A River That Millions Rely on for Water Is on the Brink. A Deal to Save It Isn’t.

LAS VEGAS—The Colorado River Basin is, quite literally, 50 feet away from collapse, and an agreement to save it is nowhere in sight. 

Water titans clashed at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas this week, where negotiators from each of the seven Colorado River Basin states outlined what they have done to protect the river—and pointed fingers at each other, demanding more. 

Talks over how to manage the river after 2026, when current drought mitigation guidelines expire, began two years ago. Federal deadlines have come and gone, and the stakes are higher than ever as climate change and overuse continue to push the river that 40 million people rely on to the edge. Still, the states are refusing to budge. 

“It’s now 2025, we’re here in a different hotel a couple years later and the same problems are on the table. In the last two years, we’ve been spinning our wheels,” said JB Hamby, California’s lead negotiator, at the annual Colorado River Water Users Association conference.“Time has been wasted, and like water, that’s a very precious resource.”

The Colorado River flows from Wyoming to Mexico, supplying water to seven U.S. states, two Mexican states and 30 tribes. But the bedrock law guiding its management, the 1922 Colorado River Compact, overestimated how much water the river could provide, leading to state allocations that promised more than was ultimately available. The nation’s two largest reservoirs, lakes Mead and Powell, which for decades have met the excess demand driven by overly optimistic allocations, are at the brink. Lake Mead is 33 percent full; Powell is just 28 percent full. If the latter’s water levels drop by an additional 50 feet, the water behind Glen Canyon Dam would be trapped, limiting deliveries to California, Arizona and Nevada, and preventing the dam from generating hydropower. 

The federal government’s data indicate that Lake Powell could drop to that level, known as “deadpool,” by the summer of 2027 if significant cuts aren’t made.

Yet, the states remain stuck on the same points that, for years, have prevented any of them from agreeing to reduce their long-term use enough to prevent the collapse of the Colorado River system.

In a proposal to the federal government from March 2024, Arizona, California and Nevada, the three states that make up the Lower Basin, which uses the greatest amount of the river’s water and has historically over-consumed its allotments, put annual cuts of 1.5 million acre feet of water on the table for a post-2026 agreement. They want to see any necessary reductions after that, which experts estimate could range from another 2 to 4 million acre-feet per year, divided among all seven states. One acre-foot of water is enough to supply somewhere between two and four households for a year.

The Upper Basin states of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming have proposed taking voluntary reductions. They argue they should not face mandatory cuts because the Upper Basin has never used the full amount of water it was allocated under the 1922 compact, which apportions 7.5 million acre-feet to each basin. Due to climate change and a lack of storage infrastructure, they say they’re already living with cuts while delivering the required water to the Lower Basin. 

In closing comments on Thursday, which provided a rare opportunity for the public to hear what have otherwise been behind-closed-doors conversations, negotiators expressed frustration, rehashing the same talking points they have used for years.

“As long as we keep polishing those arguments and repeating them to each other, we are going nowhere,” said John Entsminger, Southern Nevada Water Authority’s general manager, and that state’s negotiator. He added that at this point, the best he could envision was an interim five-year operating plan agreement, not the multi-decadal deal that would be necessary to bring certainty to the region. Even a short-term deal still requires resolving debates about what each state can commit to. 

The impasse heightens the risk that the federal government will have to step in to implement a plan to protect its infrastructure. Many fear that a failure to reach state consensus could lead to exorbitantly expensive litigation, delay needed action for years and cause uncertainty throughout the region.

The federal Bureau of Reclamation has told the basins to develop a plan by Feb. 14, 2026, after the states blew past a previous Nov. 11 deadline, so it can include their agreement in the federal government’s environmental analysis of a post-2026 plan to operate Lakes Mead and Powell and oversee their dam releases.

Lorelei Cloud, chair of the Colorado Water Conservation Board and co-founder of the Indigenous Women’s Leadership Network, cautioned against federal intervention. The federal government has fallen short of its trust responsibility to the tribes by failing to provide water, she said. 

”All the people on the ground really need to step up and provide a solution,” she said.

Bill Hasencamp, manager of Colorado River Resources for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, said that federal intervention would mean reverting to pre-2007 operating guidelines under which water allocations are determined annually. That would make it harder for Metropolitan, which serves 19 million people across Southern California, to plan for the future.

“We might invest in sources that we don’t need, but also we may have to restrict water deliveries from time to time, as we’ve done in the past,” said Hasencamp. “For us, that’s a fail.”

But Tom Buschatzke, the director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources and the state’s lead negotiator, told Inside Climate News that federal leadership could break the deadlock between the states, a move that Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs has called for recently. 

Buschatzke feels that nothing the Upper Basin has proposed would withstand scrutiny from Arizona legislators, who would have to approve it. Visibly upset, he said the Upper Basin’s claim that they can’t take more cuts is “absurd” and is based on them not getting their “paper” water—a term used to refer to water that exists legally but has never been put to use or proven to currently be available. 

“They need mandatory conservation that results in more water being in Lake Powell that can be moved to Lake Mead,” he said.

Upper Basin negotiators counter that it is not their responsibility to cut their use to accommodate Lower Basin users who have long overdrawn the system. “We cannot subsidize overuse,” said Becky Mitchell, Colorado’s negotiator.

At one point, the Lower Basin used several million acre-feet more water per year than it was allocated, but it has since reduced its consumption and now uses less than it is legally entitled to. California, the river’s biggest user, touted drastic conservation measures that have reduced water use to its lowest levels since the 1940s, despite booming growth in the state. Lower Basin leaders argue, too, that the region’s biggest cities, farms and economic outputs from the river are within the three states.

Upper Basin officials argue they have the right to grow as the Lower Basin has, and it’s unfair for those four states to sacrifice their future.

Earlier this week, leaders in both basins saw a preview of the federal government’s draft environmental review, which included a range of options for managing Lake Powell and Lake Mead. Some in the Lower Basin expressed concern that the options relied too heavily on them making future cuts. Hamby, California’s negotiator, emphasized that if the basin states eventually reach an agreement, it will determine how the federal government manages the river.

“Ultimately, none of it should matter if we get to a seven-state consensus,” said Hamby, who is also a board member of Southern California’s Imperial Irrigation District, the river’s single-largest water user. “But as part of the [environmental review] process, what we look forward to seeing from California is an equally balanced risk across the basin that motivates people to develop a seven-state consensus.”

Brandon Gebhart, Wyoming’s state engineer and Colorado River negotiator, called the analysis “broad enough to accommodate any seven-state consensus agreement” in an email.

Andrea Travnicek, assistant secretary for water and science at the Interior Department, said the government expects to publish the environmental impact statement in the last week of December or first week of January. 

Despite the urgency, conference attendees weren’t surprised that negotiations remain stalled and no deal appeared imminent.

Cynthia Campbell, the director of policy innovation for the Arizona Water Innovation Institute at Arizona State University, said she expects one of two outcomes in the next 18 months, and perhaps both: the system will collapse or there will be litigation.

The public, she said, will then ask what happened, and leaders will have no good answers.

“I came with very low expectations, and they were met,” she said.