Colorado River officials disagree about future water use

LAS VEGAS – The dispute over the future of the Colorado River continues.

Hundreds of people gathered in a Las Vegas conference room Thursday to hear seven state officials give a highly anticipated look at negotiations over future management of the river. What they heard were often repeated talking points, finger-pointing, and disagreements over basic facts.

“My God, we’re so far apart,” a California rancher who declined to give his name muttered during the panel discussion.

The Colorado River is expansive, overused and plagued by more than two decades of drought. The state negotiations are part of a long federal process to replace current management rules that expire in 2026 and outline how two key reservoirs, Lakes Mead and Powell, store and release water in wet and dry years.

This Fresh Water News story is a collaboration between The Colorado Sun and Water Education Colorado. It also appears at wateredco.org/fresh-water-news.

The outcome of this federal process will determine how water supplies are managed for 40 million people in the coming years.

The state panel, hosted by the Colorado River Water Users Association, is a popular draw each year because it typically brings all seven state negotiators to the table to provide a rare glimpse into their closed-door discussions.

This year, however, it was split in two: one with the lower basin – Arizona, California and Nevada – and the other with the upper basin – Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.

The gap between the groups was noticeable, judging by the applause.

The subbasin doubled down on its river management proposal, which calls for a system in which water cuts in years of severe drying would be shared by all basin states. Lower basin states would make the first cuts in less dry years.

Downriver states said they had already saved millions of acres of water and were ready to do more.

“We didn’t complain. We didn’t wrestle our hands. “We’ve done it and look forward to providing guidance to partners across the basin on how to get things done,” JB Hamby, California’s lead negotiator, said Thursday.

The Upper Basin also focused on its proposal, which proposes that any mandatory cuts take place in the Lower Basin while the Upper Basin engages in voluntary conservation.

The Upper Basin has nothing left to give, officials said. Its farmers, ranchers and other water users are already cut off from water in dry years because the rivers simply don’t have enough water.

“The ‘Hunger Games’ are taking place in the Upper Basin. We are constantly hungry. “There is never enough,” said Becky Mitchell, Colorado’s top negotiator. “That’s what we want to recognize.”

All of the governor’s appointees have repeatedly said they are committed to returning to the negotiating table — except this week, when negotiators did not hold their annual preconference meeting.

The states have been arguing about these and other complex details of the negotiations for almost two years. They are about halfway through the federal process, which has a set deadline of August 2026. It may sound far off, but the process must allow time for public comments, revisions, required wait times, and more.

For months, states have said they want to avoid one outcome: a U.S. Supreme Court battle in which judges with no expertise in Western water law would take control of decisions about the river’s future.

Recently, Lower Basin officials have changed their tone and garnered support for enforcing a “compact call,” or forced water cuts, in the Upper Basin. Upper Basin officials interpreted this as a step toward litigation.

Wyoming’s chief negotiator Brandon Gebhart said the hostility must end.

“We really need to understand that the enemy we are fighting right now is not the Upper Basin. It’s not the lower basin, it’s the hydrology,” Gebhard said. “All the rhetoric, saber rattling and other distractions going on are nonsense. It has to stop. … We need leadership, not rhetoric.”