Colorado River officials from upstream states, including Colorado, had no progress to report Wednesday on high-stakes negotiations about how the water supply for 40 million people will be managed after August 2026.
The commissioners from Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming said the talks continue to be challenging during an Upper Colorado River Commission meeting. The upper basin states and their downstream counterparts, Arizona, California and Nevada, have been tasked with reaching an agreement for how to manage the basin’s water supply once the current rules expire next year. But for months, they have failed to make progress on key issues, like how to cut water in the basin’s driest years.
Now, they are less than two months away from a federal deadline.
“The discussions with my counterparts have been and continue to be challenging, and sitting here today, it is often difficult to feel optimistic,” said Commissioner Becky Mitchell, who represents Colorado in Colorado River Basin negotiations.
The Colorado River Basin includes seven states, 30 tribal nations and part of northern Mexico. It supports a multibillion dollar agriculture industry that puts winter fruits and vegetables on dining room tables across the country. The western half of Colorado is within the basin, but Colorado River water finds its way to farms, homes, cities and industries across the state.
The Colorado River has been strained by nearly 25 years of prolonged drought. Water managers have attempted to adapt, launching conservation efforts and cutting back on their use.
The attempts have not been enough to stabilize a key part of the basin’s water system: reservoirs that act like savings banks in dry years. If demand continues to outpace supply, water stored in Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the basin’s two largest reservoirs, could fall to less than 4 million acre-feet by next year.
The two reservoirs have a combined capacity of 58.48 million acre-feet, about 92% of the reservoir storage capacity for the entire Colorado River Basin. One acre-foot roughly equals the annual water use of two to three households.
“We know it’s dry. We know it’s a difficult year,” Utah Commissioner Gene Shawcroft said Wednesday during the meeting. “We could be in a very dire situation as we begin the new guideline period.”
The basin is split among the upstream and downstream states, and the negotiators continue to throw barbs at each other.
The Lower Basin proposals could drastically cut Wyoming’s ability to develop its water resources in the future, Commissioner Brandon Gebhart of Wyoming said.
The 1922 Colorado River Compact, which laid the foundation for how water is shared between upper and lower basin states, promised Wyoming 500,000 acre-feet of water for additional development, he said in an email to The Colorado Sun. In dry years, Wyoming could have to give that up under the Lower Basin proposals.
“The Lower Basin is making this demand in an effort to maintain 100% of what they believe they were promised under the compact,” he said. “They claim that this is fair and equitable and that anything less places too much risk on the Lower Basin. From their perspective, it’s fair if Wyoming ends up with no benefit from the compact.”
Cutting back on that water is a promise he can’t make, Gebhart said.
Lower Basin officials have criticized the Upper Basin for its stance on mandatory cuts. The downstream states say everyone should share in mandatory reductions in dry years, while the upstream states will only agree to voluntary cuts because they are already forced to make cuts by Mother Nature.
This year, farmers and ranchers in southwestern Colorado only have 30% of their normal water supply because there simply isn’t enough water in streams and reservoirs, Mitchell said.
The upstream officials listed examples of their water-saving efforts during the meeting. Utah, for example, cut its water use by 200 million gallons, or about 614 acre-feet, by removing thirsty grass as part of a turf replacement program, according to Shawcroft.
Colorado created a way for about 900 acre-feet of Western Slope water, which would normally head east, to follow its natural course to the Colorado River. The commission and the Bureau of Reclamation are preparing a report to quantify these savings.
Officials have repeated similar talking points and finger-pointing since 2023, when the post-2026 planning process kicked into a higher gear.
The state negotiations are part of a federal process led by the Bureau of Reclamation.
The states need to inform the federal bureau by Nov. 11 whether a seven-state agreement is likely or highly unlikely, Scott Cameron, the Department of the Interior’s acting assistant secretary for water and science, said at an Upper Colorado River Commission meeting in June.
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At that point, the agency would want to see an agreement, at least at a high-level, on what a seven-state deal could look like, he said. If the states can agree on broad parameters for a deal by November, then they would need to turn in a more detailed plan by Feb. 14.
If not, Reclamation would take over, and starting in November, its staff would focus their attention on developing a federal plan for the basin.
The bureau, and state officials, have said they want to keep Colorado River Basin decisions in the hands of people within the basin. However, the federal government is prepared to take action if necessary, Cameron said in June.