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States remain gridlocked over the best way to manage the Colorado River’s water supplies beyond 2026, but face a ticking clock in negotiations as a February deadline approaches.
In the absence of consensus, leaders of the Bureau of Reclamation, which oversees the operations of several of the river’s key reservoirs, including Lakes Powell and Mead, have begun taking their own steps to prepare for a post-2026 future on the river.
Last week, the agency released an environmental impact analysis looking at several options for future management, despite state negotiators not yet having a firm plan for the river’s future.
Negotiators from all seven Colorado River states have spent the last few years locked in tense negotiations over the river’s future, but were unable to meet their previous deadline of Nov. 11. That deadline has now been extended to Feb. 14, according to a Colorado River Board of California meeting packet.
Meanwhile, federal officials are pushing for states to reach a deal. At a conference last month, Acting Reclamation Commissioner Scott Cameron urged states to “choose cooperation over conflict” and “resist the temptation to wallow in past perceived inequities.”
“We must move forward and choose innovation over inertia,” he said, adding, “Everyone must give a little, or maybe more than a little, accept some calculated risks, make sacrifices and compromises that, while they acknowledge parochial needs, still advance the greater good of the river and the 40 million people who depend on it.”
As of Jan. 4, snow accumulation for the overall Colorado River Basin above Lake Powell was at 4.8 inches, 73% of the 30-year median, according to the Central Arizona Project.
Researchers overseeing the National Integrated Drought Information System warned that snow cover across the West on Jan. 4 was 141,416 square miles — the lowest on record for that date since 2001. The drought status report warns that “water supply concerns are increasing as snow drought in parts of the Colorado River Basin and other headwaters intensifies due to warm and dry or warm and rainy conditions.”
Brad Udall, a senior water and climate research scientist at Colorado State University, told Agri-Pulse that so far, the winter is looking “terrible” due to limited snowpack, a worrying sign given the basin is “one dry year away from having to make some very hard choices about who gets what water.”
“We've got three months left to get whatever snow we're going to get, and every day that goes by without more snow means the likelihood of a very low year increasing,” Udall said. “It's kind of grim all around.”
Two basins, different perspectives
The Colorado River is governed by complex, long-standing agreements, federal laws and court decisions collectively called the “Law of the River.” The Colorado River Compact, one of the foundational governing documents, formally split apart the upper and lower basins and allocated 7.5 million acre-feet of water to each.
The four upper basin states — Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — have historically used less water each year than their lower basin counterparts. In 2024, states in the upper basin collectively used around 4.4 million acre-feet, while lower basin states used around 6 million, according to Reclamation data.
Gene Shawcroft, Utah’s Colorado River commissioner, has previously told Agri-Pulse that upper basin water users rely heavily on snowpack and runoff; their half of the basin is less reliant on reservoirs, and if they aren’t able to make use of the water they get, it heads downstream. Lower basin users’ water allocations are initially stored in major reservoirs upstream, leaving them with a firmer picture of how much water they will have in the following year.
Previously, lower basin negotiators suggested cuts of up to 1.5 million acre-feet annually if the basin’s “total system contents” — the amount of water in the Flaming Gorge, Blue Mesa and Navajo reservoirs and Lakes Powell, Mead, Mohave and Havasu — drop below 58% full.
Under that proposal, if the system were to fall below 38% of normal capacity, states would be subject to a combined curtailment of up to 3.9 million acre-feet annually, though 1.5 million acre-feet would come from the lower basin. Any additional reductions would be split, with Lower basin states and Mexico responsible for 50% and the upper basin states responsible for 50%.
Meanwhile, the upper basin states previously proposed the lower basin states take up to 1.5 million acre-feet of cuts in years when Lakes Powell and Mead — the system’s two primary reservoirs — sink below 70% of their combined 8.5-million-acre-foot capacity. The proposal would require Arizona, Nevada and California to take up to 2.4 million acre-feet of additional reductions on top of the 1.5-million-acre-foot cut if both reservoirs were less than 20% full.
States clash over path forward
Udall said one question that has surfaced as part of the debate is, “What does the upper basin owe the lower basin?” Lower basin negotiators have been calling for the upper basin to commit to sharing a portion of mandatory cuts during times of shortage.
“We have maintained our offer of the 1.5 million acre-feet as the first cuts,” Tom Buschatzke, Arizona’s Colorado River negotiator said during the Colorado River Water Users Association annual conference in December. “But if we need more, and there are many bad hydrologies … in which we might need more, we’re asking for [the upper basin] to share in that burden on a 50/50 basis.”
However, upper basin negotiators have so far not appeared willing to commit to mandatory cuts, arguing that their water use is already limited during drought.
“I think we’ve been pretty clear — we are unwilling to require additional mandatory reductions on our water users,” New Mexico negotiator Estevan López said at the conference. He argued that the upper basin has not been able to develop its full portion of the compact and added that upper basin water users still see reductions “because the water is not there.”
Brandon Gebhart, Wyoming’s negotiator, said at the CRWUA conference that upper basin states are “actively pursuing flexible tools to help the overall system and also help our own water users better manage through a declining water supply and plan for an uncertain future.” He said his state is exploring voluntary conservation programs, but added that these “must work for Wyoming water users.”
“Wyoming and the upper basin states are fulfilling our commitments, and we are fully committed to being part of the solution. Suggestions to the contrary fail to recognize what’s actually happening," he said.
Meanwhile, JB Hamby, California’s negotiator, said his state is the only one in the basin “putting water on the table that we’re not legally obligated to,” and added that “this is a shared problem” that requires participation from all seven states.
“Time has been wasted, and like water, that’s a very precious resource,” Hamby said at the conference. “We need to live with the river that we have, not the one that we wished we had in 1922. California has done what we’re supposed to do morally, even if we’re not required to do that legally. Every state must take that approach if we’re going to have success in post-2026.”
Utah Governor Spencer Cox warned Interior Secretary Doug Burgum in December that any “unilateral action by the Bureau of Reclamation “would face immediate legal challenges from states, tribes, water users, and environmental organizations,” adding that “prolonged litigation would paralyze basin operations and cost all parties unimaginable amounts of money.”
"The Colorado River has long tested whether Western states and the federal government can solve complex problems through partnership,” Cox wrote in a letter to Burgum. “Utah remains committed to that tradition. We believe litigation and unilateral federal action are unnecessary, destabilizing, and contrary to state sovereignty.”
In the letter, Cox also said that it is “important that lower basin states recognize that their overuse cannot be resolved by shifting burdens upstream or by relying on federal intervention.”
Still, while a compromise still remains elusive, negotiators who spoke at the conference expressed an interest in reaching a deal instead of turning to litigation.
López, New Mexico’s negotiator, said litigation is “probably the absolute worst outcome we could have,” noting that it is a long, slow process that could mean “no certainty for perhaps a decade.”
“I don’t think we have any time to waste," he said.
