People are finally starting to say the quiet parts, the parts so many Upper Basin people have been grumbling about in private, out loud. Via an incredibly important Heather Sackett story:
Colorado Sen. Dylan Roberts, a District 8 Democrat who represents several Western Slope counties, including Eagle, Grand, Garfield, Routt and Summit, asked Colorado’s lead negotiator, Becky Mitchell, whether the people of Colorado should have confidence that negotiations among the seven states that share the Colorado River have put the state in the best possible position. The states have been at an impasse for more than two years without a deal for future management as reservoirs continue to decline to record-low levels.
“My constituents just see fighting and intransigence,” Roberts said. “And it’s concerning to me, especially as a Western Slope lawmaker … that the strategy is just ‘Let’s hire more lawyers; we’re going to court no matter what.’ That doesn’t give me confidence, because I don’t think Colorado fares well when we go to court against Arizona and California and Nevada, throwing our fate to the nine justices on the U.S. Supreme Court.”
I plotted mean annual discharge for Lees Ferry (delivery from Upper Basin to Lower Basin) and Diamond Creek input into Lake Mead. The Upper Basin has delivered its 75 maf/10 years even including the last couple of years. An additional approximately 1 maf AF is contributed by the Little Colorado, Havasu Creek, and other tributaries in the Grand Canyon. So, why is Lake Mead down way more than 100ft? There has been more than enough input to Mead to cover the Lower Basin and evaporation from Mead. I don’t know if return flow and the Gila provide enough for Mexico or whether Mexico has been getting its 1.5 maf/yr. The point I’m getting at is we need maf at a lot of gages in the Upper Basin and the lower Colorado to see where the water is going. I doubt that the Upper Basin is using only 4 maf and the Lower Basin is down to 6 maf.
“That doesn’t give me confidence, because I don’t think Colorado fares well when we go to court against Arizona and California and Nevada, throwing our fate to the nine justices on the U.S. Supreme Court.” Talk about stating the obvious. I’ve been involved in water disputes involving all types from domestic well disputes to multistate interstate pacts that “settled” after over fifty or sixty years, through court decrees that didn’t last, to voluminous federal statutes that never reflected physical reality. How long has the Colorado water been in dispute? Since 1920’s? I will never say I know the best way to settle a serious water issue (aren’t they all serious?) but I can swear that the two worst ways are through the courts or via the political process. For the courts, Justice Sotomayor comments during arguments over the latest Nebraska – Colorado flare up, “I have to interrupt here. Are you saying people could actually run out of water?” It’s no accident that the longest ever federal case put generations of water lawyers through school. Politicians whose primary need is to get reelected or bureaucrats chasing the next GS level provide little help. The simple fact is that no stakeholder plan, consensus, agreement, court judgement, or statue will ever truly settle a water issue. Only an impartial, science-based analysis can provide a reliable, lasting basis to truly settle a water issue. Once again, when he was the US Solicitor General, Thurgood Marshall noted that because the Colorado served so many states and citizens, it was the federal government’s role to do what was necessary to actually manage the river. Might be worth a try if the courts and politicians will stand aside.
One of the great negotiating and political project management jobs ever seen in the west was when Delph Carpenter got the original compact through and signed in the 1920’s.
Delph fought and lost some SCOTUS water fights, and saw the writing on the wall when he and State of CO lost WYO v. CO in 1922. SCOTUS’s logic (prior appropriation) also meant that California already has 90+% of the water rights to the Colorado river, and the ONLY way to get water rights was by signing a compact with all 7 states to share. I’d like to think that California was gracious in stepping back and giving up water rights that it had based on prior appropriation. The reality was California had some really poor representation in the Compact talks. The compact did help with the development of the west that would not have happened otherwise, and I appreciate that, and the State of Colorado should too.
As a son of Colorado, whose family had water rights that came from early trans-basin diversions to the eastern slope, I have seen and managed Colorado River water in Larimer County. So, it is amazing to me that the State of Colorado has a lead negotiator who does not understand the water history of the state. She has a job I would not want to have. Her state’s water claims are pretty flimsy, and the local populist view pushes her to be ever more strident. Not a winning hand.
As good as Delph Carpenter was, Becky Mitchell is weak in her inability to see the probable results in a SCOTUS decision. Colorado’s Governor needs to show some leadership to avoid the disaster that is brewing.
Get your bets down now: “Prediction markets dip their toes into shrinking Lake Mead : You can basically gamble on anything these days”https://www.sfgate.com/national-parks/article/prediction-market-lake-mead-22329462.php
“truly settle a water issue” should be truly “truly solve a water issue.” Big difference.
I would agree that the public’s concern over the status of the Colorado River negotiations is palpable and would add that it is basin wide. The majority of the public are concerned due to the lack of transparency of process and that fact that they get their information from selected media releases. With limited federal leadership (let the states work out an agreement first) the states have stayed in their specific silos and slowly but surely painted themselves into their respective corners. Now that the feds have had to step in with legal timelines. The leadership by the feds has diminished to threats and short-term actions in hopes that either (1) water will return, (2) states will finally get together, or (3) litigation occurs. Leadership is needed. In my view we need more transparency of process and for the basin governors to create paths of dialogue forward.
“…The Colorado River crisis is perhaps the first time that climate change is “forcing a rethink of 100 years of law and policy and rules and interstate compacts and international treaties around a water source …you see climate change impacts across the globe, like big floods, hurricanes – but people pick up the pieces and kind of go back to the way they were living before, but here, because the flows are so low, we’re going to have to start buying out or cutting off water users, and the rules we have are completely inadequate to the task.” Brad Udall, a water and climate research scientist at Colorado State University
“Lake Powell, a vital reservoir, plunges toward unprecedented low levels as water crisis deepens in US west” Guardian (UK) July 7, 2026 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/07/lake-powell-water-crisis
Nature is forcing new ways to think about water supply. As Jack Schmidt said, “What we expect to happen is that Lake Powell will go to unprecedented low conditions some time this fall.” The funding for Reclamation’s work on these “cash register” facilities comes in good part from sales of electricity, now at risk from declining supply (climate warming) and increasing demand. It is time to recognize the inadequacies of the repeated palliative concensuses, economic studies, learned scrivners, politically convenient agreements, stakeholder wishes, judicial fiats, and hopeful but ignorant statutes. Such attempts have proven inadequate. Nature gives not a flip what humanity wants or needs. At times a most soothing and attractive personage, but ignore nature’s principles, then enjoy the vicious savage. Only a science based approach that overrules the popular and political desires can prove successful. Think mandatory shortage sharing based on best science. Reclamation has the technical ability to do that, if they have the money and the pols set them free. Reclamation as the Federal Water Reserve?