On Nov. 20, the Biden administration released a list of proposals for long-term management of the Colorado River. The river, which provides water to 40 million people across seven Western states, 30 tribes and parts of Mexico, is in crisis. Climate change, drought and overuse have depleted its flow by 20% since 2000. After months of stalled negotiations among the Colorado River Basin states over how to address the chronic water shortages, the federal Bureau of Reclamation has now released four alternatives for managing the Colorado River.
It’s unclear how the states will respond to the proposals, despite dire warnings that climate change will further stress the already overtaxed water supply. Meanwhile, there is uncertainty over whether or how the incoming Trump administration will impact negotiations.
The Upper Basin states — Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico — have long clashed with the Lower Basin states — California, Arizona and Nevada — over who should bear the brunt of future cutbacks from the beleaguered river. After failing to reach an agreement earlier this year, the Upper and Lower Basin states filed two competing proposals for the river’s long-term management to the federal government. Despite their current legal obligation to send a certain amount of water downstream, the Upper Basin states argue that they should be able to send less, while the Lower Basin states, which use much more water than their Upper Basin neighbors, contend that any cuts should be shared more evenly across the region during times of scarcity. Meanwhile, the Colorado River Basin tribes, which have historically never received their fair share of water, and conservation organizations have also submitted their own proposals for consideration.
The ongoing conflict has sparked fears that the states will end up embroiled in litigation after the current agreement expires.
The current crisis came to a head in 2022, when water levels in Lake Mead and Lake Powell dropped so low that they threatened hydropower generation. In response, the states adopted a short-term agreement to cut water use and raise the reservoirs’ water levels in 2023. But those rules expire in December 2026.
The Bureau of Reclamation was hoping that the states would come to an agreement over how to share the river’s dwindling water supply long before that deadline, but so far, negotiations have been mired in gridlock. The ongoing conflict has sparked fears that the states will end up embroiled in litigation after the current agreement expires.
Here’s what you need to know about the latest proposals, and what might come next:
Reclamation’s four alternatives were light on the details.
The proposals provide little advice about how, exactly, to divvy up the water; the agency says they are merely intended to provide “a path forward” for negotiations.
The first option focuses on what federal agencies can do in the absence of an agreement among the states to protect “critical infrastructure.” Shortages would be determined by the elevations of Lakes Powell and Mead, which serve as holding tanks for the Upper and Lower basins, respectively. Cuts would be distributed based on the region’s arcane water rights system, in which older rights take priority. The second “hybrid” proposal combines the first one with comments from tribes and other stakeholders. The third, which incorporates comments from environmental organizations, suggests that Lower Basin cuts should be triggered by water levels in reservoirs as well as factors like rain, snowmelt, and river and groundwater flows across the basin, rather than concentrating solely on Mead and Powell. The fourth is a hybrid of the proposals submitted by states, tribes and conservation organizations, with multiple options regarding which entities would bear cuts
Notably, the Biden administration did not include in their entirety either of the proposals from the Upper and Lower Basin states. “Clearly, Reclamation is laying out options that have a compromise built in, or incentive for compromise,” said Edith Zagona, research professor of water resources engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder.
The proposals are broad, and experts caution against reading too much into them. Many more details about how the cuts will be determined and shared still need to be hashed out. “It’s hard to know where this is going,” said Mark Squillace, a natural resources law professor at the University of Colorado Law School.
So far, water managers are remaining relatively tight-lipped about what they think of the alternatives.
In a press briefing after the alternatives were released, Tom Buschatzke, the director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources and the primary negotiator for Arizona, said that the various proposals had some really positive elements. At the same time, however, he said he was “disappointed that Reclamation chose to create alternatives, rather than to model the Lower Basin states’ alternative in its entirety.”
Similarly, Becky Mitchell, Colorado’s water commissioner and negotiator for Colorado, said in a statement that her state “cannot speak directly to the contents of Reclamation’s matrix of potential alternatives at this time,” but remains firmly committed to the Upper Basin states’ alternative.
The Biden administration will analyze the proposals and craft a draft environmental impact statement, which it plans to release later this year.
Uncertainty remains about how the Trump administration will impact Colorado River talks.
Negotiators have expressed optimism that the process will continue as planned under the incoming administration. Historically, the federal government has relied on the states to come to an agreement, and new administrations have had little impact on negotiations. Shrinking water supplies are not a partisan issue, said Jennifer Pitt, the Colorado River program director for the National Audubon Society, adding, “The fact of the matter is there’s less water in the Colorado River.”
But the Trump administration could still have an impact on the Colorado River’s future. It could refuse to advance Biden’s proposals, for example. Donald Trump has not only threatened to gut federal agencies, he’s also talked about revoking Inflation Reduction Act funding, which has paid for conservation initiatives and water-saving incentives in the Lower Basin. “That funding helped ward off the acute crisis that the Colorado River faced in 2022,” Pitt said. What will happen if it ends is anyone’s guess.
Multiple recent studies have found that climate change is bringing the Colorado River to a tipping point.
A study released last month, which modeled the drought vulnerability of Colorado’s Western Slope river basins, concluded that the Colorado River may soon reach a grim milestone: There will not be enough precipitation, full stop, to keep Lake Powell full. Other recent studies have found that future drought in the Colorado River Basin may be worse than previously anticipated and much harder to recover from.
Meanwhile, conservation organizations feel they cannot implement strategies to conserve water and restore habitats effectively until the seven states come to an agreement. Ultimately, to avoid jumping from climate change-fueled crisis to crisis, the states need come to an agreement for how to divvy up the water — and they need to do it sooner rather than later, Pitt said. “We’re stuck at the cusp of a crisis and a big fight.”
