Jack Schmidt Center for Colorado River Studies, Utah State University 14 July 2025 Water stored in the reservoirs of the Colorado River represents the account balance from which we draw water for use. The amount in the account is especially important during dry times when the demand by water users throughout the Basin exceeds income …
Continue reading ‘Summer Update on the Colorado River Water Supply’ »
See note of correction/clarification below: Arizona yesterday finally moved the super-secret idea at the heart of current Colorado River negotiations out of the shadows. The idea is deceptively simple: base Lake Powell releases on a percentage of the three-year rolling average of the Colorado River’s estimated “natural flow” at Lee Ferry. Allocate water …
Via Allen Best, Brad Udall’s critically important comments at last week’s Getches-Wilkinson Colorado River conference: Within this basin, we can and have worked together to deal with a really sticky, difficult issue like climate change, to inform decision-making given the right partners, including the federal government at the table. Point two is our current climate …
Continue reading ‘Brad Udall on climate change and the Colorado River’ »
Fascinating observation from Jim Lochhead this morning at the Getches-Wilkinson Center Colorado River Conference about the nature of the current negotiations and the role of the federal government. It came during a panel moderated by Anne Castle focused on what we learned from the expiring 2007 river management guidelines, which are the subject of intense …
Jack Schmidt* and John Fleck** *Center for Colorado River Studies, Utah State University **Utton Transboundary Resources Center, University of New Mexico School of Law 1 June 2025 We now begin June, when the Colorado River’s two largest reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, should be swelling with melting snow for use later this year …
Continue reading ‘Colorado River Basin Reservoir Storage: where do we stand?’ »
Eric Kuhn, with some help from Anne Castle and myself, has taken a useful dive into what was known in the 1940s as Congress was considering the treaty between the United States and Mexico regarding how to share the waters of the Colorado River. Drawing on the analysis of Colorado’s Royce Tipton, Eric draws out …
By Eric Kuhn and John Fleck The Bureau of Reclamation has released its May 24-Month Study. It confirms that 2025 will be another very dry year and the consequences will be significant. Under the minimum probable forecast, active storage in Lake Powell will fall to an elevation of 3530’ (5.8 maf), only about 9 feet …
Continue reading ‘The May USBR Colorado River 24-Month Study Confirms What We Feared’ »
The following is signed by a stunningly long list of folks: The Colorado River Basin will feel the loss of Bob Snow with his retirement from the Solicitor’s Office at the Department of the Interior. His more than forty-year presence in the most impactful and most difficult conversations in the Basin has been both a …
Continue reading ‘Upon the Retirement of Bob Snow, May 15, 2025’ »
Alex Hager had a piece today on the decision by the Colorado River basin states principles to not appear at next month’s Getches-Wilkinson conference in Boulder. In a process where decisions are being made behind closed doors, outside of public view, Getches-Wilkinson is one of the few places those charged with the decisions show up …
Continue reading ‘Colorado River negotiators won’t be appearing at Getches-Wilkinson conference’ »
A group* of my Colorado River collaborators has put together what we hope can be a useful set of foundational principles as the basin states and federal leadership search for a path toward a negotiated agreement for post-2026 Colorado River management. They’re based on a number of key premises: The Colorado River Compact will remain …