, not long after the reservoir had begun filling up. Here the water level is above dead pool, meaning water can be released via the river outlets, but it is below minimum power pool, so water cannot yet enter the penstocks to generate electricity. Bureau of Reclamation photo.
As long as we’re talking streamflows … here’s a hydrograph of the Animas River in Durango for the last year (July 17, 2024-July 17, 2025) and for the same time period during the previous year. You can see that spring runoff this year was lower, and less drawn-out than in 2024, and that the current streamflow is about 25% lower than it was on this date last year. Hopefully the monsoon will arrive soon and boost flows, at least for a bit.
🤯 Trump Ticker 😱
While everyone is going bananas over the Trump/Jeff Epstein brouhaha, the Trump administration is putting its fossil fuel fetish on garish display. This includes:
Yesterday the Interior Department said it would subject proposed solar and wind developments on public lands to elevated scrutiny in an effort to end “preferential treatment for unreliable, subsidy-dependent wind and solar energy.” Meanwhile these guys have been eliminating environmental reviews for and public input on oil and gas and mining projects. So who’s getting preferential treatment now?
Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agency is trying to block the state of Colorado from pushing dirty coal plants to close as part of its effort to reduce air pollution and, well, comply with EPA air quality regulations. CPR’s Sam Brasch has the story, and reports that Colorado’s not about to take this one lying down.
And, the EPA continues to defy its name by extending the deadline for compliance with regulations for managing coal combustion waste, or CCW. Coal combustion waste is the solid stuff left over from coal burning, like ash, clinkers, and scrubber sludge, and it contains copious quantities of nasty stuff like mercury, arsenic, boron, cobalt, radium, and selenium. This is an enormous waste stream, and is piled up outside coal plants and in coal mines all over the West. Check out this map from Earthjustice to see where the coal waste depositories are near you!
And finally, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, in an Economist column, wrote that climate change is “not an existential crisis,” merely a pesky little “by-product of progress.” He said he was willing to take the “modest negative trade-off” of climate change—along, presumably, with the heat waves, wildfires, and devastating floods—”for this legacy of human advancement.” It’s almost as if they like pollution! It would be funny if it weren’t so tragic.
😀 Good News Corner 😎
Colorado has new wolf pups! Yes, Colorado Parks and Wildlife has confirmed three new wolf families have joined the Copper Creek Pack with new pups, though they have not released the number of pups in each family. This is good news, indeed.
“Like so many Coloradans, I’m thrilled to hear of new wolf families and puppy paws on the ground,” said Alli Henderson, southern Rockies director at the Center for Biological Diversity, in a written statement. “The howl of wolves rising once more in this iconic landscape signals real progress toward restoring balance in Colorado’s wild places.”
For more background and history on wolves, check out my essay from a little while back on wolves, wildness, and hope. But you’ll have to sign up as a paid subscriber to read it, since the archives are behind the paywall!
I’m a little slow getting to this one, thanks mostly to being consumed by the whole public land sale brouhaha, but better late than never.
After years of bickering, wrangling, fighting, and digging in their heels, representatives of the seven Colorado River Basin states may have finally agreed on a “revolutionary” way to split up the river’s waters: They’re going to base it on how much water is actually in the river at any given time.
So, apparently, in this world, “revolutionary” is a synonym for the most common sense, obvious, and, really, necessary way to do things.
More specifically, the Upper Basin would release a percentage of the rolling three-year average of the“natural flow”* at Lee Ferry from Glen Canyon Dam, making it available to the Lower Basin. That’s opposed to the current model, where the Upper Basin is required to release at least 75 million acre-feet every ten years (or 7.5 MAF per year on average)**
Let’s pause for a moment and use an analogy to reflect on how short-sighted and dumb that original approach was. [ed. emphasis mine] Say someone has a potato farm and they die, leaving the farm to their two children, Upper and Lower, who must determine how to divide the farm and its yield between them. They look back at their parent’s ledgers, and determine that the farm has produced at least 15 tons of potatoes annually during the previous few years.
So they agree to divide it in half, with 7.5 tons going to each of them each year. But Upper will actually live on the farm, and has the keys to the lock on the gate, so they add into their Potato Farm Compact a clause that requires Upper to not prevent Lower from taking 75 tons of potatoes from the farm during every 10 year period.
This works out fine as long as the farm produces 15 tons per year. But what happens if you signed the Compact during an abnormally productive period, and the long-term average yield was far lower than 15 tons? Or what happens as the soil becomes less fertile and the irrigation water becomes more scarce and production drops far below 15 tons per year? Under the agreement, Upper still has to allow Lower to take 7.5 tons annually, leaving Upper with far less, maybe even nothing during a string of bad years. Obviously, this is untenable. And, just as obviously, it would have made far more sense for Upper and Lower to simply divide each year’s harvest in half and each take 50% of whatever the total might be. Just as obviously, that would have been the smartest way to divide up the Colorado River in the first place. Of course, a river is not a potato crop.
To determine how much potatoes you have, you just put them on a scale. Determining the “natural flow” of the Colorado River is far more difficult, and requires inputting:
data from 29 upstream streamflow gauges/gages;
historic outflow and pool elevations from 12 main-stem and 12 off-stream reservoirs;
upstream consumptive uses and losses.
While that doesn’t sound so complicated, gathering all of these inputs — reservoir evaporation, for example, or the exact amount consumed by agriculture — can require separate calculations and guesswork of their own.
Note that the would-be signatory’s of this deal haven’t agreed on what the “fixed percentage” would be, and that there still would be an unspecified “lower limit” to the annual release from Lake Powell. Those could both be sticking points in finalizing this plan. Source: Arizona Reconsultation Committee June meeting.
But the states wouldn’t be coming up with this from scratch. The Bureau of Reclamation already calculates the river’s natural flow at Lees Ferry along with Lake Powell’s unregulated inflow. As you can see from the graph below, the river has not consistently delivered 15 million acre-feet per year, forcing the Upper Basin to deplete their savings account (Lake Powell) in order to meet its Colorado River Compact obligations.
This shows the estimated natural flow of the river — or what it would deliver without any upstream dams, diversions, or human-related consumptive use — at Lees Ferry, several miles downstream from Glen Canyon Dam. The natural flow is calculated using upstream streamflow gages, consumptive use, and calculated reservoir evaporation. Source: Bureau of Reclamation.
If the supply driven concept is implemented, it will base Glen Canyon Dam releases on a fixed percentage of the previous three-year moving average. For example, the average of water years 2022, 2023, and 2024 was 13 million acre-feet. If the Upper Basin and Lower Basin were to each take 50%, then the Glen Canyon release this year would be 6.5 million acre-feet (plus something for Mexico, presumably, although this isn’t clear. I highly doubt the Lower Basin will settle for just 50%, given that it has far more people, more agriculture, and is just thirstier, overall, but let’s go with that figure since it’s what’s in the Colorado River Compact, sort of.
The Lower Basin states use far less water now than they did a decade or so ago, thanks in part to forced cuts and in part to general conservation measures. The increase between 2023 and 2024 is probably due to the fact that 2023 was an unusually wet year in most of the Colorado River Basin, meaning farmers and other irrigators needed less water. Source: Colorado River Accounting and Water Usage Report, Lower Basin, Bureau of Reclamation.
That would actually work: The Lower Basin states’ consumptive use last calendar year was about 5.8 million acre-feet, so they’d have enough to use, and a little on top for evaporation from reservoirs (which is not included in the Lower Basin’s accounting). It would leave the Upper Basin enough for consumption and some extra for reservoir storage.
But if you go with the previous three years (‘20,’21,’22), you end up with an average of just 9 million acre-feet, 50% of which would be a measly 4.5 million acre-feet, forcing downstream users — namely the Central Arizona Project, since their rights are junior to California’s — to take deep cuts. And it would leave the Upper Basin just enough to meet their needs, meaning they’d have to draw down Lake Powell or other reservoirs to fulfill their obligations.
Another tricky scenario would be if three decent water years were followed by an extremely dry year. Releases from Lake Powell could significantly exceed inflows, which might deplete the reservoir enough to bring it down to minimum power pool, which is no bueno.
While this may be the closest the states have come to reaching some sort of consensus on how to run the River beyond 2026, it seems as if there is still many sticky details to work out. How are they going to agree on a fixed percentage? What will the minimum release be? And how will that fly with the Upper Basin during years such as 2002, when the natural flow at Lees Ferry was a mere 5.8 million acre-feet? Time’s running out.
Now for some more data for your pondering pleasure:
The Upper Basin states use far less water than the Lower Basin, but the Lower Basin has generally been reducing overall use, while the Upper Basin has remained steady or even increased consumption, with Colorado overtaking Arizona in 2023. Note: The Arizona figure only includes the Lower Basin. Arizona also consumes about 13,000 acre-feet of Upper Basin water each year, down significantly from pre-2019, when up to 40,000 acre-feet was withdrawn from Lake Powell for steam generation and cooling at the now shuttered Navajo Generating Station. Source: Bureau of Reclamation.
The Imperial Irrigation District in southern California remains the River’s largest single water user, and one of the most senior water rights holders, using most of the water for alfalfa and various food crops. However, it has cut its consumption considerably over the years, in part thanks to state and federal programs that pay farmers not to irrigate. It’s not clear how long these programs and the payments can last, however. Nevada is included on this list because nearly all of the state’s Colorado River allocation is drawn from Lake Mead and goes to the greater Las Vegas area. Also note that it is only number 8 on this list. Source: Bureau of Reclamation.
Agriculture has been and remains the biggest single user of Colorado River water, by far. Of that amount, alfalfa and other hay crops take up the lion’s share.
This passage, from David Starr Jordan’s Fish Commission Bulletin 1889: Report of Explorations in Colorado and Utah During the Summer of 1889, remains relevant today:
Uggh. Fire season is getting ugly. The Dragon Bravo Fire blew up and burned the historic Grand Canyon Lodge on the North Rim. The Deer Creek Fire, burning near Old La Sal, Utah, just west of the Colorado state line, has grown to almost 12,000 acres and exhibited some erratic behavior (see video above). Just northeast of there, the Wright Draw and Turner Gulch fires have forced the closure of Hwy. 141 and numerous evacuations in the Unaweep Canyon area outside Gateway (the community of Gateway is not yet threatened). The South Rim Fire at the Black Canyon of the Gunnison is now at 4,000 acres. The Laguna Fire west of Abiquiu Reservoir in New Mexico has reached 15,200 acres. And the air in the West is basically full of smoke.
Here’s hoping for rain and lots of it, sans lightning, please.
📸 Parting Shot 🎞️
This one’s from “A notice of the ancient ruins of southwestern Colorado, examined during the summer of 1875,” by W.H. Holmes. The text is the beginning of the description of the sketch.
The latest Bureau of Reclamation 24-month studies show a clear risk of Lake Powell dropping below minimum power pool in late 2026, with Lake Mead dropping to elevation 1,025 by the summer of 2027. This should be hair on fire stuff.
The “clear risk” here is based on Reclamation’s monthly “minimum probable” model runs – what happens if we have bad snowpacks next year, and the year after? These are probabilistic estimates, not predictions. But the whole point of Reclamation doing this is so that we can be prepared. We need a robust public discussion about what our plan is if we end up on this fork in the hydrologic road.
The warning signs are clearly there in Jack’s analyses. Frustrated by the delay in the traditional metrics we use for measuring and monitoring the Colorado River, Jack’s been doing routine updates on reservoir storage contents. The traditional metrics we use – the Upper Basin Consumptive Uses and Losses Reports, the Lower Basin Decree Accounting Reports, the Natural Flow Database – have significant lags. The reservoir data is there in real time, integrating how much the climate system provides and how much humans use. The data here are all public. Jack’s value add is to sum them up and slice and dice the resulting data structures.
The somewhat arcane but incredibly useful framework he’s been using his his recent analyses is the period of accumulation, when reservoirs rise as river flows exceed human uses above them and extractions below them, following by the period of decline, when we’re drawing down the reservoirs. This is a tool, or a way of thinking, that we could use in real time to adjust our behavior, noting bad reservoir conditions and reducing our use. This is not something our water allocation framework is well suited to do.
The Negotiations
For more than a year, those involved in the delicate interstate negotiations over future Colorado River water allocation rules have repeatedly asked that we give them space to have the hard conversations they need to have in private. The results, or lack thereof, have done nothing to earn our trust.
The potential path forward.
When Arizona’s Tom Buschatzke moved the up-until-then super secret “supply driven” allocation concept into public view a month ago, it seemed like a good sign along two dimensions. First, the idea of basing the amount of water delivered from Upper Basin to Lower Basin past Lee Ferry on actual hydrology, on a percentage of how much water the climate is actually providing, seemed like an eminently reasonable approach. Second, Buschatzke was talking about this in public.
Folks from the Upper Basin followed suit, and a round of positive press followed.
But as this shifts from the brief sunshine of public statements back to the closed door negotiations, any glimmer appears dim indeed.
The problems were already visible in that brief, glorious bit of sunshine of public discussion last month.
There are two critical questions that need to be settled to make this work. The obvious one is the number – what percentage of the three year natural flow are we talking about shepherding down past Lee Ferry? The second is more subtle: What happens if the Lee Ferry flow falls short of that number?
Speaking to the Arizona Reconsultation Committee, Buschatzke was clear that whatever percentage number they settled on would be an Upper Basin “delivery obligation” at Lee Ferry. Becky Mitchell, speaking on behalf of Colorado, (but effectively as the de-facto Upper Basin voice, the role the other Upper Basin states seem to have for all practical purposes ceded to her) said (per Heather Sackett’s excellent reporting) it was in no way to be considered a delivery obligation.
When I suggested in a blog post that Upper Basin states might need to curtail water users in order to ensure the agreed-upon-percentage (whatever that is) is met, I got an angry call informing me that the Upper Basin was considering no such thing.
What this makes clear is that the same disagreement over the irreducibly ambiguous legal question in Article III of the Colorado River Compact – does the Upper Basin have a Lee Ferry delivery obligation or not? – is simply being shifted to a new modeling framework.
Never mind the equally intractable question of what the Lee Ferry don’t-call-it-a-delivery-obligation percentage might be. I don’t know anything more than gossip, but the gossip suggests the attempt to settle on a number, or even a range of numbers that Reclamation might model as part of its NEPA analysis, also is not going well.
If I was talking to Alex Hager today, I would no longer describe a glimmer of hope.
The Failure Mode
One of the most useful questions I learned to ask as a reporter covering water involved drilling down to the question of what happens when scarcity finally bites. What is the failure mode? Who actually doesn’t get water? How does that work? [ed. emphasis mine]
The combination of Jack’s analysis and Reclamation’s latest 24-month study suggests that we need to be asking that question in the near term. When Powell approaches minimum power pool, and Mead drops below 1030, whose water use will be curtailed to protect the system? If your answer involves a defense of why your own water supply should not be reduced, you’re doing this wrong. Everyone needs to be realistic about their risk of a legal outcome different from their agency lawyer’s position. But we also need to recognize moral obligations here, to find ways to share in this shrinking river. How are we going to come together, as a community, to respond?
The longer term argument also needs to begin to take this form.
Let us imagine going to the Supreme Court to settle the question of whether the Upper Basin does or does not have a legal delivery obligation under Article III of the Colorado River Compact to deliver 75 million or 82.5 million acre feet per year past Lee Ferry. If you lose that litigation, what is the failure mode? Who actually doesn’t get water? If your groupthink has convinced you that this is not a meaningful question, that you’re sure to win, and the other basin is the one that needs to be thinking about failure modes, you need a second opinion, to get out of your groupthink bubble.
Whatever “bring it on” enthusiasm for litigation you’re hearing from your groupthinkers needs to be tempered by an honest discussion about what happens to your communities’ water supplies if you lose.
I’ll also make a modest pitch here for a need to recognize moral obligations, to find ways to share this shrinking river.
Map of the Colorado River drainage basin, created using USGS data. By Shannon1 Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0
