When it comes to dwindling Colorado River water, Mother Nature calls the shots, and it’s up to us to keep up.
Coloradans live on the front lines of climate change. For the past 20 years, we’ve regularly experienced significant cuts to our water supply. We’ve responded to what’s available in a given year from the amount of snowfall nature provides in our towering mountains. We are showing that we can live with a variable future — because we do it, all the time.
Moving into the future, this mindset must exist across the entire Colorado River Basin. The fact is that Lower Basin water users in California, Arizona and Nevada are not more important than farmers, ranchers and communities in Colorado or anywhere in the Upper Basin. The Colorado River Compact divided the waters equally, meaning, no one part of the American West is more important than the other.
The reason our major downstream reservoirs on the Colorado River — Lake Mead and Lake Powell — have hit such low points is because the current operations at both reservoirs are ineffective at responding to a changing climate, while simultaneously facilitating overuse in the Lower Basin.
To be blunt: The current operations, which were established in 2007 (’07 Guidelines), have allowed California, Arizona and Nevada to drain both of the country’s largest reservoirs. The crisis at Lake Powell and Lake Mead is the result of basic math. You can’t release more water than enters the reservoirs without draining them. The silver lining of this crisis? The ’07 Guidelines expire in 2026, and now is the time to negotiate better operating guidelines.
The bottom line? We need to live within the means of the river. We cannot keep operating the way we have, with Lower Basin uses far exceeding what nature provides in a given year. If we want flexibility and security, and to achieve sustainability, we have to change.
In July, I took on the expanded role of the state of Colorado’s Colorado River commissioner, where I work closely with my counterparts from Utah, New Mexico, Wyoming and Colorado through the Upper Colorado River Commission. I was also recently appointed by Gov. Jared Polis as director of compact negotiations of the Interbasin Compact Committee, where I will directly link input from Coloradans to the interstate Colorado River negotiations.
The next few years are going to be incredibly intense. We know we need to do things differently, and this will require difficult decisions.
To prepare, I have collaborated with water and community leaders across the state, including the Tribal Nations, to set principles that support a vision for a sustainable Colorado River. Arguably, the most critical place to start is acknowledging that we face a drier, more variable future.
We must work together to prepare for anything that the future holds. That means responsible, thoughtful management. There will be years of high flow, and years of low flow, but there will also be variability in the timing. We have to be able to adapt to whatever Mother Nature provides, and when she provides it. We need a basin-wide commitment to managing the river in response to the changing hydrology. In years with bad snowpack, we live within the means of the river. In a year with a bountiful snowpack, we make smart choices about finding the balance of sharing the resource or preserving it for a dry year. We need to be flexible.
In the Upper Basin, we need to ensure our water users have tools available to survive the variability to which they continue to adapt. But in the Lower Basin, the status quo is not sustainable and any water cuts California, Arizona and Nevada make must be long term and permanent to keep Lake Powell and Lake Mead from crashing.
There is much our downstream neighbors can learn from how we manage our ongoing water supplies. With foresight, planning and unprecedented levels of collaboration, it is possible to make difficult decisions so that more can benefit rather than protecting the interests of a powerful select few.
There are tough choices ahead. But if we act thoughtfully and collaboratively, we still have choices to make together. There’s not one state, one entity, one community that can do this alone. Together we will adjust and modify, to create a more sustainable Colorado River that supports agriculture, our cities, towns and environment for generations to come.
These choices we make today will impact the lives of the 40 million people from seven states and two countries who depend on the Colorado River. We must speak with one voice in the face of downstream pressures. That means listening to the 30 Tribes that rely on this water source — voices who have historically been ignored. That means defending against attempts at reducing our water use in the Upper Basin states while our Lower Basin neighbors continue their overuse.
We are at a critical juncture on the Colorado River. We have an opportunity to negotiate a better deal for how Lake Powell and Lake Mead operate — a better deal for Colorado and also for the 40 million people, 30 Tribes and our environment who depend on this critical resource.
And that’s going to take all of us.
Rebecca Mitchell (Becky) is the state of Colorado’s commissioner to the Upper Colorado River Commission. Mitchell took on this role in July to enhance the state’s position in Colorado River interstate issues and negotiations on the operations of Lake Mead and Lake Powell.
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