After a record-shattering March, April 2026 seemed at least a little more normal in Colorado. April was actually cooler than March, which doesn’t happen very often. But it was yet another warmer-than-average month, and it was very dry in eastern Colorado. Flash drought set in across the eastern Plains. The mountains had near- to above-average precipitation in April, which slowed the melting of mountain snowpack. But statewide snowpack was still at record-low levels as of the end of April. Water Year 2026 thus far remains the warmest on record by a large margin.
May 1, 2026 seasonal water supply forecast summary.
Click the link to read the article on The Aspen Times website (Ryan Spencer). Here’s an excerpt:
May 9, 2026
Colorado River Basin Forecast Center Hydrologist Cody Moser was frank on Thursday, May 7, as he gave his final update for the season on conditions across the basin that supplies water for 40 million people. Through a historically hot and dry winter, Moser said the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrationโs models for how much water will flow through the Colorado River mostly trended in one direction: downward. The latest models now estimate inflows into Lake Powell โ the nationโs second largest reservoir โ to be just 800,000 acre-feet this year, which would be the lowest since the reservoir began to fill in 1963.
โSo really, just no good news,โ he said.
Across the West, there is a dearth of snow remaining in the mountains to melt into the Colorado Riverโs complex system of tributaries and reservoirs. Since the start of the โwater yearโ in October, the Colorado River Basin above Lake Powell has seen just 79% of normal precipitation, according to the forecast center. The Colorado River Headwaters region, which includes much of northwest Colorado, has had among the lowest precipitation, with less than 70% of normal. The snowpack this past winter peaked about a month early and with snow measurement sites across nearly the entire basin showing record-low water content in the snow, Moser said. In the Colorado River Headwaters region, data show snow-water equivalent peaked 7 inches below normal. In March, an โextremeโ heatwave sent temperatures surging 20-30 degrees above normal in many parts throughout the Colorado River Basin, rapidly melting much of the remaining snowpack, he said. With so little snow to melt off, streamflow volumes on the Colorado River near Eagle and Cameo are projected to be the worst on record, according to the forecast center. Meanwhile, streamflow volumes near Kremmling and Glenwood Springs are expected to be the second-worst on record. While some parts of the Colorado River Basin saw precipitation in April that was closer to normal or even slightly above normal, Moser said it remained below normal in the Colorado River Headwaters region. He noted, though, these drought-plagued parts of northwestern Colorado did pick up some more significant precipitation in the first week of May.
As record-breaking heatwaves and droughts become more frequent, natural sources of water that insects and wildlife have historically depended upon are drying up. In response a growing number of homeowners are transforming their yards into life-saving “hydration hubs”. In addition to serving the needs of animals these simple actions help people to move from regret to action and then even pleasure as they watch deer, opossums, bees, and other wild animals obtain lifesaving water.1
Young mule deer drinking from a bird bath. Photo on Pinterest by Susan Sam 2018.
Deer act as vital ecosystem engineers by managing plant growth and promoting biodiversity through their grazing habits. As they move across various habitats, they disperse seeds via their fur and waste, aiding in forest regeneration and the spread of native flora. Furthermore, they serve as a primary food source for large predators, while their carcasses provide essential nutrients to scavengers and the soil, maintaining a balanced and nutrient-rich food web.2
Baby opossum drinking from a pyrex dish. Photo by r/Opossums on Reddit.
Opossums act as “nature’s sanitation workers” by providing essential pest control and waste removal services right in our backyards. As opportunistic scavengers, they keep neighborhoods clean by consuming overripe fruit, roadkill, and organic waste that might otherwise attract less desirable pests like rats or roaches. They also help maintain ecological balance by hunting common garden nuisances such as snails, slugs, and even venomous snakes, to which they have a natural immunity. Furthermore, their low body temperature makes them highly resistant to rabies, meaning they are far less likely to spread the disease than other urban wildlife.3
A terracotta bowl filled with water, mint leaves, and brightly-colored marbles to attract bees and pollinators. Photo by Beeappy on Reddit.
Pollinators like bees, butterflies, and bats are the silent backbone of our local ecosystems, facilitating the reproduction of nearly 80% of the worldโs flowering plants and one out of every three bites of food we eat. By transferring pollen between blooms, they ensure the production of the fruits, seeds, and nuts that feed both humans and wildlife, while simultaneously maintaining the genetic diversity necessary for resilient landscapes. Beyond agriculture, their work supports the growth of oxygen-producing plants and provides the foundational habitat for countless other species, making their presence a direct indicator of a healthy, thriving environment.4
Red-tailed hawk in a birdbath. Photo by Chris Naftel in the Tehachapi News.
Red-tailed hawks are apex predators that maintain ecological balance by regulating the populations of small mammals, including rodents, rabbits, and squirrels. By controlling these populations, they provide free pest control for both urban environments and agricultural lands, which helps prevent overgrazing of vegetation and crop damage. Beyond their role as hunters, they are valuable indicator species; their presence and reproductive success reflect the overall health and biodiversity of the local ecosystem. Additionally, their large nests can provide secondary habitat for smaller bird species, such as house sparrows, while their opportunistic scavenging contributes to natural nutrient cycling.5
A train loads up at the West Elk coal mine near Somerset, Colorado. Like the rest of the coal industry, the West Elkโs days appeared to be numbered a decade ago. But growing power demand from data centers and the Trump administrationโs fossil fuel-friendly policies are coming together to breathe new life into mines like this one. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
๐ค Data Center Watch ๐พ
Yet another scene in the ongoing saga of the Big Data Center Buildup is playing out in Box Elder County, Utah, where the board of commissioners this week approved the proposed Stratos Project data center and energy generation complex, despite widespread and intense local opposition.
Enigmatic entities have forwarded so many proposals for ginormous new data centers in the West that I not only find myself overwhelmed, but I also suspect that many of them are just speculative pipe dreams that will never be built. Similarly, when I read about the inevitable backlash, I tend to think of it as an almost reflexive reaction โ something folks have simply been conditioned to do when they hear the terms โAI,โ โhyper scale,โ and โdata centerโ โ that is not based in the actual effects these things will have.
This project โ led by investor Kevin OโLeary of the tv-show Shark Tank โ appears to be serious, as it comes with the backing of Utahโs Military Installation Development Authority, or MIDA, a state entity created to โfurther economic development across multiple jurisdictions.โ Gov. Spencer Cox has said the state has an โobligation โฆ to allow for these types of data centers to be built,โ so it should slide through state permitting without a hitch.
Its potential impacts are not only real, but also scary: The project would ultimately cover about 40,000 acres just north of the Great Salt Lake, its on-site 9-gigawatt power plant would guzzle enormous amounts of natural gas and emit greenhouse gases, and the facility could even create its own extreme heat island. No wonder the pushback is so impassioned.
The scale of this thing is utterly mind-blowing, from its 62-square-mile footprint โ equivalent to about 1,000 Walmart super centers โ to the size of its gas-fired power plant. Nine gigawatts (or 9,000 megawatts) is enough to power multiple cities and millions of households; all of Utahโs coal, natural gas, and wind and solar facilities combined have a nameplate capacity of just 10.2 GW. While natural gas burns more cleanly than coal, it still emits significant levels of carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides, and Project Stratos could increase stateโs greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 50%. Natural gas drilling, processing, and transportation bring their own environmental impacts and emit methane โ a potent greenhouse gas โ as well as other harmful pollutants. The facility would be served by the Ruby Pipeline, which carries gas extracted from Wyoming fields.
The natural gas component fits the pattern of the Big Data Center Buildup. Developers often say they are going to run their centers on solar, wind, geothermal, or even nuclear power. When it comes down to it, however, most of them end up relying on gas, at least initially. The developer of the proposed Prometheus Hyperscale data center along the Natrona-Converse county line in Wyoming initially touted all of the renewable energy opportunities in the area. Now they plan to run entirely on natural gas. Even the ones that do build or buy some solar or wind still tend to use gas-turbines or even diesel generators for backup.
Energy Transfer is looking to build a dedicated natural gas pipeline to serve the giant and controversial Project Jupiter complex in southern New Mexico, and the Bureau of Land Management just issued a right-of-way for the 400 million-cubic-feet-per-day project under its accelerated review process. The developers reacted to vigorous opposition by switching from the planned conventional gas turbines to solid oxide fuel cells. However, the cells are also fueled by natural gas โ thus the pipeline โand do have emissions, albeit fewer than conventional turbines.
While many of the largest new data centers plan to build dedicated, on-site power generation, most of the planned facilities and those coming online now will get all or most of their electricity from the power grid. All of this new and projected new demand has utility executives salivating over the prospect of selling more product and raking in more profit. It has also spurred many utilities to cancel plans to shutter dirty coal plants or to make plans to build more natural gas facilities. So even if all of the proposed data centers arenโt realized, their mere possibility could lock in more fossil fuel burning and more pollution for years to come.
The Stratos Projectโs potential water use is less clear, but certainly relevant given that it would draw from the same hydrologic system as the Great Salt Lake, which is shrinking. Data centers generate an enormous amount of heat, so they must be cooled, which can consume large quantities of water (and power). The developer says it plans to use a closed-loop cooling system, which must be filled once and so consumes relatively little water. These systems, however, remain relatively uncommon in these facilities. Natural gas turbines can also require large volumes of water for steam generation and cooling, though consumption levels depend on the type of turbine.
In March, the nearby Bar H Ranch proposed transferring its rights to 1,900 acre-feet annually of irrigation water diverted from the Salt Wells Springs Stream for industrial use at the Stratos Project, a.k.a. โWonder Valley.โ The application noted that the water โwill be used primarily for power generation. A portion of the water will also be used in connection with a data center that will operate as a closed-loop system.โ Thousands of people protested the application, based on its potential impacts on the lake and neighboring wells.
For context, 1,900 acre-feet (or 619 million gallons) would be enough to grow about 1,400 tons of alfalfa, or to irrigate some 500 acres of Utah alfalfa fields for a full growing season. That may not be enough water, however, to serve the natural gas power plant if it runs full-time. A combined cycle natural gas turbine uses about 200 gallons per MWhr of generation. If you assume aย 60% capacity factor, then the 9 GW1plant would produce about 130,000 MWhr per day, leading to an annual water use of about 9.5 billion gallons assuming it runs full-blast 24/7. This is in line with developersโ statements that they would eventually seek up to 13,000 acre-feet of water rights.
The firmย withdrew the applicationย this week, just two days after the protest period ended, saying it would submit a new application later (which would void all of the protests and force residents to re-submit their comments and pay the filing fee again).
โThe people of Utah, especially those from Box Elder County, filed protests in record numbers because of their concerns about this project,โ said Ben Abbott, BYU ecologist and executive director of Grow the Flow, a non-partisan organization dedicated to saving the Great Salt Lake. โFor the developer to sidestep the public input process by withdrawing their application and resubmitting later is another breach of trust. I keep trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, but this has all the hallmarks of an out-of-state mega-project with little to no concern for the local community.โ
Meanwhile, OโLeary, the projectโs pusher, is responding to the opposition by dangling the dim possibility of incorporating other power generation technologies into the mix, and by accusing the ranchers, doctors, and Utah citizens protesting the proposal of being paid, out-of-state agitators. As tired, worn-out, and false the claim is, it does provide an indication that the developers behind this project really donโt care about its potential impacts โ or the land, people, or waters it may affect.
The Big Data Center Buildup is increasing demand for all sorts of energy, especially generation fueled by natural gas. This, along with increased liquefied natural gas exports, could drive up methane prices and finally pull the industry out of its 17-year-long slump โ at least thatโs what the industry is hoping for. And the Trump administration is doing its darndest to clear the way for more oil and gas drilling.
The BLM is currently seeking public input on its plan to sell a whopping 276 oil and gas leases on 357,337 acres in Wyoming. Thatโs a lot of land that could be targeted for drilling. The administration has leased public land, and issued drilling permits, at an almost unprecedented rate since taking office last January.
๐ต Public Lands ๐ฒ ๐ Random Real Estate Room ๐ค
The effort to tackle the affordable housing crisis in Western amenities community has met up with the public lands, but not in the way you might think. Dozens of low-income housing advocacy groups have come together with environmental groups to form Shared Ground, a new coalition that aims not only to increase access to affordable housing, but also to protect public lands โ while also opening the door to selling some of those lands if strict criteria are followed.
The mission of the coalition is summed up in a recent document, noting:
The document criticizes Sen. Mike Leeโs push to sell public land to real estate developers, noting:
Furthermore, the coalition acknowledges that the affordable housing crisis is โfundamentally a policy and investment challengeโnot the result of a simple shortage of land.โ
Nevertheless, Shared Ground does leave the door open to selling public land for housing, as long as it meets the following criteria (this is from the coalitionโs statement):
Demonstrated Public Interest and Community Benefit:ย Any proposal for the use or disposal of public lands for housing must carry binding, legally enforceable requirements that the land primarily serves affordable housing rather than market-rate and never fuels speculative development. Benefits must flow primarily to local, existing communitiesโnot private developersโand projects should be limited to parcels near existing infrastructure and services.
Careful Inventory and Prioritization: Any such proposal must also require carefulinventory of the public lands under consideration for use or disposal and prioritize already-developed sites over undeveloped land.
Conservation, Cultural, Recreational, and Tribal Safeguards: Public Lands withsignificant conservation, wildlife, cultural, historic, Tribal, or recreational value must be excluded from any conveyance or development proposal. All proposals must include early, meaningful consultation with Tribal Nations, and transparent engagement with local communities, with clear public accountability throughout the process.
The Dolores River upstream of its confluence with the San Miguel River is heartbreakingly dry right now, as operators of McPhee Reservoir release 10 cubic feet per-second or less from the dam. After it joins the San Miguel, the river jumps to a meagre 84 cfs as it passes through Gateway. Forecasts are calling for warm temperatures in the coming week, which could raise the San Miguelโs level somewhat, but will also likely melt all the remaining snow in the mountains. Jonathan P. Thompson photo from May 3, 2026.
The Dolores River in Bedrock (in the Paradox Valley of western Colorado) is running at record low levels currently as dam operators hold back as much water as possible in McPhee Reservoir to ration out to irrigators this summer.
While Iโm fairly certain the streams all hit peak runoff back in April, Iโm not calling the contest yet. April and early May storms and more โnormalโ temperatures have kept a bit more of the snowpack around than expected, and forecasted heat in coming days will probably melt off what remains pretty quickly, possibly leading to a surge in streamflows. But by the end of next week, Iโm predicting all but the highest monitoring stations will be snow-free, meaning spring runoff pretty much will be done and gone.
๐ธ Parting Shot ๐๏ธ
A collared lizard basks in the early May sun between chasing butterflies and other insects near the Colorado-Utah state line. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
1 The figures for the size of the power plant vary from place to place. The developerโs โfact sheetโ lists 9 GW of Utah power generation, while the water right application said it was for 7.5 GW. Rob Daviesโ analysis of the heat output of the facility assumes that the data centerโs load will be 9 GW, which would require a 16 GW power facility operating at 55% efficiency.
Click the link to access the report on the University of Colorado website (Eric Kuhn,1ย Anne Castle,2ย Carlos de la Parra,3ย John Fleck,4ย Jack Schmidt,5ย Kathryn Sorensen,6ย Katherine Tara7). Here’s the abstract:
March 26, 2026
Since 1945, the United States and Mexico have managed common interests on their two largest shared rivers systems, the Colorado and the Rio Bravo/Rio Grande, under the terms of the 1944 international treaty that was designed from the beginning with tools to adapt to changing hydrologic and societal conditions.
A recent emergency agreement on the Rio Bravo/Rio Grande illustrates what is possible, and with old river management rules on the Colorado both within the United States and between the United States and Mexico about to expire, we are at a moment of opportunity for meaningful change.
The core problem on the Colorado River, which we address in the analysis that follows, arose from decisions made in the first half of the 20th century to allocate fixed volumes of water. As usage patterns and hydrology change in the 21st century, fixed volumes no longer work. A shift to a percentage-based split between the United States and Mexico on the Colorado River, based on the river’s actual natural flow, would provide a solid foundation for the two countries’ joint management of the Colorado in the decades to come.
1ย Retired General Manager, Colorado River Water Conservation District.
2ย Senior Fellow, Getches-Wilkinson Center, University of Colorado Law School; former US Commissioner, Upper Colorado River Commission; former Assistant Secretary for Water and Science, US Dept. of the Interior.
3ย Founder and Managing Partner, Centro Luken de Estrategias en Agua y Medio Ambiente, Tijuana, Mexico.
4ย Writer in Residence, Utton Transboundary Resources Center, University of New Mexico.
5ย Director, Center for Colorado River Studies, Utah State University; former Chief, Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center.
6ย Director of Research, Kyl Center for Water Policy, Arizona State University; former Director, Phoenix Water Services.
7ย Sta๏ฌ Attorney, Utton Transboundary Resources Center, University of New Mexico.
Author note
This paper is intended to supplement and complement a series of related papers written in the last year by the authors (or subset of the authors) addressing the critical problems facing the Colorado River Basin, including:
โขย Eric Kuhn, Anne Castle, & John Fleck, Royce Tipton and the Hydrology of the 1944 Treaty with Mexico, (May 2025). Available at:ย Kuhn-et-al-2025-Royce-Tipton-Mexico-Hydrology.pdf.
โขย Anne Castle, John Fleck, Jack Schmidt, Kathryn Sorensen, and Katherine Tara, Essential Pillars for the Post-2026 Colorado River Guidelines, (April 2025). Available at:ย 2025-04-25 Principles.
โขย Jack Schmidt, Anne Castle, Eric Kuhn, John Fleck, Kathryn Sorensen, and Katherine Tara, Analysis of Colorado River Basin Storage Suggests Need for Immediate Action, (September 2025).
โขย Kathryn Sorensen, Sarah Porter, Anne Castle, John Fleck, Eric Kuhn, Jack Schmidt, and Katherine Tara, Consideration for Assigned Water after Expiration of the 2007 Guidelines
Dry snow course Colorado May 2026. Photo credit: NRCS
Click the link to read the release on the NRCS website:
May 8, 2026
Coloradoโs 2026 water year this far has been defined by records across nearly every metric: an anomalously early snowpack peak, rapid melt driven by record March temperatures, snowpack that tracked at-or-near the lowest values in the SNOTEL period of record from January through May 1, and near-record early season precipitation in the San Juan Mountains. Runoff has arrived weeks ahead of the historical median across river systems and recession is largely underway.
May through July runoff forecasts remain low across Colorado at 24 percent of median at the 50 percent exceedance forecast. Western slope forecasts range from 22 to 24 percent of median and eastern basins remain slightly higher at 37 percent in the South Platte basin and 33 percent in the Arkansas basin (Figure 1). The Upper Rio Grande basin is forecast 30 percent of median at the 50 percent exceedance. Forty-eight of 86 forecast points rank as either the lowest or second lowest in their period of record. All 86 forecast points rank at or below the 13th percentile with a median percentile rank of 2. Several Colorado Headwaters forecast points rank lowest on record, including Colorado River near Cameo forecast a departure of 1.49 million acre-feet (MAF), rank 1 of 73 years.
Figure 1. Primary period streamflow forecast volume at the 50 percent exceedance probability, percent NRCS 1991-2020 median, May 1, 2026.
Statewide snowpack is 20 percent of median as of May 1, effectively unchanged from April 1 despite near-normal April precipitation. Snowpack peaked in early March in southern basins and mid-March in northern basins, three to five weeks ahead of historical median peak timing at half of median peak snow water equivalent (SWE). Early May storms have boosted statewide snowpack to 25 percent of median as of May 7, with sites in the Front Range east of the Continental Divide being particularly favored and receiving near 2 inches of SWE.
Many observed streamflow hydrographs are already entering recession unusually early. On the Yampa River near Maybell, seasonal peak flow occurred at the end of March and ranks as the earliest peak date and lowest peak in the 110-year period of record. Similar early and shortened hydrographs have developed in the Upper Colorado Region and in southern basins as accelerated spring melt caused much of the seasonal runoff to occur earlier than normal.
Statewide reservoir storage is 85 percent of median, while forecast inflows into Coloradoโs largest reservoirs are well below median. Forecast inflows for the May-July 50 percent exceedance outlook range from 17 percent of median at McPhee Reservoir and 18 percent Blue Mesa to 36 percent at Lake Granby and Pueblo Reservoir.
April storms briefly stabilized snowpack conditions but did not offset the impacts of the record warm and dry winter and the late March heat wave that accelerated snowmelt and shifted runoff weeks ahead of normal. Future weather remains a source of uncertainty and the current 8-14 day outlooks favor above-normal precipitation alongside above-normal temperatures statewide.
Coloradoโs Snowpack and Reservoir Storage as of May 1, 2026
* combined San Miguel-Dolores-Animas-San Juan River basin
From email from the Colorado Water Trust (Barrett Donavan):
April 29, 2026
To: Any Direct Flow or Stored Water User
From: Colorado Water Trust
Dear Water Users,
Colorado Water Trust works statewide to restore water to Coloradoโs rivers. We wanted to take a moment to recognize the historic drought we are facing this year. We operate streamflow restoration projects in many different basins, some of which use water rights permanently decreed to protect water in the river, and many of which are temporary water sharing agreements with agricultural, municipal, and industrial water users.
We understand that many of our temporary water sharing agreements may not operate to restore streamflow this yearโthe agricultural partners with whom we have agreements may not have enough water for their own use. Those considerations are built into our agreements and we always respect our partnersโ operational needs. It has also come to our attention that there may be people interested in using their water rights to prop up streamflow this year. Others may have insufficient supply and want to safeguard water that would otherwise be unproductively diverted. We prepared the following information for people in these situations:
Water Sharing
Colorado Water Trust can help you determine whether your water rights will help to save fish and streamflow this year if you want to leave your water in the river.
Administrative Approval
If your water rights could benefit streamflow, we can secure administrative approvals from the appropriate state agency or water conservation district.
Protection Against Abandonment
The statutes Colorado Water Trust works with for administrative approval provide clear protection against abandonment or any diminishment to the HCU of your water right.
Compensation
Colorado Water Trust provides compensation to partners in our ongoing water sharing agreements. We will do our best to secure compensation for any neew agreements, but whether we can provide compensation this year will depend on demand. Please feel free to reach out to us at RFW@ColoradoWaterTrust.org for more information, call (720)570-2897 x2, or visit our website,ย ColoradoWaterTrust.org. This is a hard year for all of us in the water community, and we would like to help water users and rivers wherever we can.
May 1, 2026 seasonal water supply forecast summary.
Click the link to read the article on the Tucson.com website (Tony Davis). Here’s an excerpt:
May 8, 2026
Very dry and warm weather in the winter and early spring means Colorado River flows into Lake Powell will hit record lows this summer, a new federal forecast says. The past winter brought record-low snowpack in the mountains of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming that feed the Colorado. March brought record heat that caused the snows that had fallen to melt prematurely.ย The result is that runoff from the melting snow into the river will bring April through July flows into Powell to only 13% of average, says the federal Colorado Basin River Forecast Center, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That would make the spring-summer runoff into Powell the lowest of its kind since Lake Powell was created in 1963 by the construction of Glen Canyon Dam. The total amount of water expected to reach Powell is 800,000 acre-feet from April through July.
Photograph of a crystal clear stream obtained from Storyblocks
by Robert Marcos
I was dumbfounded to hear a scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey say, “I wish we could date this water so we’d have a better idea where it came from”. We were standing alongside a tiny creek that led into Colorado’s White River, and the scientist was essentially wondering if the water in the stream came from rainfall, or had risen from a shallow aquifer. Generally rainfall would be “younger” and water from aquifers would be older – sometimes by many thousands of years. But how could anyone possibly determine the age of water?
Answer: by analyzing its chemical composition.
The USGS dates groundwater using chemical and isotopic tracers whose concentrations change in known ways over time in the atmosphere and then get preserved in recharging water. For young groundwaterโtypically less than about 50โ70 years oldโUSGS commonly uses substances like chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), sulfur hexafluoride (SFโ), and tritium and its decay product heliumโ3. These are measured in specialized facilities such as the Reston Groundwater Dating Laboratory, which analyzes dissolved gases and transient tracers in samples from wells and springs. The key idea is that atmospheric histories of these tracers (for example, industrial production curves for CFCs or tritium from nuclear weapons testing in the 1950sโ60s) provide a time stamp that can be matched to what is found in the water.1
One example is tritium-based age classification – where a single measurement of tritium is used to classify groundwater as โmodernโ (recharged in 1953 or later), โpremodernโ (before 1953), or a mixture of the two. The year 1953 roughly marks the onset of elevated tritium from atmospheric nuclear testing, making it a convenient boundary between older, background conditions and postโbombโpulse recharge. By comparing measured tritium to locationโ and timeโspecific thresholds, USGS can quickly determine whether a sample reflects recent recharge that may carry contemporary contaminants or older water that has been isolated from the modern surface for decades or longer.
For slightly older waterโhundreds to tens of thousands of yearsโUSGS uses longerโlived isotopic tracers such as radiocarbon (carbonโ14) dissolved in inorganic carbon. Radiocarbon decays predictably over time, so its remaining fraction in groundwater indicates how long it has been since the water equilibrated with atmospheric carbon at the surface. At even greater ages, other isotopes and noble gases may be used to extend the window into tens of thousands of years or more. No single method is perfect; each tracer has limitations, such as contamination from local sources, mixing of waters of different ages, or chemical reactions that alter concentrations. As a result, USGS often applies multiple tracers together and interprets them with groundwater flow models to better constrain age and understand the distribution of ages in a well or discharge area.
USGS dates groundwater because age is fundamental for managing water resources and assessing vulnerability to pollution. Age indicates how quickly water moves through the subsurface, how long it will take for landโuse changes to affect wells and springs, and whether contaminants like nitrates, pesticides, or perโ and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) reflect current practices or legacy inputs. By linking age to contaminant trends, managers can judge whether improvement efforts will show benefits in years, decades, or even longer. Age information also supports sustainable yield estimates, helps distinguish shortโterm variability from longโterm change, and reveals dependencies on very old water that may take thousands of years to replenish.
A general view of hills at Carrizo Plain National Monument in Santa Margarita of San Luis Obispo County, California, United States on March 29, 2026. Photo by Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images
In March, a month traditionally known for heavy mountain snows and dreary lower-elevation weather, a heat wave settled across the West, shattering temperature records from Tucson, Arizona, to Casper, Wyoming.
Yet not only did Western locations set new March highs; many exceeded temperature records for May. And those high temperatures kept hanging on, said Zachary Labe, a climate scientist at the nonprofit science center Climate Central, for nearly two weeks.
While heat waves are a natural phenomenon, this was the earliest and most widespread one ever recorded in the Southwest. And it wasย caused by climate change, which isย making intense heat waves much more likely. Researchers say this means understanding their fallout is even more important.
Source: Climate Central. Map by Nick Underwood/High Country News
Scientists are just now beginning to understand the ramifications of a devastating 2021 heat wave, when a massive heat dome brought 120-degree temperatures to the Pacific Northwest, causing widespread ecological damage. Tens of thousands of trees died. Baby birds that could not yet fly plummeted to the ground as they tried to escape the heat. Salmon and trout suffocated in small streams. Millions โ perhaps even billions โ of mussels and barnacles cooked.
This yearโs heat wave may not have had the same immediate ecological impacts, but it comes on the heels of an already record-breaking hot, dry winter. Researchers say 2021 holds lessons about what lies ahead for both vulnerable and resilient species. Ecosystems, they warn, are likely to permanently change as some species simply canโt handle the heat.
FULLY UNDERSTANDING the impact that events like heat waves have on long-lived tree species takes time. Research is now trickling out from places like Washington, Oregon and British Columbia, and itโs not good.
The 2021 heat wave either killed or otherwise harmed more than three-quarters of species surveyed, including by limiting their reproductive success, according to Julia Baum, a professor at University of Victoria who co-wrote a recent paper on the long-term impacts. The hardest hit, perhaps unsurprisingly, were those unable to move to seek shade or cooler temperatures. Marine species like acorn barnacles and green rope seaweed fared the worst, as did kelp, surfgrass and rockweed.
โThe rocky shorelines they live on heated up to (122 Fahrenheit). Think of being glued to hot concrete on the most scorching summer day: They essentially baked and died,โ said Baum. โOn land, wildflowers wilted and died, preventing entire populations from reproducing that year, and there was widespread leaf scorch and death in forests.โ
Some species that could move modified their behavior: Ferruginous hawks reduced their flight time by about 81%, while wolves moved around more, perhaps seeking hunkered-down prey like mule deer and moose.
Meanwhile, species already adapted to hotter or more variable temperature ranges adjusted better than others.
The heat waveโs timing also mattered, saidย Adam Sibley, a remote sensing scientist andย co-author of a 2025 paperย that examined the impact on trees and forests. Plants tend to acclimate to heat throughout a season, so the triple-digit temperatures that struck in June hit harder than they would have in August.
Example of heat damage to the new growth on Douglas-fir. Credit: Dave Shaw/Oregon State University
So many tree needles died, in fact, that when Sibley drove to the Oregon coast with friends a few days after the heat wave ended, the tree canopy looked as though it had been dusted with orange snow.
New buds and needles are fragile for a number of reasons, said Christopher Still, a forest ecology professor at Oregon State University. Many contain fatty membranes that, when super-heated, will melt and cause the leaf to fall apart. Young leaves and needles also lack โheat hardeningโ mechanisms like specialized proteins that stabilize mature leaves and needles when itโs hot.
Many larger, more well-established trees, such as Douglas fir, lost a growing season: Their needles fell off, but grew back the following year. Other trees died, especially younger ones and species like Sitka spruce and western red cedar that require cooler, wetter temperatures.
The 2021 heat wave also rapidly dried grasses, flowers and other fine fuels, leading to record-breaking wildfires in the Pacific Northwest, according to a 2024 paper in the journal Nature.
WHILE THE TIMING of this yearโs heat wave surprised many climatologists, the fact that it arrived in March may have ultimately saved some Southwestern plants, said Osvaldo Sala, a professor and director of Arizona State Universityโs Global Drylands Center.
During the hottest period, he explained, many plants were still dormant. Desert plants tie their growing cycles to rain and moisture instead of heat or sun duration. That means that, unlike in places like Wyoming, where cherry trees started blooming in March instead of May, desert plants were still waiting for rains to come.
Unfortunately, that early blooming has left the cherry trees and other flowering plants particularly susceptible to spring frosts, Still said.
The effects of this yearโs heat dome have only exacerbated the winterโs record-setting heat and drought, Still added. Snowpack across much of the West was abysmal; in many places, it was the worst in recorded history.
โThe heat dome put an exclamation point on the worst winter in a century,โ said Still. โIt was the worst possible way to end the winter that was already worse than normal.โ
Arizona is preparing for a legal battle over its rights to Colorado River water.
Following an extraordinarily dry winter along the river basin and whatโs expected to be an exceptionally hot and dry spring across the West, where high temperatures in March have already blown past records, the pressure to maintain access to the stateโs fair share of river water is growing.
The Colorado River is a vital source of drinking water for 40 million people in the seven basin states, Mexico and 30 Native American tribes, and provides water for farming operations and hydroelectricity.
Reaching a water usage agreement is imperative to the basin states as the riverโs water supply continues to decline, as it has done for the past 25 years due to a persistent drought spurred on by climate change.
On Monday, the Arizona Governorโs Office announced that it had retained the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell to represent the state in possible litigation among the Colorado River Basin states and the federal government.
Sullivan & Cromwell is an international firm based in New York City that has represented big names like Microsoft, BP, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase. The state is using some of the $3 million it put into its Colorado River legal defense fund last year to retain the law firm.
The Governorโs Office doesnโt expect to take any legal action until June at the earliest, but wants to be prepared for the possibility, especially if the dispute ends up before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Lower Basin states โ Arizona, Nevada and California โ and the Upper Basin states โ Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming โ have been negotiating an updated water usage agreement for more than two years.
But so far the states have blown past two deadlines to do so โ one in November and one in February โ and are quickly approaching October, when the existing usage agreement expires.
If the states canโt reach an agreement before that, the federal government will implement one of its draft plans, all of which would place an outsized burden on the Grand Canyon State.
Thatโs because the Central Arizona Project, a series of canals that supplies Colorado River water to the Valley and the Tucson area, is one of the newest users of the river water, making it legally one of the first to be cut.
But so far, the Upper Basin states have refused to agree to any federally mandated water usage cuts of their own. While the Lower Basin states insist that every state take their fair share, Upper Basin states have argued that theyโve never used their full allotment and already face regular cuts and shortages based on physical availability of water.
Arizona has offered to reduce its Colorado River allocation by 27%, California by 10%, and Nevada by nearly 17%.
Negotiators for Arizona also insist that the Upper Basin states be held to the original 1922 Colorado River Compact that requires them to release a 10-year rolling average of at least 75 million acre-feet of water to the Lower Basin, in addition to one-half of the annual allotment owed to Mexico, for a total of about 80.2 million acre-feet.
An acre-foot of water represents enough to cover an acre of land to a depth of one foot, or about 325,851 gallons. Thatโs enough to provide three homes in Arizona a year of water, on average.
So far, the Upper Basin states have held to the original release agreement. But as water levels in the two major reservoirs on the river, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, continue to decline, itโs expected that the Upper Basin states will be unable to meet that requirement as early as 2027.
When the states entered into the original Colorado River Compact in 1922, they allocated 7.5 million acre-feet of water each year to be shared by the Upper Basin states and another 7.5 million to be used among the Lower Basin states.
Since then, the states have updated their water usage guidelines several times, even though the apportionments remain the same. But Lower Basin states face cuts mandated by the federal government during times of drought and Upper Basin states do not. In 2025, for the fifth year in a row, the federal government imposed drought-based cuts, and Arizonaโs amounted to a loss of 512,000 acre-feet of water for the year.
Under current allocations, Arizona has rights to 2.8 million acre feet of water per year, and has implemented 800,000 acre feet in reductions per year. In contrast, Colorado has rights to 3.8 million acre feet a year, although it uses an average of 1.9 million acre feet, annually.
However, Colorado doesnโt always get that full allotment, because it relies mostly on melted snowpack for its water, which varies from year to year. This yearโs snowpack levels are historically low, forcing water providers in the Upper Basin to place restrictions on usage based on availability and state law.
Upper Basin states argue that they regularly deal with annual shortages based on physical availability and the state laws that govern how the Upper Basin water is shared, with average annual shortages of about 1.3 million acre feet.
The Lower Basin states have undertaken significant conservation efforts for Colorado River water since 2014 and have reduced their consumption from 7.4 million acre-feet in 2015 to just over 6 million in 2024.
The Upper Basin states have increased their usage in the past five years, from 3.9 million acre-feet in 2021 to 4.4 million in 2024. The federal governmentโs draft plans allow for the Upper Basin states to use even more water.
Gov. Katie Hobbsโs proposed budget for this year would put another $1 million toward the Colorado River Legal Defense fund, and lawmakers earlier this month gave preliminary approval to doing just that.
Even as Arizona prepares for a legal battle, the state plans to continue attempting to reach an agreement with the other river basin states, according to the Governorโs Office.
โGovernor Hobbs is committed to working with the federal government and other Colorado River states to deliver a negotiated settlement that protects Arizonaโs fair share of water and stabilizes the system,โ spokesman for Hobbs Christian Slater said. โHowever, itโs critical that Arizona be prepared to defend ourselves in court if an agreement cannot be reached or the Law of the River is violated.โ
Map of the Colorado River drainage basin, created using USGS data. By Shannon1 Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0
This proposed pipeline divert water from the Atchafalaya River in Louisiana through Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and up to the Glen Canyon Dam. Credit: Don Siefkes
Click the link to read the article on the AZCentral website (Joan Meiners). Here’s an excerpt:
May 3, 2026
Key Points
The idea of building a pipeline to move water from eastern states to the dry West is frequently proposed to solve water shortages.
Experts argue a cross-country pipeline is technically feasible but prohibitively expensive, legally complex and environmentally risky.
Many officials and environmentalists believe more practical solutions involve local conservation, water storage and regional management.
…Kyle Roerink, executive director of the Great Basin Water Network, an organization that works to promote water conservation in the West and has opposed several water pipeline projects, says that “exporting water from the Mississippi Delta will never be a sensible or reasonable solution.” His list of explanations include the “astronomical cost” stemming from eminent domain, permitting, construction, energy management and staffing fees, and the intractability of managing healthful water quality over such vast distances with so many pollution inputs…The southeastern states may also not be as eager to get rid of their water as Arizonans might assume. Coastal erosion due to climate-worsened hurricanes, drilling and other factors mean the Mississippi Deltaย needs all the sediment transported downstream by its major rivers. The Mississippi’s flows play a role, too, in diluting agricultural chemicals causing hypoxic dead zones in the Gulf as the region navigates its own experiences with unpredictable drought. On top of these broad limitations โ which entities across the aisle including the Goldwater Institute, a conservative policy think tank, have deemed “cost prohibitive” as well as practically and environmentally infeasible โ there are complex legal water rights obstacles that likely run deeper than the Trump administration’s ability to override.
“The issue of water rights management would be a Byzantine nightmare for such a large scale project,” Roerink told The Republic. “The Mississippi isn’t adjudicated under one set of laws. It is governed under many doctrines in many states. Just as in the West, eastern states have differing state laws governing water allocations in their respective jurisdictions. There are mixes of riparian and appropriation doctrines governing use. The legal framework leads me to believe that the only thing this pipeline would be good for are lawyers who practice in the U.S. Supreme Court.”
[…]
None of this has stopped Arizona leaders, as reader Lisa Nelson asked about, from formally considering cross-country water pipeline proposals. In 2021, the Arizona Legislatureย voted to appropriate $160 millionย into a fund to consider importing water from as far as the Mississippi River. In late 2024, Chuck Podolak, director of the Water Infrastructure Finance Authority of Arizonaย told KUNC’s Alex Hagerย that the idea still deserves โserious attention.โ
โWeโre seeing things never seen before, in all the records that weโve kept in the last 100 plus years,โ Jones said. โI mean, weโve not seen that here in the valley.โ
He believes theyโve already seen high flows in the river back in March, when it usually happens in June. The city of Clifton primarily gets its water from the Colorado River, either pumped directly from the stream or fed through Grand Valley Irrigation. If the irrigation system runs out of water, Jones said residents may turn to treated drinking water for their lawns, which could put constraints on treatment plants.
โOur treatment plants canโt handle that demand if everybody starts wanting to water their lawns with our water,โ he said.
In the Colorado River Basin, water year 2026 will go down in history…while also deepening the present crisis and casting a harsh light on the challenges of the future.
After yet another much drier- and warmer-than-normal month, NOAA CBRFC’s latest (May 1st) official 50% exceedance forecast for Lake Powell April-July inflows slid down to 800 KAF–an are-you-kidding-me 13% of average.
On my spaghetti plot for the past 36 years of Powell forecasted and observed inflows, the 2026 ‘most-probable’ forecast is now below the record-low volume in 2002 (963 KAF). It’s also below the April 1st 2026 70% exceedance forecast (950 KAF) that I said last month we should entertain as a more likely outcome, given the propensity and outlook for dry weather this spring.
If there’s any shine to put on this absolute turd of a water year, it’s that thanks to the extreme rain event in mid-October focused on the San Juan basin, and the early snowmelt, Lake Powell got 2200 KAF of inflow between October 1st and April 1st. That’s below normal, but not nearly as far below as the April-July flow will be.
And in the month of April, Powell got 366 KAF of inflow, which sets the absolute floor for the total April-July inflow volume–that is, the May 1st 50% forecast of 800 KAF includes that April inflow of 366 KAF. (As of May 5th, the observed inflow since April 1st is up to 403 KAF.)
So 2026 will end up as a very “front-loaded” water year, with most of the flow occurring outside of the April-July peak-runoff period, which typically accounts for ~80% of the water-year total. But even with that boost from the October storms, 2026 will end up rivaling, if not exceeding, 1977 and 2002 as the driest-ever water year.
Here’s the NOAA CBRFC Powell inflows forecast page and 2026 forecast evolution plot: https://lnkd.in/gCquGDEW
Udall/Overpeck 4-panel Figure Colorado River temperature/precipitation/natural flows with trend. Lake Mead and Lake Powell storage. Updated through Water Year 2025. Note the tiny points on the annual data so that you can flyspeck the individual years. Credit: Brad Udall
From left, J.B. Hamby, chair of the Colorado River Board of California, Tom Buschatzke, Arizona Department of Water Resources; Becky Mitchell, Colorado representative to the Upper Colorado River Commission. Hamby and Buschatzke acknowledged during this panel at the Colorado River Water Users Association annual conference that the lower basin must own the structural deficit, something the upper basin has been pushing for for years. CREDIT: TOM YULSMAN/WATER DESK, UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO, BOULDER
Click the link to read the article on the Tucson.com website (Tony Davis). Here’s an excerpt:
May 5, 2026
The federal government has agreed to pump more than $450 million into programs to carry out additional Colorado River water conservation, Arizona Department of Water Resources chief Tom Buschatzke said Monday. The spending is necessary to makeย the new proposal from Arizona, Nevada and Californiaย work, Buschatzke and other water officials said Friday in releasing their offer to save 700,000 to 1 million acre-feet of river water through 2028. A million acre-feet is the equivalent of approximately 10 years’ worth of Colorado River deliveries to Tucson Water. The U.S. Interior Department proposed that the money be spent, and the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, which must sign off on all federal expenditures, approved it, Buschatze said at a news briefing Monday afternoon on the new plan from the three Lower Colorado River Basin states…J.B. Hamby, California’s Colorado River commissioner, said later Monday that what Buschatzke said is also his understanding of the federal government’s position. The federal funding offer would require the Lower Basin states to engage in a cost-sharing effort to contribute money to the water-saving scheme, Buschatzke said.
Crystal Springs in the Ash Meadow National Wildlife Refuge. Photo by Pahrump Photography
by Robert Marcos
The water in Amargosa Valley is a scientific oddity in that it serves as a living time capsule, and it supports life in one of our planet’s harshest environments. The Amargosa River flows underground for roughly 185 miles – surfacing only occasionally to create lush oases in the Mojave Desert.
Here are some remarkable aspects of this unique water system:
Ancient “Fossil Water”: Much of the groundwater in the Amargosa Basin is fossil water that was recharged during the last Ice Age, between 10,000 and 100,000 years ago. The water travels through a massive regional aquifer of limestone and dolomite rock from sources as far away as the Spring Mountains.1
A “Bottomless” Cavern: The system feeds Devils Hole, a water-filled limestone cavern in the Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge. Divers have never found its bottom, but it has been explored to depths of over 500 feet.
Geological Sensitivity: The water level in Devils Hole is so precisely tuned to the Earth’s crust that it acts like a giant seismograph. Massive earthquakes thousands of miles away in Japan or Mexico have caused “tsunamis” several feet high inside this tiny desert pool.2
Two male Devils Hole Pupfish. Photographed by Olin Feuerbacher / USFWS
Extremophile Habitats: The valley’s springs support the Devils Hole pupfish, which has the smallest habitat of any vertebrate species on Earth. These fish survive in water that is 93ยฐF and nearly devoid of oxygen, conditions that would be lethal to most other fish. The pupfish are closely monitored by an interagency group – consisting of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service, and the Nevada Department of Wildlife. Scientists from these agencies frequently count the number of fish, collect their eggs, and are are undertaking captive rearing and “population augmentation” (which means they release captive-bred fish into the water in order to support the existing population, which is struggling).
Global Biodiversity Hotspot: Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge is home to 26 endemic species of plants and animals that exist nowhere else on Earth. This high concentration of unique life, isolated in “islands of water” within the Mojave Desert, has earned the area the nickname “The Galapagos of the Desert”. The endangered fish include the Devils Hole pupfish, Warm Springs pupfish, Ash Meadows Amargosa pupfish, and the Ash Meadows speckled dace. Several unique species of endemic plants include the Amargosa niterwortthe Ash Meadows milkvetch, the Ash Meadows blazingstar and Spring-loving centaury.3
Deep-Fault Thermal Springs: The heat in local thermal springs, such as those near Tecopa, is likely caused by deep water circulation along faults rather than a shallow volcanic heat source. The geothermally-heated water in the Amargosa Valley – including the water at Devils Hole, is heavily influenced by the region’s limestone and dolomite bedrock. As rainwater from the nearby Spring Mountains moves through deep underground fractures, it is heated by the Earth’s core and dissolves various minerals along the way.4
Widespread soaking rains fell across Texas and the Deep South, bringing a much needed moisture boost to these drought stricken areas. While sufficient to ease drought conditions across portions of Texas, the lower Mississippi Valley, and the Tennessee Valley, drought conditions remained mostly unchanged across southeastern Alabama, Georgia and northwestern Florida, where soil moisture and streamflows remain extremely low. Lighter rainfall also overspread the Northeast, which, combined with cooler temperatures helped slow the advancement of drought, and improved drought conditions in Maine. Where lighter accumulations occurred, there was slight expansion of drought and abnormal dryness across portions of the mid-Atlantic, Hudson Valley, and southeastern New England. Cooler temperatures and mostly dry weather overspread the Plains and Midwest. While drought conditions continued to expand across the Plains, the drier weather was mostly welcome across the upper Midwest and Corn Belt, allowing fieldwork to progress. Hot, dry weather promoted degradation across Arizona and northwestern Washington, while late season moisture across northern California did little to change the meager snowpack conditions…
Light to moderate precipitation overspread much of the High Plains, with the heaviest accumulations (0.5 – 1.5 inch) falling across central Colorado, including late season snow across the higher elevations. This precipitation resulted in some drought reduction across central Colorado. Across the rest of the Plains, however, the moisture was not sufficient to engender substantive improvements. Despite cooler temperatures lowering evapotranspiration rates, some degradation occurred across Kansas and Nebraska, and far western North Dakota…
Colorado Drought Monitor one week change map ending May 5, 2026.
Outside of northern California, where late season moisture provided a boost to short-term streamflows and soil moisture but did little to change the unusually low snow cover across the northern Sierras, seasonably dry weather overspread most of the West. Recent moisture eased drought conditions across far western Montana. While little change to the drought depiction occurred across the West, hot, dry conditions exacerbated impacts across Arizona, resulting in some substantial degradation. Short term dryness also increased across northwestern Washington, resulting in expansion of D0.
Following last week’s beneficial rainfall, additional rain overspread much of Texas and Louisiana over the last several days, sparking additional drought reductions. Rainfall across central and western Texas eased drought across the upper Rio Grande Valley as well. Despite the beneficial rainfall, widespread severe to exceptional drought continues across the South Region, and it will take a sustained series of heavy precipitation events to begin any widespread easing of impacts. The beneficial rainfall missed the Texas Panhandle and western Oklahoma, where poor conditions continue to affect rangeland and winter wheat. Drought conditions also expanded across Arkansas…
Looking Ahead
During the next 7 days, an active pattern is favored to continue across the Southeast, with heavy rainfall (2 – 7 inches) possible along a swath from eastern Texas through southern Alabama. These rains would continue to bring drought relief and also a threat of severe weather. Lesser accumulations are favored across Georgia and Florida, which may limit the extent of any improvements. Widespread precipitation is also favored along the Ohio Valley and across the eastern seaboard, with the greatest potential for relief across the Northeast. Somewhat drier conditions across the mid-Atlantic may limit the potential for drought improvement. Light accumulations forecast across the Plains may do little to ease drought conditions, while another week of seasonable dryness is forecast across the West. Above-average temperatures across the West favor an acceleration of snowmelt, which may bring short term reservoir boosts but leaves the water supply even more short as summer approaches. Below-average temperatures are favored for the eastern half of the CONUS.
During the 8-14 day period, above-average temperatures are favored for much of the lower-48, with near normal temperatures forecast for the Northeast. Above-average precipitation is forecast for the southern tier, with the highest probabilities across Texas, eastern New Mexico, and Louisiana. A slight tilt towards above-normal precipitation extends across the Great Lakes Region into the Northeast, while below-average precipitation is favored for the northern Rockies.
US Drought Monitor one week change map ending May 5, 2026.
Click the link to read the discussion on the CBRFC website:
Theย Colorado Basin River Forecast Center (CBRFC)ย geographic forecast area includes the Upper Colorado River Basin (UCRB), Lower Colorado River Basin (LCRB), and Eastern Great Basin (GB).
Water Supply Forecasts
April-July volume forecasts are well below normal and rank in the driest five on record at many locations. Record low snowpack and poor soil moisture conditions are the primary hydrologic conditions impacting the water supply outlook, while future weather is a primary source of forecast uncertainty. May 1 water supply forecasts are summarized in the figure and table below.
May 1, 2026 seasonal water supply forecast summary.
Water Year Weather
The 2025โ26 meteorological winter (DecemberโFebrurary) was the warmest winter on record for vast swaths of the CBRFC area. It was the driest March on record at numerous SNOTEL sites across the CBRFC area, and an unprecedented heatwave during the last half of March led to significant snowmelt. April weather was cooler and wetter compared to March, with most areas receiving near normal April precipitation. The figures and table below summarize water year 2026 precipitation.
Water year 2026 precipitation summary.
Snowpack Conditions
Snow water equivalent (SWE) has been tracking at or below record low for the past several months. The significant heatwave during the last half of March led to historically low April 1 snow water equivalent conditions across the region. An early April NRCS-Utah Snow Survey Special Report stated that โat no time since systematic snowpack measurements began around 1930 has April 1 snowpack been this low in the state of Utah, and 2026 SWE is roughly five times lower than the previous record lowโ . A similar analysis performed in early April by the Colorado Climate Center concluded that โthis has been the worst year for Colorado snowpack in recorded history, and most locations have less than half of the previous record lowโ
Precipitation during April led to modest snow accumulation and reduced snowmelt rates due to cooler and cloudier weather. However, May 1 SWE remains at record low values at many SNOTEL stations across UT, WY, and CO. May 1 SWE across the UCRB and GB is generally less than 30% of normal and below the 10thย percentile. SWE conditions are more favorable, but still well below normal across northern areas including the headwaters of the Upper Green and the Bear River Basin. SWE conditions are summarized in the figure and table below.
Left: May 1, 2026 SWE – NRCS SNOTEL observed (squares) and CBRFC hydrologic model. Right: CBRFC hydrologic model SWE conditions summary.
Soil Moisture
CBRFC hydrologic model soil moisture conditions impact water supply forecasts. Basins with above average soil moisture conditions can be expected to experience more efficient runoff from rainfall or snowmelt while basins with below average soil moisture conditions can be expected to have lower runoff efficiency until soil moisture deficits are fulfilled. The timing and magnitude of spring runoff is impacted by snowpack conditions, spring weather, and soil moisture conditions.
Mid-November 2025 soil moisture conditions were below normal across most areas as a result of warmer and drier than normal weather during the 2025 water year. Higher elevation soil moisture/baseflow conditions typically donโt change much during winter months as snow is accumulating. However, this has not been the case this season. Early April CBRFC model soil moisture conditions were generally above average due to snow melt that occurred during the late March heatwave. Early May soil moisture conditions are generally below average across lower elevations, with near average soil moisture conditions across higher elevations. CBRFC hydrologic model soil moisture conditions are shown in the figures below.
CBRFC hydrologic model soil moisture conditions as a percent of the 1991โ2020 average – Mid-November 2025 (left) and early May 2026 (right).
Upcoming Weather
Weather during the first week of May has been unsettled across the CBRFC area, including a significant winter storm across the mountains of Wyoming and Colorado. Warmer and drier conditions will develop in the coming days. The 7-day precipitation forecast and the Climate Prediction Center (CPC) 8โ14 day temperature and precipitation outlooks are shown in the figures below.
7-day precipitation forecast for May 6โ12, 2026.
Climate Prediction Center precipitation and temperature probability forecasts for May 14โ20, 2026.
A (presumably) autonomous mine haul truck at Mariana Mineralโs newly acquired Lisbon Valley copper mine in southeastern Utah. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
Every six months or so I like to do a recon of the Lisbon Valley in southeastern Utah, a long-time sacrifice zone for uranium and copper mining, oil and gas drilling, natural gas processing, and now lithium extraction โ not to mention cattle grazing โ to see about the latest developments. My takeaway from my latest visit: The sacrifice continues โ both in a real sense and a speculative one.
The speculation is in the form of a rush to stake mining claims on nearly every inch of available public land in the valley. This phenomenon isnโt readily apparent on the ground, but showed up indirectly in the form of orange No Trespassing signs posted on public roads in one specific area. Except they arenโt really prohibiting trespassing โ that would be illegal. They are just pointing out that the Lisbon Valley Mining Company has already claimed all of the public land around there, so new would-be claimants should just stay away.
Photo credit: Jonathan P. Thompson
Meanwhile, after shutting down in 2024 due to high costs and staffing challenges, the Lisbon Valley copper mine, which posted the signs, is back in business. Late last year Mariana Minerals, backed by the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, purchased the then-idled mine. Marianaโs CEO is Turner Caldwell, who previously ran Teslaโs battery minerals unit. Perhaps it was his cybertruck that sat in the mineโs parking lot when I drove by recently.
At the mineโs grand reopening ceremony last month, Caldwell said he was hoping to โfundamentally reinvent how infrastructure is built, how mines are operated and how refineries are operated.โ This includes using autonomous drills, equipment, and haul trucks, as well as robots to do inspections and conduct more hazardous work.
This purportedly will allow the operation to increase production from about 2,500 tons annually under the previous ownership, to a target of 50,000 tons per year by 2030 โ an enormous jump. Historically, the most the mine produced was about 10,000 tons annually. But last year the BLM approved the companyโs proposed expansion of its open pit operations and to add an in-situ extraction operation โ a prospect that alarmed nearby residents concerned about contamination of aquifers.
Caldwell is vague about the number of jobs the revived operation will create. On the one hand, heโs said he plans on hiring โhundredsโ of new workers and invest over $1 billion. On the other, the autonomous equipmentโs main asset is that it alleviates past staffing difficulties. As of early May, the Mariana website advertised just 19 open jobs at the Lisbon Valley site. That includes several salaried positions, with pay ranging from $100,000 to about $180,000 per year, as well as drillers, equipment operators, and mechanics at $25 to $45 per-hour wages. Interns could earn $30/hour.
Whether any of that will be enough to afford housing in Moab or even La Sal or Monticello is unclear.
I passed through there on a Sunday, and things were quiet. One haul truck was sitting in the pit, and it appeared as if it was running but it wasnโt doing any hauling. I couldnโt get close enough to confirm that there was no human driver, but the cab did look empty. There were no robots in sight.
Meanwhile, down in Arizonaโs copper country, the Center for Biological Diversity, the San Carlos Apache Tribe, and the Lower San Pedro Watershed Alliance filed an intent to sue the Trump administration over its approval of Faradayโs Copper Creek exploratory drilling project east of Mammoth, Arizona, saying it violates the Endangered Species Act.
The exploratory project, a precursor to actual mining, includes 67 drill pads, along with associated roads and infrastructure, on about 78 square kilometers in the Galiuro Mountains in the Lower San Pedro Watershed. Each drill rig requires tens of thousands of gallons of water in an area where communities are facing water shortages and the riparian ecosystem is stressed by prolonged drought. The groupsโ lawsuit focuses on the drillingโs impacts on the imperiled Mexican spotted owl and other wildlife.
โThe Lower San Pedro watershed is one of Arizonaโs most important wildlife corridors, and this exploration project is pushing industrial disturbance into a landscape that is already under pressure,โ said Melissa Crytzer Fry, chair for the Lower San Pedro Watershed Alliance. โWhen agencies ignore clear evidence and fail to follow the law, local communities are left to defend the river, the habitat and the species that make this place irreplaceable.โ
๐ Colorado River Chronicles ๐ง
If youโre bummed out about the reduced releases from Glen Canyon Dam โ and the associated drop in streamflows in the Grand Canyon โ you might try going upstream a ways and boating the Green River or the Colorado River below the confluence of the two. On May 1, the Bureau of Reclamation upped releases from Flaming Gorge Dam to full power plant capacity, or 4,600 cubic feet per second. Then, on May 4, they started allowing an additional 4,000 cfs to flow through the damโs bypass to implement a larval trigger study plan (and to bolster Lake Powellโs levels).
Hydrograph showing releases from Flaming Gorge Dam. On May 1 they jumped to 4,600 cfs and then again increased to about 9,000 cfs on May 4. Source: NOAA/CBRFC
Today (May 5) the Bureau was releasing about 9,000 cfs from the dam. While the first pulse (the May 1 release) has made it downstream, the second one has yet to reach Ouray, Utah, if the USGS streamflow gage is any indication. But as that 9k cfs makes it downstream, it should make for some good boating โ or at least better than youโd expect during such a dry year โ not only on the Green, but also in Cataract Canyon. Whether it will bail out Lake Powell is another question altogether.
The Green Riverโs โnaturalโ spring runoff occurred in late March and early April. Now an artificially induced one is in its full throes. Whether it will be larger than last year will be determined in the next couple of weeks. Source: USGS.
๐บ๏ธ Messing with Maps ๐งญ
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the Trump administrationโs mapping tool, aimed at making America graze again, showing โpotentially availableโ (i.e. vacant) grazing allotments on public lands. Now the mapping folks at Center for Biological Diversity have taken that map, and overlain it with areas of endangered speciesโ critical habitat and BLM allotment health status. It can be a little overwhelming to navigate because of all the different layers and colors. But you can turn layers on and off to make it easier to use, and itโs valuable for just understanding the landscape in general.
Image created by Google Gemini, May 6th, 2026, from the prompt: “generate a funny picture of a skeleton wearing a beach hat in the desert”.
by Robert Marcos, photojournalist
Water that’s banked in Lake Mead is officially called “Intentionally Created Surplus“, or ICS. The ICS allows major water users in the lower basin to store conserved or unused Colorado River water in the reservoir for their future use.
As of May 2026, Lake Mead’s water volume was 8.3 million acre-feet – or roughly a third of its total capacity. But after publishing this article we were made aware that we should subtract Lake Mead’s 2.3 MAF deadpool from that amount, which brings it down to about 6 MAF. Currently the ICS holds about 2.3 million acre feet of that water, which represents about 38% of Lake Mead’s available water.
Here’s a list of the water agencies and the estimated amount of water that each of them have currently banked in Lake Mead –
Arizona: According to official tracking from the USBR and the CAP, the state of Arizonaโs total balance of accumulated Intentionally Created Surplus water stored in Lake Mead as of May 15th is approximately 310,000 to 350,000 acre-feet.
California: As of May 2026,ย Californiaย has roughlyย 1.2 to 1.4 million acre-feetย of water banked inย Lake Meadย through the ICS and other conservation programs. Major participants include the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the Imperial Irrigation District, and the Palo Verde Irrigation District.4
Nevada: As of May 2026, Nevada has approximately 479,184 acre-feet of water banked in Lake Mead through the ICS program. This total represents a major portion of Nevada’s overall “water savings account,” which includes several different banking locations and programs.5
Mexico: As of May 2026,ย Mexicoย has approximatelyย 200,000 acre feetย of water banked inย Lake Meadย through theย ICS program and related binational agreements. Mexico was granted the right to store water in Lake Mead following a 2010 earthquake that damaged its irrigation infrastructure. By 2026, these stored volumes have stabilized at around 200,000 acre-feet as Mexico uses the lake as a buffer against shortages.7
Click the link to read the article on the USDA website (Ciji Taylor):
April 27, 2026
This is likely no surprise to you, but drought persists across the U.S. and is intensifying in some areas. No geographic area is immune to the potential of drought at any given time. The U.S. Drought Monitorย provides a weekly drought assessment, and it plays an important role in USDA programs that help farmers and ranchers recover from drought.
The Facts
Fact #1 – Numerous agencies use the Drought Monitor to inform drought-related decisions.
The map identifies areas of drought and labels them by intensity on a weekly basis. It categorizes the entire country as being in one of six levels of drought. The first two, None and Abnormally Dry (D0), are not considered to be drought. The next four describe increasing levels of drought: Moderate (D1), Severe (D2), Extreme (D3) and Exceptional (D4).
Fact #2 – U.S. Drought Monitor is made with more than precipitation data.
When you think about drought, you probably think about water, or the lack of it. Precipitation plays a major role in the creation of the Drought Monitor, but the mapโs author considers numerous indicators, including drought impacts and local insight from over 450 expert observers around the country. Authors use several dozen indicators to assess drought, including precipitation, streamflow, reservoir levels, temperature and evaporative demand, soil moisture and vegetation health. Because the drought monitor depicts both short and longโterm drought conditions, the authors must look at data for multiple timeframes. The final map produced each week represents a summary of the story being told by all the pieces of data. To help tell that story, authors donโt just look at data. They converse over the course of the map-making week with experts across the country and draw information about drought impacts from media reports and private citizens.
Fact #3 – A real person, using real data, updates the map.
Each weekโs map author, not a computer, processes and analyzes data to update the drought monitor. The map authors are trained meteorologists from the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (the academic partner and website host of the Drought Monitor), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and USDA. The authorโs job is to do what a computer canโt โ use their expertise to reconcile the sometimes-conflicting stories told by each stream of data into a single assessment.
Fact #4 – The Drought Monitor provides a current snapshot, not a forecast.
The Drought Monitor is a โsnapshotโ of conditions observed during the most recent week and builds off the previous weekโs map. The map is released on Thursdays and depicts conditions based on data for the week that ended the preceding Tuesday. Rain that falls on the Wednesday just before the USDMโs release wonโt be reflected until the next map is published. This provides a consistent, weekโtoโweek product and gives the author a window to assess the data and come up with a final map.
Fact #5 โ Your input can be part of the drought-monitoring process.
State observers in the drought monitoring network relay on-the-ground information from numerous sources to the US Drought monitor author each week. That can include information that you contribute.
The Drought Monitor serves as a trigger for multiple forms of federal disaster relief for agricultural producers, and sometimes producers contact the author to suggest that drought conditions in their area are worse than what the latest drought monitor shows. When the author gets a call like that, it prompts them to look closely at all available data for that area, to see whether measurements of precipitation, temperature, soil moisture and other indicators corroborate producer-submitted reports. This is the process that authors follow whether they receive one report or one hundred reports, although reports from more points may help state officials and others know where to look for impacts.
There are multiple ways to contribute your observations:
There are multiple ways to contribute your observations:
Submit CMOR reports โ Use theย Condition Monitoring Observer Report (CMOR)ย system to provide information and photos about how drought is affecting your area. Your report will appear immediately on anย interactive mapย and will help Drought Monitor authors and others interpret weather data.
The dusty Acequia Madre de Caรฑon de Chama, pictured above April 28, 2026, will soon divert Rio Chama water toward historic orchards the San Joaquรญn del Rio de Chama Land Grant first planted more than 200 years ago, thanks to a new agreement between the land grant and the Santa Fe National Forest. (Photo courtesy Leonard Martinez)
Click the link to read the article on the Source NM website (Patrick Lohman):
May 5, 2026
A dusty acequia in northern New Mexico, which more than 200 years ago diverted water from the Rio Chama, will soon spring to life again, nourishing freshly planted orchards of plums, apples and apricots.
Thatโs the idyllic scene envisioned through a new agreement between the Santa Fe National Forest and heirs of the San Joaquรญn del Rio de Chama Land Grant. The parties say the โmemorandum of understandingโ they signed in late March marks the potential thawing of more than a century of tension between New Mexico land grants and the federal government.
The agreement, which the Santa Fe National Forest Service provided to Source NM through a public records request, identifies the acequia restoration as a โproject of mutual interest.โ It also recognizes the land grant as a consulting partner to the Forest Service and provides it greater input into the landโs future use.
Leonard Martinez, president of the land grant, told Source NM that the nine-page agreement is a โhistoric document,โ one that marks the first such formal agreement between land grants and the Forest Service. He said heโs spent nearly every day since the agreement was signed clearing the historic irrigation canal and working to reconnect it to the Rio Chama.
San Joaquin de Chama President Leonard Martinez said he has spent most every day since signing the memorandum of agreement digging out the old path of the acequia in the Caรฑon de Chama. (Photo courtesy Leonard Martinez)
If all goes well, he will open the headgates of the Acequia Madre de Caรฑon de Chama later this summer, sending Chama River water to irrigate a cover crop of alfalfa. Within five years, he hopes to replant historic orchards.
When that happens, he said, he hopes the โheirs who have left us,โ many of them still buried in a cemetery near the headgates, will approve of his efforts.
โThatโs the key here,โ he said. โWe want to put our orchards and our fields back in.โ
Santa Fe National Forest spokesperson Claudia Brookshire told Source NM that the agreement resulted from trust established through informal talks and individual projects.
โThe Forest Service has long been willing to work with land grants,โ Brookshire said in an email. โBut the lack of a formal framework, combined with trust barriers, made it difficult to begin projects on national forest system lands.โ
The Santa Fe National Forest is in early discussions to develop similar agreements with two other land grants, Brookshire said.
In 1806, Spanish Governor Joaquรญn del Real Alencaster charged 44 families with stewardship of a 470,000-acre swath of what was then the New Mexico Territory. By 1860, according to the land grant, more than 800 residents established roots there, cultivating land within the river valleys, pasturing livestock and gathering resources from the surrounding common lands, known as the โejido.โ
But after multiple lawsuits and land re-surveys over the ensuing decades, the federal government and land speculators acquired the land and evicted the residents. By 1905, the federal government recognized only about 1,500 acres of land along the Rio Chama as belonging to the land grant, but even that parcel ended up in the hands of the Rio Arriba Land and Cattle Company.
The parcel west of Abiquรญu, known as the Caรฑon de Chama, remained the companyโs property for decades before the federal government ultimately acquired it, as well. Today, all of the original San Joaquรญn del Rio de Chama Land Grant belongs to the Santa Fe National Forest or Carson National Forest.
Land grant heirs like Martinez have fought for more than a century to reassert their rights over the land, including seeking Forest Service permission to visit and care for the cemetery where their ancestors are buried.
The heirs ultimately received a Forest Service easement in 2013 to access the cemetery. Since then, Martinez and other land grant leaders have continued to pressure the Forest Service for more access, particularly to the Caรฑon de Chama, which heirs describe as culturally and historically significant.
Martinez told Source NM that the agreement is a result of trust built through the cemetery easement, he said, as well as guidance from the New Mexico Department of Justiceโs Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo Division.
The NMDOJ created the division in 2003 to oversee and address concerns related to the provisions of the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ushered in the United Statesโ governmentโs problematic land title confirmation process and stripped the San Joaquin land grant heirs of hundreds of thousands of acres of communal land.
New Mexico Rep. Miguel Garcia (D-Albuquerque) has spent much of his 30 years in office advocating for land grant heirs, including seeking recurring state funding and greater recognition of the historical injustice of the federal governmentโs land seizure.
While he said the new agreement represents a โgreat leap forwardโ and commended Martinez and others for their efforts, he said his ultimate goal remains for the Forest Service to return land it now controls to the land grants.โ
โThese land grants that lost these common lands have not ceded their right to that land,โ he said. โThey have not given up that hope.โ
To get to the river and listen, there is an intricate web of management issues, antiquated infrastructure, and century-old legal disputes to thrash through. Unless youโve gone outside in the Southwest lately. A 26-year drought is sucking the river dry, and unprecedented heat is rapidly evaporating this year’s record-low snowpack.
These two conditions are leading to low water levels at Lake Powell and Lake Mead, the nationโs two largest reservoirs. That, in turn, jeopardizes critical water infrastructure for a large swath of the West.
Reporting on this issue from the front lines, the growing margins of Lake Powell returning to Glen Canyon, made this reality strikingly clear. The riverโs returning are only a portion of this watershed story. There are major questions about how the Colorado River will make it past Glen Canyon Dam in a rapidly drying future. Whether you love or hate Lake Powell, this is not an issue of recreation; it is about water equity for millions of people, desert ecosystems, and wildlife.
A 1,500-word story is painfully insufficient to explain the breadth of this issue that threatens an entire watershed. Writing a book is starting to feel sane! Of course, I do not make this easy for myself, always crawling around in the desert and floating around the watershed. But there is good reason to take the long view. As I write Riverside (Torrey House Press 2027), my life will continue its pulse between the river and writing flash floods. My PFD is on tight. Thanks for hopping aboard.
Here are some photos taken throughout the watershed as I reported on the Colorado River for Sierra.
Low tide on Powell Reservoir. Photo credit: Morgan Sjogren
A river returns. Almost 50 miles of the San Juan, once inundated by Powell Reservoir, are flowing free. Photo credit: Morgan Sjogren
The humpback chub have inhabited the Colorado River watershed for 5 million years. The next 12-months might be their most critical to survival. Photo credit: Morgan Sjogren
The Little Colorado River, a Grand Canyon tributary, is a critical stronghold for the humpback chub. Photo credit: Morgan Sjogren
With such low flows, the Colorado River Basin will likely turn to pumping groundwater. The threat to springs affects the riverโs baseflows, which are significantly supported by groundwater and springs.
“There’s not economic adjustments that the birds can make. A payout doesn’t help the birds that use those habitats.”โโJennifer Pitt, Colorado River program director for Audubon. Photo credit: Morgan Sjogren
Last year, Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT) granted the Colorado River legal personhood under tribal law. Photo credit: Morgan Sjogren
“The final words of any story are transmitted from a laptop, but the writing process all happens out here, with the watershed.” — Morgan Sjogren
The Hoover Dam is a powerhouse! With an impressive output of about 3 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually, it provides enough energy to light up about 1 million households in Nevada, Arizona, and California, ensuring the lights stay on un the Southwest. Photo credit: USBR
Click the link to read the article on The Havasu News website (Alan Halaly). Here’s an excerpt:
May 1, 2026
In a Thursday joint statement, the Upper Colorado River Basin states of Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming called for โimmediate mediationโ in the yearslong deadlock with the Lower Colorado River Basin states of Nevada, California and Arizona. They offered no details about who could fill that role or which entity would pay for the costs.
โTime is short, but structured negotiations through mediation offer a new path for authentic discussions,โ New Mexicoโs Upper Colorado River Commissioner Estevan Lรณpez said in a statement. โEven at this late stage, we should pursue every opportunity to reach a workable agreement.โ
[…]
Asked about how a mediator could differ from the federal governmentโs intervention or the appointment of a so-called โwater masterโ at the U.S. Supreme Court, Entsminger said states are unlikely to view a mediatorโs decision-making as binding.
โItโs certainly not litigation; itโs not even arbitration,โ Entsminger said. โItโs more of a marriage counselor.โ
[…]
Colorado River Board of California Chairman JB Hamby said in a Tuesday statement that his state proposed a mediation process last year. California officials see the need for both long- and short-term solutions, and mediation could push the Upper Basin toward โverifiable water contributions,โ Hamby added.
โEffective mediation requires common ground, and the system cannot wait,โ Hamby said. โCurrent conditions require immediate, measurable water reductions from every state.โ
Map of the Colorado River drainage basin, created using USGS data. By Shannon1 Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0
The initial fill of Chimney Hollow Reservoir has concluded, and the reservoir currently has about 1,500 acre-feet of waterโless than 2 percent of the reservoir's full capacity of 90,000 acre-feet. Read more about the initial fill at https://t.co/WaxdbfiFWz. pic.twitter.com/ndlN3Y6zoV
— Chimney Hollow Reservoir (@ChimneyHollow) May 5, 2026
Tomatos being sorted by a farmer in the Mexicali Valley. Photo from Storyblocks
by Robert Marcos
Last week the lower basin states of Arizona, California, and Nevada, along with tribal leaders, offered to leave somewhere between 700,000 to a million acre-feet of water in the Colorado River system through 2027โ2028. The states described it as more than 3.2 million acre-feet of savings by 2028 and a way to stabilize Lake Mead and Lake Powell while longer-term negotiations continue.1
What caught my eye about this story is that Mexico – which by law had received 1.5 million acre feet of Colorado River water annually, was already conserving some of that water due to a previous agreement that promised to conserve 400,000 acre-feet between 2023โ2026.2
Reportedly, farmers south of the border are unhappy with these arrangements. Farmers in Mexicali Valley said they feel frustrated with the mandatory Colorado River water conservation, and they reported that they’ve been “cheated” out of resources they desperately need to survive. While Mexico agreed to specific water reductions as part of a binational plan with the U.S., many farmers in the Valle de Mexicali have reached a breaking point due to unpaid compensation.3
The prevailing sentiment of farmers in Mexicali Valley is characterized by the following:
Financial Betrayal: Many farmers in Northern Baja’s district 14 agreed to leave thousands of acres of land fallowed in order to conserve Colorado River water – in exchange for $4.5 million dollars in direct payments. However, they claim the Mexican government failed to pay them, which has left these farmers without any income whatsoever.4
Opposition to New Water Laws: Recent sweeping changes to Mexico’s national water law have stripped long-held water rights away from farmers, consolidating control in the hands of the federal government. Farmers view this as a move to prioritize urban centers like Tijuana and Ensenada over agricultural needs.
Sovereignty Concerns: There is a strong feeling that the Mexican government is surrendering national sovereignty by complying with U.S. water demands while its own agricultural sector suffers from “death” through deprivation.
Escalating Resistance: Farmers have responded with aggressive protests, including blockading major trade routes at the U.S.-Mexico border with semi-trucks and seizing control of critical dams. Some have even threatened to “spill” their water or return to farmingโeven if unprofitableโjust to prevent the government from redirecting it elsewhere.5
Friscoโs town manager can now implement water conservation measures outside of the standard triggers outlined in the townโs water code after an ordinance under consideration officially passed. Frisco Town Council approved Ordinance 26-10 on first reading at its April 14 meeting and adopted it on second reading at its April 28 meeting. The ordinance amends Article V of Chapter 171 in the town code to add the ability for the town to implement levels of its water restrictions if itโs determined that โsignificantly below-average snowpackโ or โsignificantly above average temperaturesโ or a combination of these factors, both existing or anticipated, pose a risk to the townโs ability to provide water.ย
Prior to the amendment, the code used certain streamflow and water well storage levels to trigger levels of the water restrictions…A town meeting recap stated that โas of March 31, the North Ten Mile Creek watershed, which provides Frisco with much of its water,โ had only roughly 7.3 inches of snow-water equivalent, which is about half as much liquid water stored in the snow compared to the five-year average.
โThe 2025โ2026 winter season produced historically low snowfall across the Rocky Mountain region, resulting in well-below-average snowpack levels that are critical to the Town of Friscoโs municipal water supply. Above-average spring temperatures have further exacerbated these conditions by accelerating snowmelt, increasing evapotranspiration, and driving higher wildfire conditions. These combined factors are significantly reducing available water supply at a time when seasonal demand will be increasing the Townโs daily water production by over 100%. Dillon Reservoir remains below historical storage levels, underscoring the vulnerability of the Townโs water resources and providing a real time visual reminder of just how limited the local hydrologic cycle is this year.โ
Due to the historically low snowfall, which has led to the most severe drought designation by the U.S. Drought Monitor, town staff recommended moving from the current Phase 1 voluntary measures to Phase 3 mandatory restrictions, which limits โnon-essential outdoor irrigation to two days per week in addition to other restrictions,โ according to the town recap.ย Staff explained itโs possible that North Ten Mile Creek may run dry due to the current conditions and forecasts, which would require the town to rely on its wells, โwhich have been resilient even when the reservoir has been very low.โ
While some major fossil fuel producers keep pushing for expanded oil and gas use, which is linked to warfare, economic shocks and ecological damage, more than 50 countries at the first Conference on Transitioning Away From Fossil Fuels began developing plans to shift toward renewable energy systems designed for stability and abundance rather than scarcity and conflict.
At the end of the conference, France, where fossil fuels still power about 60 percent of the worldโs seventh-largest economy, unveiled a pilot roadmapto phase out coal by 2030, oil by 2045 and gas by 2050, and to electrify sectors such as heating and transport. Colombiaโs draft roadmap to largely ditch fossil fuels by 2050 emphasizes that transitioning to renewables could deliver $280 billion for the country in economic benefits.
The countries represented in Santa Marta, Colombia, generate about one-third of global economic activity. They broadly agreed to align their trade and finance policies with their transition plans, potentially creating significant economic momentum toward the faster decarbonization needed to avoid overcooking the planet with greenhouse gases.
The conference can be seen as a climate diplomacy track running parallel with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, but on a faster train with friendlier passengers, said Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatuโs minister for climate change adaptation and a leader in efforts to accelerate climate action.
โItโs very heartening to have the Global North and the Global South in the same room, countries willing to talk about transitioning away from fossil fuels,โ he said.
Participants and observers described the meeting as a space where fossil fuels themselves, and not just their emissions, were discussed as the root cause of overlapping crises, from conflict and displacement to economic instability. At past UNFCCC climate talks, those connections were often downplayed, especially in official documents.
The conference was convened by the Netherlands and Colombia during the closing days of COP30 in Belรฉm, Brazil, late last year, as frustration grew over a small number of countries blocking any detailed discussions of phasing out fossil fuels. A follow-up meeting is set for early 2027 in Tuvalu, in the Pacific.
Organizers of the Santa Marta meeting also said the work of a special science panel associated with the conference is critical because media ecosystems are overloaded with climate and energy disinformation. Beyond policy details, discussions at the conference also revealed a shift in how energy is understood, shaped by lived experience and generational memory as much as by economics or technology.
Avoiding Past Mistakes
Until a few decades ago, coal miners were celebrated as heroes of prosperity, while kids grew up with โPut a Tiger in Your Tankโ ads promising open-road freedom. Fossil fuels were synonymous with progress; many of the people now shaping energy policy came of age in that world, and the story wasnโt necessarily wrong for that time. But in a more crowded, connected world, that same system is now driving instability and climate degradation, and resisting the transition away from fossil fuels seems like longing for horse-and-buggy transport.
For the countries in Santa Marta, itโs not a question of whether to change, itโs how to change without repeating past mistakes. Veteran policy makers shared space with a younger cohort of advocates and negotiators for whom renewable energy systems are a baseline assumption, not an aspirational goal. Many are from developing countries and experience the risks of fossil fuels as immediate rather than as theoretical, and they challenge the fossil fuel industryโs misleading narrative that their products are needed to alleviate poverty.
โWar right now is one of the largest contributors to the climate crisis,โ said Faotu Jeng, founder of Clean Earth Gambia, a nonprofit group that has sparked environmental progress. Jeng noted that military emissions are not accurately accounted for under the Paris Agreement, which aims to limit global warming.
What will Xcel propose for Pueblo as it makes plans for the retirement of the last of the Comanche coal-burning units in 2030? Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots
The Bureau of Reclamation has adjusted the release schedule from Navajo Dam due to downstream maintenance activities. On Tuesday, May 5th at 4:00 AM, the release will increase from 450 to 500 cubic feet per second (cfs). A further increase to 550 cfs is planned for Thursday, May 7th 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 Reclamationโs Navajo Dam website at https://www.usbr.gov/uc/water/crsp/cs/nvd.html
The Colorado River flows through Las Colonias Park in Grand Junction, Colo. on April 22, 2026. The river reached an extremely low level due to heavy diversion upstream and record low snowpack. CREDIT: LUKE RUNYON/THE WATER DESK
With drought and high temperatures putting unprecedented pressure on water users throughout Colorado, from cities to agriculture, thereโs one segment that can be affected first โ and maybe worst โ when it comes to a lack of water: rivers themselves and the ecosystems that depend on them.
As cities enact water restrictions and farmers and ranchers prepare for the worst, impacts of the water shortage are readily apparent in a chronically dry stretch of the Colorado River between Palisade and the confluence of the Gunnison River that is critical habitat for endangered fish, known as the 15-mile reach.
The Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program works to return water to this stretch of river in the Grand Valley, but because of this yearโs historically dry conditions, the program could have only 16,000 acre-feet, half its typical amount of water for fish.
Beyond that guaranteed amount, the program mostly uses water-sharing agreements that can secure additional acre-feet to boost flows โ but only when other users donโt need the water and can voluntarily loan it. This year finds nearly everyone who depends on the Colorado River and its tributaries in dire straits.
Ruedi Reservoir, above Basalt, on the Fryingpan River, April 22, 2026. Photo: Brent Gardner-Smith
There wonโt be any surplus water for fish in the Historic Users Pool, which is stored in Green Mountain Reservoir and is the largest source of water to potentially augment fish flows. A pool of water in Ruedi Reservoir that is available in four out of five years isnโt there, and the program could get only about 340 acre-feet from a pool in Wolford Reservoir upstream of Kremmling that typically has up to 6,000 acre-feet.
โIt is really clear to me that we do not have enough tools in our toolbox to be able to manage for conditions like we have this year in the 15-mile reach,โ said Julie Stahli, recovery program director. โWe are so far outside the bounds of what we have ever seen before, that itโs really just hard to be able to make any good decisions.โ
Stahli said she anticipates the program can contribute about 75 cubic feet per second through mid-July, at which point they will drop it down to 50 cfs, a bare-bones amount that is just enough to keep the riverbed wet.
This map shows the 15-mile reach of the Colorado River near Grand Junction, home to four species of endangered fish. Map credit: CWCB
โThat is what we are anticipating being able to have for the entirety of the season in the 15-mile reach,โ she said.
Side channels on the Colorado River ran dry early during spring runoff on April 22, 2026. Cobble bars and muddy banks emerged as the river receded near Dos Rios Park in Grand Junction, Colo. CREDIT: LUKE RUNYON/THE WATER DESK
As flows plummet, fish could become stranded in pools that are disconnected from the rest of the river, and program managers say they will try to prevent fish from using that stretch of river during times when flows are predicted to be at their lowest. Crews could use netting to keep fish out of the reach or close the flow of water that returns fish to the river after they accidentally enter an irrigation canal, which would keep them in the stretch of river above the diversion that has more water.
โOur main goal at this point is just to keep fish out of that reach,โ Stahli said. โThere is not a whole lot of attractive habitat in there right now for fish. Flows dropped so early in the season. Weโre already seeing some pretty dire conditions in April.โ
For several days in April, flows fell to just over 50 cfs, among the lowest levels in recorded history and far below the recovery programโs target flow for April in a dry year of 1,240 cfs. According to Stahli, the riverโs flow at that low point could be solely attributed to recovery-program water that it had released from upstream reservoirs.
The goal of the recovery program when it was created in 1988 was to protect the humpback chub, razorback sucker, bonytail and Colorado pikeminnow, while also allowing the seemingly opposing goal of developing more water. An aim of the program was to allow farms and cities to continue using water and even expand their use without violating the Endangered Species Act.
Credit: The Land Desk
And the program has had some success, with one of the four species โ the humpback chub โ being downlisted from endangered to threatened in 2021. (The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has also proposed downlisting the razorback sucker.) These fish evolved over millions of years and are only found in the Colorado River basin. In todayโs highly engineered and managed river ecosystem, they live mostly in just a few key locations in the Upper Basin, including the 15-mile reach, and in parts of the Yampa and Green rivers. Grand Junctionโs minor league baseball team has adopted the charismatic fish as its team name and mascot; last year it was the humpback chubs, and now itโs the razorback suckers.
But the program has had trouble meeting target minimum flows in the 15-mile reach, even though upstream water development has not kept pace the way it was expected to. A main culprit is climate change, which has robbed the river of about 20% of its flows during the 21stcentury.
โWe just donโt have the tools as a society to be able to handle whatโs happening right now in any cohesive way,โ Stahli said. โThis isnโt an endangered fish problem; this is an everyone problem.โ
Palisade High School students released razorback suckers and bonytails they helped raise into the Colorado River on Friday, May 1. The two species live only in the Colorado River Basin and are endangered. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM
Why is the river dry?
The reach is just downstream of large Grand Valley agricultural diversions, which are used to grow crops such as corn, alfalfa and the famous Palisade peaches, and which can take a combined 1,950 cfs from the river. At certain times of year, there can be more water in the Grand Valleyโs canals than there is in the nearby Colorado River. Collectively, they are the biggest agricultural diversion from the Colorado River on the Western Slope.
โThere has been so much diversion and damming of the river farther upstream,โ said Bart Miller, healthy rivers director at environmental group Western Resource Advocates. โThere are a lot of uses right there, and youโre seeing the impacts of all the Front Range diversions. [The 15-mile reach] is a pinch point in the system based on all the water development weโve done.โ
Water rights for the environment and recreation were latecomers to the legal system. It wasnโt until the 1970s โ nearly 100 years after the most-senior agricultural rights on the Western Slope were established โ that Colorado began protecting the value of water in streams with its instream flow program. Under Coloradoโs system of water law, those who use water by taking it out of the river โ including farmers, cities and industry โ usually have the oldest rights, giving them first use of the resource. Thereโs nothing illegal about drying up a river.
โItโs like youโre running in a race and itโs four laps around the track,โ Miller said. โThe folks with the instream, recreational, environmental values are there at the starting line, but theyโre held back for the first two or three laps. Everyone else is already running. And thatโs why the environment often ends up in a really bad place.โ
A Palisade High School student puckers up and prepares to kiss a fish goodbye on Friday, May 1 at Riverbend Park in Palisade. About 1,500 juvenile razorback suckers and bonytail, two species of endangered fish that students helped raise in a hatchery, were released into the 15-mile reach of the Colorado River. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM
โApril holeโ?
Itโs not totally unheard of to have a small window of diminished streamflows in April. In a phenomenon known as the โApril hole,โ irrigation demands in the Grand Valley ramp up, while the needed water remains frozen solid as high-country snowpack. This problem remedies itself within a couple weeks as the snow begins melting. But this year, little snowpack remained by April and water managers think spring runoff at Cameo, where the big Grand Valley diversions are located, peaked during the March heatwave.
Kate Ryan is executive director of the Colorado Water Trust, which works to put water back into streams through temporary water sharing agreements with agricultural, municipal and industrial water users. Although the Water Trust is still finalizing contracts for this year, Ryan said she expects the Water Trust to add about 4,700 acre-feet of water to the 15-mile reach by leasing water from Ruedi Reservoir owned by the town of Palisade, and oil-and-gas company QB Energy.
In past years, water from this project has been released between the end of July and beginning of October. But that timing may change if the recovery program is trying to keep fish out of the reach.
โWe will make sure that we deliver water at a point that complements the work of the recovery program,โ Ryan said.
The Water Trust has also used the Colorado River Water Conservation Districtโs water marketing program โ where acre-feet are available for purchase โ to restore water to streams. But the River District board at its April meeting voted to freeze all new contracts, which are usually doled out first come, first served, while staff figures out the best use of the limited water supply.
The move was part of a series of drought mitigation actions aimed at easing shortages for water users. The board last month also approved a system for prioritizing water sectors, with keeping water in rivers at the bottom of the list: municipal and domestic water needs over agricultural and industrial needs; and agricultural and industrial needs over in-channel uses such as those that benefit the environment, endangered fish and recreation.
The Water Trust this week sent a letter to some water managers recognizing the historic drought and acknowledging that many of its temporary water sharing agreements, which pay water rights holders to leave water in streams, may not operate this year because their agricultural partners may not have enough water for their own use. Projects are voluntary and happen only in years when participants have enough water to share and it can benefit a stream.
But the letter also said there may be others who are interested in using their water rights to help prop up a stream this year.
โThere is just so much uncertainty right now that we are trying to be as flexible and responsive as possible,โ Ryan said.
Palisade High School students released two species of endangered fish into the Colorado River on Friday, May 1, 2026. Target flows for these fish in the 15-mile reach are often not met. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM
Recovery-program officials said this year they will double down on other actions that benefit endangered fish, including removing nonnative predator species such as smallmouth bass and stocking the river with hatchery-raised fish. On Friday, students at Palisade High School released 1,500 young razorback suckers and bonytails that they helped raise into the Colorado River at Riverbend Park in Palisade.
Recovery-program staff said managing the 15-mile reach this year is about preventing the worst impacts and seeing what lessons can be learned from one of the driest years on record.
โIt is just new terrain,โ said David Graf, instream flow coordinator for the recovery program. โI think we are just flying by the seat of our pants in a lot of ways trying to do triage management as opposed to really adapt.โ
For now, one of the few ways to add water back to a depleted river remains borrowing it from other, more senior users.
โI think until our water suppliers and state government hear from people that the environment really is a priority, not just the recovery program and need to support endangered species, but also for communities and local economies across the board, itโs going to stay that way,โ Ryan said.
Bicycling the Colorado National Monument, Grand Valley in the distance via Colorado.com
If someone were to be dropped from another planet into the North Fork Valley in western Colorado today, they would be forgiven for assuming there is not a water crisis. A thick carpet of green covers the valley floor, the irrigation canals are filled to the brim, trees are leafing out, the river is running and Paonia Reservoir is almost full, and the mountains are still graced with snow.
I didnโt even come from outer space โ I think โ and I find the contrast between the news reports of water shortages and restrictions and the on-the-ground situation here to be quite jarring. Is it possible that April precipitation has averted the calamity?
A green hay field on a mesa in the North Fork Valley in western Colorado. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
Yes, a series of storms, some quite abundant, have moved through the Upper Colorado River Basin, boosting snowpack and soothing the desiccated earth. It has certainly felt cooler and wetter than normal, but that was mostly an illusion brought on by the abnormally dry winter and the searing March heatwave. And it hasnโt been nearly enough to offset the warm winter and the lack of snow, as the graphs below indicate.
As for the full ditches, I guess you could attribute that to a โmake hay while the water is availableโ sort of ethos. You might as well douse the fields and fill ponds while spring runoff is in full swing and the river still runs, knowing that it may not last beyond June. Meanwhile, Paonia Reservoirโs relatively healthy levels are the result of the Fire Mountain irrigation canal โ which relies on reservoir water โ being shut down for emergency repairs.
Meanwhile, there is a conspicuous absence here in this agricultural hotspot: There are no blossoms or fruit on apple, cherry, peach, or pear trees. The March heatwave sparked a spectacular orchard super-bloom. That was followed by a devastating freeze that killed all of the fruit, even in orchards where extreme preventative measures were taken, and even โburnedโ the leaves on some trees. Wacky weather indeed.
The North Fork of the Gunnisonโs May 1 snowpack this year is tied for the lowest on record with 2012.
The Animas River watershed did get enough of a boost to bring snowpack levels back up above 2002โs for this date. Source: NRCS.
Even with the recent storms, the Upper Colorado River Basin snowpack remained at record-low levels as of May 1. The previous low year (from 40 years of SNOTEL records) was 2012, with 2002 and 2018 not far behind. Source: NRCS.
๐ Colorado River Chronicles ๐ง
Phil Lyman, the former and hopeful Utah politician, recently posted this on Facebook:
Just to sum it up: Heโs knocking a federal program that pays willing farmers to voluntarily cut off irrigation to their fields in order to conserve water in an effort to balance Colorado River demand with the shrinking supplies. And heโs blaming it all on California.
Lymanโs general sentiment is not new, nor is it uncommon among water users in the Upper Basin states. In fact, itโs basically a clichรฉ. Since I was a kid Iโve heard folks saying something along the lines of: If we donโt use the water, itโll just run on down to California, where those L.A. folks will guzzle it up to fill their swimming pools and water their golf courses. Itโs a rather simplistic view, and one that doesnโt account for the realities of water law or the way the Colorado River system works. In other words, itโs just plain wrong, and a candidate for Congress โ as Lyman is โ should know better.
Udall/Overpeck 4-panel Figure Colorado River temperature/precipitation/natural flows with trend. Lake Mead and Lake Powell storage. Updated through Water Year 2025. Note the tiny points on the annual data so that you can flyspeck the individual years. Credit: Brad Udall
The Colorado River and its users have a problem: Demand for the water exceeds supply, and the supply is continually shrinking. Since boosting supply is not a feasible option, demand โ i.e. consumptive use โ must be reduced significantly. While everyone must make cuts, agriculture is the riverโs largest water user by far, meaning that sector is going to have to make the largest cuts, by volume. This isnโt about demonizing farmers or alfalfa, itโs not about whether Californians or Utahns are more deserving of the water. Itโs simple math.
The farm fallowing program is one way to cut consumption quickly by paying willing farmers to voluntarily forego irrigating some or all of their fields on a year-by-year basis. Itโs not ideal, but it is legal, voluntary, and can save junior water rights holders, including cities and towns throughout the watershed, from being forced to shut off their water intakes. And in no way is farm fallowing exclusive to Utah. Itโs occurring all over the place.
Letโs do a little fact-check of Lymanโs other points:
Farm fallowing in Utah is being done to benefit California, which โdemolished its water storage infrastructure.โย No and no. The goal here is to leave a little more water in the river, to keep the whole system from collapsing. Any amount conserved in one place will potentially benefit all other river users, as well as the river itself. Foregoing irrigation on a Utah farm, for example, could help keep the taps on in St. George or some other Utah community that relies on the river. Dams have been removed in California, most significantly four structures on the Lower Klamath River. But those were primarily for hydropower production, not irrigation or water storage, and they are far removed from the Colorado River or any associated water storage.
โPaying farmers not to feed us to bail out Californiaโs failures โฆโย Actually, the feds and state and other programs mostly are paying farmers not to grow alfalfa or hay, which feed cattle, and it has nothing to do with Californiaโs โfailures.โ Indeed, California grows a lot of alfalfa, too, but it also grows all kinds of vegetables โ far more than in Utah.
If the water saved in Utah does make it to the Lower Basin and California, then the biggest beneficiary would be โฆ farmers. Most of the water in the Lower Basin goes to the Imperial Irrigation District, where it is used for farming. Those farmers have also been part of the federal fallowing program, and have managed collectively to reduced their Colorado River water consumption by about nearly 1 million acre-feet since 2003.
Lyman calls for eliminating or restructuring federal farm fallowing programs.ย Iโm curious if heโs talked to the farmers about this, especially the ones who may lose their water and be forced to fallow anyway. Isnโt it better to get paid not to grow something than to not get paid for it?
โโฆ fight to end federal policies that separate water from the people who depend on it. Water rights are property rights.โย We all depend on water; the California farmers depend on water just as much as Utah farmers do. Furthermore, the California farmers also own their land, they have some of the most senior water rights on the Colorado River, and according to the โLaw of the River,โ they could likely go to court to force many Utah farmers to stop irrigating altogether, without compensation. The farm fallowing program does not separate water from the farmers, it simply pays them to temporarily forego irrigation.
โโฆ end the war on farm water.โย Look, there is not enough water in the Colorado River for everyone. Everyone will have to take cuts, but irrigated agriculture is the biggest user by far, and therefore will have to make cuts in order to balance supply and demand. Itโs simple math: All of Las Vegas and southern Nevada use less than one-tenth of the water that goes to the farms in the Imperial Irrigation District.
โโฆ propose that the federal government build and operate desalination plants in California to free up Colorado River water for Utah โฆโย Desalination will likely be a part of the Westโs water future, especially for coastal urban areas. But building the plants, and processing and transporting these kinds of volumes of water, would be outrageously expensive and energy-intensive, which would be especially harmful to farmers, who rely on cheap water.
***
The Bureau of Reclamation recently decreased Glen Canyon Dam releases from about 8,200 cfs to a steady 7,000 cfs (without the usual nighttime reductions). This appears to be the lowest sustained releases since the dam was built, and if continued throughout the entire year would lead to only 5 million acre-feet of annual releases, which would make the Lower Basin states even more grumpy and litigation-happy than they already are.
But not to worry, the feds are still on course to release 6 MAF for the water year, because they released about 10,000 cfs during January and February. Still, itโs going to change the complexion of rafting in the Grand Canyon, for sure, and it is certainly pushing the boundaries of the Grand Canyon Protection Act.
๐ธย Parting Shotย ๐๏ธ
Snow falls on the Abajo Mountains in southeastern Utah as seen from near Dove Creek, Colorado. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
The Colorado Water Conservation Board is funneling $40 million to dozens of water projects statewide as communities grapple with a drought emergency that is making saving water more important than ever before.
Among the 136 projects receiving state support this fiscal year, which ends June 30, is a $2.3 million grant that will pay nearly half the cost to install new, automated irrigation control systems across 105 Denver Public School system sites. Another grant, for $227,225, will help the city of Trinidad with early studies on repairing and potentially enlarging Monument Lake Reservoir.
Photo credit: Monument Lake Resort
Still another grant, for $111,855, will help pay to train and certify metro area teens in becoming turf replacement specialists. Operated by the Neighborhood Resilience Corps, the initiative will replace 23,000 acres of grass at sites that include the Governorโs Mansion and other state facilities.
The grant awards come as Colorado faces a stunning drought year in which winter mountain snows were historically low and a spring heat wave melted those snows early, slashing water available for cities, industries and farms to use.
Aurora, for instance, is expecting just 10% of its normal water supplies this year, according to Tim York, manager of water conservation for Aurora Water, and its reservoirs stand at 57% full.
As cities broadcast the need to cut back water use to preserve water stored in reservoirs, homeowners and businesses have flooded cities like Aurora with requests for help to design drought-proof landscapes and replace thirsty bluegrasses with lawns that need much less water.
โOur approved applications have doubled over what they were last year, so that is pretty good,โ York said, referring to applications for Auroraโs landscape conversion program. โOur free design program is similar. We have a waitlist.โ
He said the CWCB grants, coupled with Auroraโs aggressive water conservation initiatives, are critical to helping the state cope with the drought emergency and create more sustainable water systems.
Aurora is a supporter of the Neighborhood Resilience Corpsโ youth training effort. York said the opportunity to train young people is important.
โAnytime we can do that with young adults who are interested, itโs always a great idea,โ he said. โWe might do the conversions, but if we can get that benefit and inspire and teach young adults, why not.โ York was referring to the cityโs programs that remove thirsty lawns and replace them with drought tolerant landscapes.โ
Boulder-based Resource Central, another agency that has partnered with the CWCB on statewide conservation efforts, said it is seeing an unprecedented number of requests for its services.
โDemand for conservation programs is off the charts,โ said Neal Lurie, president of the nonprofit agency. โWeโve seen more interest in the first three weeks of this spring season than we did all of last year.
โTo me that says the message is resonating with people that they have an important role to play,โ he said. โThatโs good news.โ
Yesterday was May Day! Flowering plants evolved ~130 Ma (recent in Earthโs history!). They appeared suddenly in the Cretaceous and diversified quickly. Florissant Fossil Beds NM preserves many fossil flowers from the Eocene. pic.twitter.com/Yk6hcbU8v1
— Colorado Geological Survey (@COGeolSurvey) May 2, 2026
Udall/Overpeck 4-panel Figure Colorado River temperature/precipitation/natural flows with trend. Lake Mead and Lake Powell storage. Updated through Water Year 2025. Note the tiny points on the annual data so that you can flyspeck the individual years. Credit: Brad Udall
The Lower Basin States of Arizona, California, and Nevada today advanced a plan to stabilize the Colorado River through 2028, responding to declining reservoir levels, record low inflows to Lake Powell, and increasing risk of reaching critical elevations at both Lake Powell and Lake Mead.
Earlier in the post-2026 process, the Lower Basin took a significant step by proposing 1.25 million acre-feet in annual reductions, with an additional 250,000 acre-feet from Mexico, totaling approximately 1.5 million acre-feet per year.
This proposal builds on that foundation with an expanded system conservation program across the Lower Basin with an estimated contribution of at least 700,000 acre-feet. In total, the plan identifies up to 3.2 million acre-feet of water savings to the system through 2028.
The proposal is an integrated package addressing Lake Powell releases, Upper Initial Unit operations, Lower Basin reductions, additional conservation, use of Intentionally Created Surplus, and system infrastructure improvements. Lower Basin contributions are contingent on these coordinated operations to ensure system stability as well as appropriate funding.
โWith this proposal, the Lower Basin is putting forth real action to stabilize water supply along the Colorado River. Weโre putting forward additional measurable water contributions for the system. Without that, the system will continue to decline,โ said JB Hamby
โThis proposal is about moving from ideas to implementation,โ said John Entsminger. โIt pairs real measurable water contributions with sensible dry-condition operations at Lake Powell and across the Upper Initial Units. Now is the time for every water user in the Basin to double down on water conservation as we face historically dry hydrology.โ
โThis proposal reflects the creativity and commitment of water users across the Lower Basin who continue to step forward with solutions that support the river,โ said Tom Buschatzke. โWe have shown that collaborative, voluntary efforts and reductions that are certain can produce meaningful water savings.โ
The Lower Basin states recognize the Upper Basinโs call for mediation and are open to that process. However, current conditions require immediate, measurable water reductions from every state. The Lower Basin states stand ready to engage in a meaningful process for long-term solutions while encouraging the Upper Basin to step forward now with verifiable water contributions to help stabilize the system and support a near-term, seven-state bridge.
The Lower Basin states confirmed that the proposal preserves legal accountability under the Colorado River Compact, including Upper Basin delivery obligations, while maintaining a clear path toward a broader agreement among all seven Basin States.
The plan has been advanced to the federal government for consideration as part of the ongoing post-2026 planning process and is intended to provide a near-term bridge through 2028 while long-term operating guidelines are finalized.
Implementation of key elements of the proposal, including expanded system conservation, will require federal partnership. The proposal remains subject to approval by the Arizona Legislature and relevant California and Nevada water agency governing boards.
Colorado River. Photo credit: Central Arizona Project
May 1, 2026
The situation on the Colorado River is dire. Flows have reached historic lows and water saved in major storage reservoirs is approaching critical elevations. To date, solutions to the crisis have been elusive, with lengthy litigation looming as the seven states that share the river have been unable to agree on an appropriate remedy to the situation. That is why todayโs announcement that the Lower Division States of Arizona, California and Nevada have come together to announce a bridge proposal that will support the entire Colorado River system through 2028 represents a welcome lifeline and cause for hope. This three-state proposal is a two-year, comprehensive package that will commit a minimum of 3.2 million acre-feet of Lower Division water savings in Lake Mead by 2028
The proposal is a bridge, a pathway to future operations that extend beyond the expiration of the existing river operating guidelines at the end of 2026. However, this massive sacrifice by the Lower Division States is only possible by implementing the entire proposal, which requires a series of critical actions by the federal government. The federal government must commit the remainder of Colorado River drought funding to offset impacts to Lower Division users, create a tribal pool to meet federal responsibilities to tribal communities, and use the reservoirs upstream of Lake Mead for their foundational purpose โ meeting water delivery obligations to the Lower Division. Congress built those upstream dams for the purpose of releasing water and meeting minimum obligations to the Lower Division under the Colorado River Compact during an extended drought like the one we face today and now, the dams must be used as mandated by Congress.
Todayโs announcement is the latest in a series of actions by the Lower Division States to preserve the stability of the Colorado River system. Lake Mead would be in the mud if not for Lower Division water users leaving water in the lake to protect the system, and every drop that has been left in Lake Mead is benefiting Lake Powell and the Upper Division by allowing for less water to be released downstream.
But Lower Division actions alone cannot protect the entire system from extraordinarily dry years. This year is an example where, despite the Lower Divisionโs ongoing reductions and contributions, Lake Powell needed additional emergency action.
While this new Lower Division bridge requires no action from the Upper Division states, it is well past time that the Upper Division States agree to be part of the solution by committing to verifiably conserve water and end their out-of-touch demand that the Upper Division be allowed to increase their total uses from a shrinking system.
The Central Arizona Project applauds the Lower Division States for developing the proposal and urges the federal government to speedily approve this emergency effort to bridge the river system through 2028.
The Center for Biological Diversity, the San Carlos Apache Tribe and the Lower San Pedro Watershed Alliance today filed aย notice of their intent to sueย the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over the Copper Creek Exploration Project near Mammoth, Arizona. The groups say the agencies violated the Endangered Species Act by allowing mining exploration drilling that threatens Mexican spotted owls and other imperiled wildlife.
โFederal officials were warned that Mexican spotted owls are in the area but pushed this mining project ahead anyway and skipped steps required by law,โ said Russ McSpadden, a Southwest conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. โThe Endangered Species Act is supposed to protect imperiled wildlife before damage is done, not after agencies brush aside the evidence and greenlight industrial drilling. This mining project is clearly illegal and it must be stopped.โ
Todayโs notice focuses on Mexican spotted owls, rare birds who depend on the rugged canyon and forest habitat of the Southwest. Federal data estimates there are roughly 1,300 known owl territories in the U.S., representing only a few thousand birds in small, fragmented and declining populations. Mexican spotted owls have been protected as threatened under the Endangered Species Act since 1993.
โThe Lower San Pedro watershed is one of Arizonaโs most important wildlife corridors, and this exploration project is pushing industrial disturbance into a landscape that is already under pressure,โ said Melissa Crytzer Fry, chair for the Lower San Pedro Watershed Alliance. โWhen agencies ignore clear evidence and fail to follow the law, local communities are left to defend the river, the habitat and the species that make this place irreplaceable. We shared trail camera images with the BLM showing Mexican spotted owls in the area and were utterly ignored.โ
The groups say the BLM approved the drilling project last summer despite receiving photographs showing Mexican spotted owls in the area. The agency still concluded the species was โnot presentโ and failed to initiate consultation with the Fish and Wildlife Service, as required by the Endangered Species Act.
The Copper Creek project is already underway, bringing industrial drilling, bright lights, heavy noise, truck traffic, surface disturbance and groundwater pumping into sensitive habitat in and around Copper Creek Canyon, an important tributary of the Lower San Pedro River. These public lands and waterways support significant wildlife resources, including habitat for one of the Southwestโs most vulnerable owl species, and require management based on the best available science.
The notice letter also challenges the agenciesโ analysis of harms to the threatened yellow-billed cuckoo, saying they failed to adequately assess how exploration-related groundwater pumping and noise could affect the birdโs habitat in the Lower San Pedro watershed. Cuckoo rely on healthy streams for habitat and prey during their nesting season.
The agencies failed to analyze how extensive helicopter surveying of the project area may harm both Mexican spotted owls and yellow-billed cuckoos. Aerial surveillance requires helicopters to fly extremely close to the ground, causing loud noise and surface disturbance that can be disruptive to wildlife.
Copper Creek Canyon. Photo credit: Russ McSpadden/Center for Biological Diversity
Fig. 1. Spatial and temporal patterns of global dust events. (A) Global average frequency of dust events (including dust storms, blowing dust, and floating dust) from 1979 to 2023. The cyan lines in (A) delineate the boundaries between dust source regions and transport regions. The largest markers indicate stations where dust storms are the dominant type of dust events, medium-sized markers represent blowing dust, and the smallest markers denote floating dust. (B), (C), and (D) present the global frequency anomaly time series for dust storms, blowing dust, and floating dust, respectively, over the same period. The curves in [(B), (C), and (D)] are smoothed using a nine-point moving average.
Click the link to access the research article on the Science Advances website (Yuzhiย Liu, Weiqiย Tang,ย Tianbinย Shao,ย Runย Luo,ย Ziyuanย Tan,ย Danย Li, andย Jianpingย Huang). Here’s the abstract:
April 29, 2026
Dust storms, while often seen as harmful, can play an unexpected role in enhancing rainfall. Global observations show that 7-day accumulated precipitation after dust storms exceeds dust-free conditions by up to 9.6 millimeters. Numerical simulations further confirm that dust particles act as ice nuclei, thereby promoting cloud formation and increasing rainfall through the ice crystal effect. Moreover, in regions with rising anthropogenic aerosols, dusts determine precipitation patterns. While elevated levels of anthropogenic aerosols alone tend to boost weak rainfall, the presence of dust aerosols reduces light precipitation and enhances heavier precipitation. Collectively, these findings reveal a dual role of dust storms in shaping global precipitation patterns while adversely affecting the human living environment. This research establishes a mechanistic framework for understanding how dust affects extreme precipitation at the global scale, advancing predictive capabilities for heavy precipitation.
Dust clouds roll across drought-ridden fields near eastern Coloradoโs Lamar in spring 2013. Credit: Jane Stulp via Water Education Colorado
“By taking voluntary measures now to reduce water use, Utilities customers can actively help lower the chance of mandatory water restrictions if conditions worsen,” the news release stated.
Fort Collins Utilities and East Larimer County Water District, or ELCO, which are two of the city’s three major water providers, are asking customers to:
Limit lawn watering to no more than two days per week.
Avoid watering between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m.
The West Fort Collins Water District is required to follow city-issued water rationing and restrictions, according to its website. Sunset Water District is managed by ELCO.
On Tuesday, April 21, the Colorado River District board of directors unanimously supported initial actions in response to extreme drought conditions on the western slope. The boardโs actions allocated $450,000 from the Districtโs Community Funding Partnership for strategic water releases from District-owned, District Enterprise, or other storage pools across the western slope. The board also acted to suspend a previous water marketing policy that allowed contracts on a first-come, first-serve basis, instead taking staff recommendation to develop a cooperative approach that best uses available supplies to meet critical needs. The board delegated authority to its Water Supply Projects Committee to consider and approve subsequent contract water leases and funding allocations.
โThis action alone wonโt solve the drought, but it will help meet critical water needs in the short term,โ said Hunter Causey, director of asset management and chief engineer for the Colorado River District. โOur reservoirs were built to help communities on the western slope weather exactly this kind of year. Maximizing the use of our available storage now is the responsible thing to do.โ
โWe were already bracing for a dry summer, but the low snowpack was absolutely flattened by extreme heat in March, leaving statewide water supplies facing unprecedented gaps,โ said Colorado River District Board Vice President and Grand County rancher Mike Ritschard. โIrrigators and agriculture producers in Colorado are familiar with working within uncertainty, but when supplies are this limited, we know we have to be especially conscious of balancing our use with the health of the system as a whole.โ
The Board also prioritized its contract water supplies to first support critical domestic and municipal needs, while striving to then address agricultural and industrial needs. Prioritizing these uses will also boost stream flows and reduce water temperatures through strategic releases. For domestic and municipal uses, the board directed staff to work with water suppliers and land use authorities to provide clear guidance that outdoor water use for lawns and ornamental applications be strictly limited.
โThe reality is that in a year like this, any water that you put on your lawn is water that will not show up in the river,โ said Andy Mueller, Colorado River District general manager. โThis drives up water temperatures and negatively impacts the health of the river for everyone downstream, including our local farms and regional food production. We are asking all residential water users and municipalities to consider limiting outdoor water use to one or two days a week. This year, we all need to be asking if we value healthy rivers and local food production over green lawns.โ
Over the next few weeks, Colorado River District staff will work with constituents and other partners to determine the best use of available supplies in a manner that meets critical needs of the residents of the River District and brings benefits to as many communities as possible.
Please refer to the staff memo, linked HERE, for more details on the initiative.
Breckenridge Town Council approved more stringent water restrictions, limiting outdoor watering to two days per week, as town officials respond to drought conditions and declining streamflows in the Blue River. The new Stage 2 restrictions come as the town faces a water shortage tied to this yearโs historically low snowpack and reduced runoff into Goose Pasture Tarn, according to Shannon Cahill, town engineer. The restrictions officially take effect on Friday, May 1.
West Drought Monitor map April 28, 2026.
โWe remain in a sphere of drought here in Summit County, throughout the state and the greater Western U.S.,โ Cahill told council members at a meeting Tuesday, April 29. โThe historically low snowpack has already directly impacted streamflow in the Blue River, and this subsequently affects the townโs ability to supply treated water to our customers.โ
Until this week, Breckenridge allowed outdoor watering three days per week. The new temporary restrictions reduce that to two days in hopes of cutting outdoor water usage by roughly 30%. The town largely sources its drinking water from snowmelt (and other high-altitude surface water) collected in the Blue River Basin…The new restrictions exempt any newly installed landscaping, along with hand watering and drip irrigation for flowers and plants. Council member Dick Carleton clarified whether downtown businesses could continue watering flower baskets and using microsprayers.
…as the city gears up for an unprecedentedly dry summer, it will begin ramping up enforcement on water users who violate the stage 2 water restrictions. That will include issuing formal notices of violation and collecting fines for repeat violations.
โWe are taking this year more seriously, given that itโs conditions we havenโt quite seen before,โ Loughlin Molliconi said. โWe want to make sure we can prioritize the most important uses of municipal water without having to degrade any environmental protections or streamflow.โ
The city water department has issued 11 formal notices of water use violations in 2026, Loughlin Molliconi said. One notice was issued last week. Ten were issued on Wednesday. They were all first-time violations, which donโt come with fines…Aspen City Councilย declared a stage 2 water shortageย last August after declaring a stage 1 water shortage in June. The declaration came after a lackluster monsoon season, and has remained in place because of unusually high winter temperatures that impacted snowfall accumulations and the snow water equivalent in the Roaring Fork watershed. Stage 2 water restrictions are mandatory. Watering of any lawn, garden, landscaped area, tree, shrub or other plant is prohibited from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Household watering schedules are also mandatory.
Rain continued to bypass the central and southern High Plains, leaving rangeland, pastures, and winter wheat in desperate need of moisture. Farther east, however, showers and thunderstorms continued to ease drought across the eastern Plains, extending into the mid-South and Mississippi Delta. Some of the heaviest rain, accompanied by locally severe thunderstorms, fell from eastern Kansas into the lower Midwest. The remainder of the Midwest also received some precipitation, although some of the regionโs wettest areas in the Great Lakes States got a break from the excessive rain that had led to pockets of record flooding earlier in the month. In contrast, much of New England and northern sections of New York were cool and dry. Elsewhere, unsettled, showery weather prevailed in the West, mainly north of a line from central California to the central Rockies, boosting topsoil moisture, delivering high-elevation snow, and reducing irrigation demands. However, any precipitation did not fundamentally change a mostly bleak Western water-supply outlook for the remainder of the spring into the summer of 2026…
Precipitation delivered drought relief to some areas, including parts of southern South Dakota and eastern sections of Nebraska and Kansas. Still, by April 26, topsoil moistureโas reported by the U.S. Department of Agricultureโwas rated at least 40% very short to short in all the regionโs states, except North Dakota, and led by Colorado (95%). Winter wheat continued to struggle due to drought and recent freezes, with 65% of Nebraskaโs crop rated in very poor to poor condition on April 26, along with 54% in Colorado and 41% in Kansas. Drought continued to generally worsen in eastern Colorado and western sections of Kansas and Nebraska…
Colorado Drought Monitor one week change map ending April 28, 2026.
Any changes in the West were mostly minor and mixed, as cooler weather prevailed and spotty precipitation occurred. In most areas, Western precipitation did not alter bleak water-supply prospects, since most of the mountain snowpack has already melted, except in the northern Rockies. Already in late April, fears of an hydroelectricity generation crisis in the Colorado River Basin have led the Department of Interior to start sending water from Flaming Gorge Reservoir downstream to Lake Powell to help boost water levels. The Department of Interior also indicated that water normally destined for Lake Mead, farther downstream, would be held in Lake Powell. Despite overall lack of impact on Western supplies, any precipitation was largely welcomed, due to positive impacts such as a boost in topsoil moisture and a reduction in irrigation demands. In fact, enough precipitation has recently fallen to warrant a slight reduction in drought intensity in a few areas, including parts of western Colorado, northeastern Oregon, and southeastern Washington…
Late in the drought-monitoring period, significant rain overspread portions of the South, resulting in broad reductions in drought intensity. Some of the heaviest rain fell from eastern sections of Oklahoma and Texas into portions of Arkansas, Mississippi, and northern Louisiana. Still, more rain will be needed to ensure full drought recovery, since many of the hardest-hit areas had slipped into extreme to exceptional drought (D3 to D4) in recent weeks. Meanwhile, western sections of the Southโincluding western Oklahoma and western Texasโremained critically dry, leading to poor rangeland, pasture, and winter wheat conditions, as well as a chronically elevated wildfire threat. Statewide, winter wheat in Texas was rated 56% very poor to poor on April 26, along with 45% in Oklahoma…
Looking Ahead
During the next several days, active weather across the South should lead to 1- to 4-inch rainfall totals from much of Texas to the southern Atlantic States. However, some Southern thunderstorms may produce large hail, damaging winds, and isolated tornadoes. The moisture will have a sharp northern edge, with little or no precipitation expected during the next 5 days across the northern and central Plains and Midwest. Generally dry weather will also cover the West, aside from late-season snow in the central and southern Rockies. Elsewhere, a cool pattern across the nationโs mid-section will strengthen, with frost and freezes possible into the weekend across the northwestern half of the Plains into the upper Midwest. By Saturday morning, scattered frost could extend as far south as the Ohio Valley and the southern High Plains.
The NWS 6- to 10-day outlook for May 5 โ 9 calls for the likelihood of cooler-than-normal conditions in most areas east of the Rockies, while warmer-than-normal weather will be confined to an area stretching from the Pacific Coast to the northern Rockies, including the Great Basin and northern Intermountain West. Meanwhile, near- or below-normal precipitation from the Pacific Northwest into the upper Midwest should contrast with the likelihood of wetter-than-normal conditions across the remainder of the Lower 48 States.
Drought Monitor one week change map ending April 28, 2026.
This story was produced by Circle of Blue, in partnership withย The Water Deskย at the University of Colorado Boulderโs Center for Environmental Journalism.
KEY POINTS
Glen Canyon Dam, completed in 1963, was not designed to be operated at extremely low water levels in Lake Powell.
The decline of Lake Powell is putting hydropower generation and downstream water deliveries at risk.
The Bureau of Reclamation, the federal water manager, is studying options for retrofitting Glen Canyon Dam.
In the span of U.S. history certain years are turning points, milestones in the nationโs story. 1776. 1865. 1929. 1968. Circumstance and consequence conspire to make it so.
For the Colorado River and those who rely on it, 2026 is on the verge of similar prominence. Circumstances in the basin today are that urgent.
Udall/Overpeck 4-panel Figure Colorado River temperature/precipitation/natural flows with trend. Lake Mead and Lake Powell storage. Updated through Water Year 2025. Note the tiny points on the annual data so that you can flyspeck the individual years. Credit: Brad Udall
A slow-developing water supply calamity, decades in the making, has boiled over, like a cold war turning hot. Extreme heat in March โ triple-digit temperatures never witnessed that early in the year โ obliterated a meager snowpack. The basinโs big reservoirs, the supposed buffers against short-term drought, were already uncomfortably low after a quarter-century of declining river flows. They will drop even lower. The amount of water flowing this summer into Lake Powell, the nationโs second-largest reservoir, will be one of the smallest ever measured, barely a trickle.
โThis is unprecedented, but itโs not unpredicted,โ said Eric Balken, executive director of the Glen Canyon Institute. โI like to say that this is the most predicted disaster of all time.โ
Lake Powell is formed by Glen Canyon Dam, a striking 710-ft tall concrete arch braced against ruddy sandstone walls. It plugs the Colorado just after the river enters Arizona. Meant to ensure water deliveries to the lower basin states of Arizona, California, and Nevada, Glen Canyon Dam was finished in 1963 to complement the Colorado Riverโs audacious engineering that distributes water through mountains and uphill to the largest cities in the Southwest and to the regionโs most productive farmland. When full, Lake Powell holds enough water to flood the entire state of Virginia to the depth of one foot.
Climate change and water demand that still exceeds supply have flipped the engineering script. Lake Powell is less than 25 percent full today. Glen Canyon Dam, instead of being a guarantor of water, is now the most significant water chokepoint in the basin. The hard-won asset has become a glaring liability.
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
The reversal of fortune is because of how Glen Canyon Dam was designed. The dam was never meant to be operated at the extremely low water levels that Lake Powell is rapidly approaching. Doing so for extended periods of time could damage the pipes that move water through the dam, according to the Bureau of Reclamation, the federal agency that manages the structure.
Reclamation is now studying its options for retrofitting Glen Canyon Dam to accommodate a lower Lake Powell. It expects to release those findings later this year or in early 2027. As any home remodeler knows, renovating an aging structure is neither quick nor cheap, especially when failure could have disastrous consequences.
In the short term, Reclamation is relying on operational band-aids for Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell. With the consent of the seven states in the basin โ Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming โ the agency took unprecedented action this month to prop up the reservoir. Releasing more water from upstream reservoirs and holding back more in Powell will delay Glen Canyonโs infrastructure reckoning. But that day will soon come, and Reclamationโs answer to the damโs engineering problems will have far-reaching implications โ not only for the reliability of the basinโs water supply, but also for its power customers, ecology, and recreation economy.
An Assessment Deferred
Dams are difficult to manage under any circumstance. Management is even more troublesome when operators must balance multiple, conflicting objectives. In Glen Canyonโs case those objectives are water supply, flood control, hydropower generation, and releasing water to protect the ecology downstream in the Grand Canyon โ namely, beach-building and threatened native fish like the humpback chub. This is in addition to ensuring the safe operation of the dam itself.
As of late April 2026, Lake Powell was just 25 percent full and projected to drop to a record low in the next 12 months. Photo ยฉ Brett Walton/Circle of Blue
How to operate Glen Canyon Dam and Hoover Dam, its larger downstream sibling, is what the seven basin states and Reclamation are attempting to figure out right now. The current agreement covers operations through 2026. Reclamation published a draft environmental impact statement, or EIS, in January that would impose severe cuts on water users in the lower basin, particularly Arizona, in part to protect Glen Canyon Damโs fragile infrastructure.
For that reason, water users in the lower basin and elsewhere support an engineering fix for Glen Canyon Dam. Many were incredulous that Reclamation did not include an assessment of dam modifications in its draft environmental analysis.
โThis EIS could have been a great avenue to look at real changes at Glen Canyon Dam that could solve the water delivery problem and some of the ecological problems, too,โ Balken said.
Patrick Dent is the assistant general manager for water policy at the Central Arizona Project (CAP), which delivers Colorado River water to the densely populated center of the state. He said that CAP does not favor any particular fix โ only one that provides dam managers with more flexibility.
โOur primary interest is that they could release water at a lower lake level,โ Dent said.
The Gila River Indian Community, which receives Colorado River water through CAP, told Reclamation that the agency has a duty to safeguard the tribeโs water rights, which are at risk if the dam cannot release enough water. โThe United States must take action to fix Glen Canyon Dam,โ Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis wrote in a March 2026 letter.
The Colorado Water Conservation Board, which represents that stateโs water interests, said it supports a reevaluation of Glen Canyon Dam, but โin a separate actionโ from the EIS.
Becki Bryant, a Reclamation spokesperson, said the agency will release an appraisal study assessing three dam modification alternatives at the end of this year or in early 2027. Any action beyond the study, she said, requires congressional authorization and funding.
Illustration from the report, โAntique Plumbing & Leadership Postponedโ from the Utah Rivers Council, Glen Canyon Institute and the Great Basin Water Network. Courtesy of Utah Rivers Council
โAntiquated Plumbingโ
The tool for managing the damโs multiple objectives, which are a legislative requirement as well as a practical necessity, is the water held in Lake Powell, said David Wegner, a scientist who has worked on Glen Canyon policy for more than four decades. But even water has limits when the engineering is inadequate. โSadly, these dams were not built for multiple objectives,โ Wegner said. And Glen Canyon was certainly not built for extremely low water, he added.
Glen Canyon Dam, completed in 1963, was not designed to be operated at extremely low water levels that Lake Powell is now approaching. Photo ยฉ Brett Walton/Circle of Blue
The problem with Glen Canyon is what a coalition of environmental groups calls the damโs โantiquated plumbing.โ The groups โ Glen Canyon Institute, Great Basin Water Network, and Utah Rivers Council โ published a report in August 2022 that outlined these engineering deficiencies.
Water can exit Glen Canyon in only three ways. One is the spillways, a pressure-release valve for flooding, which are located at elevation 3,648 feet, near the top of the dam. They are irrelevant today. Lake Powell rests 122 feet below them.
The main exit point is through the eight penstocks, the 15-foot diameter tubes that move water through the turbines to generate hydroelectricity. The penstocks are incapacitated when Powell drops below 3,490 feet. (The lake today is 36 feet higher than that level.) If the lake falls below what is known as minimum power pool, hydropower generation also ceases.
If that happens, water must be released through four 8-foot diameter pipes called the river outlet works. Smaller than the penstocks, the river outlet works are located at elevation 3,370. Below that elevation water cannot be released from Powell, a status known ominously as โdead pool.โ (Functionally, the river outlet works may be useless at elevation 3,394, Reclamation says.)
The environmental groups identified two limitations with the river outlet works. One is that they were not designed to be operated full-time. They are a role player, not the star. The other is that their smaller size means less water can pass through them. Thatโs a problem because the upper basin states of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming are required to send a set amount of water downstream to the lower basin, according to the 1922 Colorado River Compact that divided the river.
The flow restrictions imposed by the river outlet works, if they had to be used full time, means that the upper basin could violate the compact, which could mean water cutbacks imposed by the lower basin.
โItโs just so counterintuitive that the tool that was designed to meet this delivery obligationโ โ the construction of Glen Canyon Dam โ โis now going to be the roadblock that may prevent the delivery obligation from being met,โ said Balken of the Glen Canyon Institute.
The engineering problems are not a new discovery. Wegner, who was with the Bureau of Reclamation at the time as its Grand Canyon environmental studies manager, helped lead a 1987 National Academies report on Glen Canyon. The report recommended that the Interior Department consider the โinstallation and operation of multiple outlet structuresโ at Glen Canyon, which would give dam managers more flexibility with water releases.
Glen Canyon Damโs powerhouse sits at the base of the 710-foot-tall structure. Hydroelectric generation has dropped in tandem with the falling water levels in Lake Powell. Photo ยฉ Brett Walton/Circle of Blue
Glen Canyonโs structural problems were substantiated in 2023, when Reclamation used the river outlet works during an experimental โhigh-flowโ release of water to flush sediment downstream and rebuild eroding Grand Canyon beaches.
The high-volume release caused pitting, or cavitation, within the river outlet works, a risk that was heightened due to the physics of water when Lake Powell is low. Reclamation coated the pipes with epoxy as a temporary fix to prevent more damage, a process that took several months. The agency has since used two small-scale physical models at its Technical Service Center in Denver to test dam operations at low water levels and the effect on infrastructure.
Reclamation acknowledged the limitations of the river outlet works in a technical memopublished in March 2024 by Richard Lafond, director of the agencyโs Technical Service Center. The memoโs conclusions were endorsed by the top decision-makers in Reclamationโs Upper Colorado River Office.
โLong term operation of the river outlet works will result in accelerating regular operation and maintenance tasks,โ LaFond wrote. Reclamation should โnot rely on the river outlet works as the sole means for releasing water from Glen Canyon Dam.โ
Wegner put it in starker terms. If the river outlet works had to be relied upon and the pipes began to erode again, then Reclamation could potentially lose control of water flows.
โPotentially that could fail,โ Wegner said, meaning an inability to control water releases through the dam if the pipes are structurally compromised. โAnd if that fails, now you have a catastrophe on your hand and you have limited options to manage that catastrophe.โ
In other words, there would be no way to release water downstream into the Grand Canyon and into the lower basin.
Neither Quick Nor Easy
What fixes are possible? Reclamation received $2 million from Congress in the fiscal year 2022 budget for an appraisal study.
Reclamation outlined three engineering possibilities in a 2023 presentation, most of which centered on preserving hydropower generation as Lake Powell declines.
One possibility is a new, lower intake that uses the existing power generation turbines. An intake located deeper in the reservoir would allow Glen Canyon to pass water in what is currently dead pool. But it would entail โincreased risk from penetration through the dam.โ
The second would connect new power generation equipment to the river outlet works.
The third option is tunneling through the canyon wall and installing a new underground power station. This would also provide more flexibility for water releases.
Reclamation also included three operational or policy changes for power production, including investing in wind and solar to offset hydropower declines.
Other ideas that seemed kooky and fringe just a few years ago โ draining Lake Powell and filling Lake Mead first; changing the basinโs water accounting system โ are now being discussed throughout the basin with more seriousness and candor.
Beyond that presentation, Reclamation has not said much publicly about dam modification. The agency declined an interview request to discuss Glen Canyon Damโs engineering problems.
Whatever direction Reclamation chooses โ an option outlined above or something new โ the process will not be quick or easy. Any change to Glen Canyon must go through an environmental analysis and public comment period. Congress will have to authorize actions and appropriate the funds. Construction alone will take years.
Wegner, who was the staff director for the House Natural Resources Water and Power Subcommittee from 2008 to 2014, knows the difficulty and sees a lack of leadership. โThereโs nobody in Washington who has been willing to lead the charge trying to get Congress to provide authorized funding to do this sort of work.โ
โReservoir Triageโ
Because Reclamation is not confident it can operate the river outlet works for an extended run, the agency is focused on keeping Powell above elevation 3,500 feet.
Protecting 3,500 feet comes with all sorts of baggage. It preserves hydropower generation, which power customers appreciate. But in effect the redline at that elevation strands some 4.4 million acre-feet in Lake Powell. (Only 3.7 million acre-feet is technically accessible with the current plumbing.) Some have called this elevation a โde factoโ dead pool. Thus, the agitation in the lower basin for a plumbing system within the dam that provides access to this water.
The mineral โbath tub ringโ above Lake Powell shows where its water level has been. Photo ยฉ Brett Walton/Circle of Blue
Balken said that downstream water deliveries, not preserving hydropower, should be Reclamationโs biggest concern.
โWhen these decision makers are talking about Glen Canyon Dam from only a hydropower perspective, I think itโs missing the larger point, which is the dam is about to become the biggest roadblock of water deliveries that the basin has ever seen,โ Balken said.
Flaming Gorge Reservoir, on the Green River, straddles the Wyoming-Utah border south of Rock Springs. The Flaming Gorge dam, on the Utah side, was completed in 1964 and is a critical component of the Colorado River water storage system. The Green River, the chief tributary to the Colorado River, originates in the Wind River Range, flows to Flaming Gorge Reservoir, then connects with the Colorado River in Canyonlands National Park in Utah.
To avoid the infrastructure risks of dropping below 3,500 feet, Reclamation has started to take extraordinary action. The agency has two emergency levers it is pulling. One is to hold more water back in Lake Powell. Reclamation cut water releases to the legal minimum this year, something it has never done. The other is releasing more water from Flaming Gorge, a reservoir upstream that is in better shape.
As Balken describes it, โThis is reservoir triage.โ
These emergency actions have serious side-effects. Upstream, Flaming Gorge is expected to lose 35 feet of elevation by next spring, once the extra water has been released. That will hurt the recreation economy of northeastern Utah and southwestern Wyoming โ fewer boat ramps in the water, less fishing access.
These upstream releases have limited utility, Wegner said. โYou can do that once or twice. But you got to then depend upon Mother Nature refilling those reservoirs upstream.โ
Hoover Dam at low water. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
Downstream, Lake Mead will drop quickly and it too will approach a level in which hydropower generation at Hoover Dam severely drops. Algal blooms in a warmer, shallower lake could be a problem. โTheyโre going to be robbing Mead to pay Powell,โ Balken said.
Trying Not to Hit Bottom
The idea of dead pool โ when Lake Powell can no longer release water โ was almost inconceivable when the reservoir was designed and filled. The official device for measuring Lake Powellโs elevation ends at the top of the penstocks, at elevation 3,477.5 feet. According to Reclamationโs 2024 technical memo, โThis is an indication that reservoir elevations below minimum power poolโ โ 3,490 feet โ โwere not anticipated.โ
Cavitation at the Glen Canyon Dam, the cause of the emergency in 1983 via Flow Science.
Reclamation finished filling the reservoir in 1980. Three years later, after an intense El Niรฑo winter, the damโs upper limits were tested. Floodwaters in the summer of 1983 nearly broke the dam. Such volumes are almost inconceivable now.
In a typical year, Lake Powell would be rising in late April, flush with the deposits of snowmelt from headwater basins in the Rocky Mountains. Not this year. The snowpack peaked in many basins in late February or early March. What little snow there was has already melted. As of April 28, Lake Powell inflows are projected to be just 16 percent of average. Lake level forecasts from mid-April showed a long downward slope for the next 12 months. Those projections were what triggered the emergency release of water from Flaming Gorge and the reduction in Lake Powell releases.
Scientists have been warning about circumstances like this for years. In a defining period for the basin, all the predictions of water supply shocks in the Colorado River from the past two decades are coming to pass.
โWe should have been prepared for this,โ Balken said.
Click the link to read the article on the Big Pivots website (Allen Best):
April 26, 2026
The staff at the Colorado River District showed this slide during a session on Colorado River hydrology at the districtโs board of director meeting in Glenwood Springs this past Tuesday afternoon.
Here in metro Denver, the staff of Big Pivots said something profound like โholy moly!โ
With moisture coming into Colorado during the next two weeks, itโs possible that the runoff into Lake Powell may surpass that of 2002. This slide says that right now, at Cameo, the gaging station on the Colorado River, east of Palisade, it looks like the spring runoff peaked in late March. The usual is in early June.
Another takeaway from the River District meeting was about Green Mountain Reservoir. The dam that creates the reservoir was built from 1938 to 1943, giving the Western Slope a way to store water as part of the Colorado-Big Thompson diversion that came after World War II. The normal allotment of the reservoir storage for downstream irrigators, mostly in the Grand Junction area, is 66,000 acre-feet.
For the first time in the history of Green Mountain, said Andy Mueller, the River Districtโs general manager, the water is unavailable. Instead, the river district is tapping various pools of water over which it has control to come up with a thimbleful here, a cup there. A creative solution, Mueller called it. Irrigators wonโt become whole, but they will get some help.
โWeโll survive, and we will continue to survive,โ said Mike Ritschard, a director from the Kremmling area and a fourth-generation rancher there, said during a roundup of reports from board members.
Created in 1937, one of the ramifications of the Colorado-Big Thompson water diversion, theย River District has primary responsibility for water matters across 15 of the 20 Western Slope counties.
The Colorado River Water Conservation District spans 15 Western Slope counties. Colorado River District/Courtesy image
