By Kennedy Maize
Spring is arriving in the Rocky Mountains as a two-decade drought tightens its grip, making the long-running regional impasse over the vital Colorado River system even more difficult to manage. Snow largely avoided the Rockies this winter, depriving the river of needed water for the coming year, as the current deal under the century-old Colorado River Compact expires this fall.
The regional “snowpack,” snow accumulated in the mountains that determines the river’s flow in the rest of the year, was the lowest in over 40 years, according to Western Slope Now.com. Colorado State University climatologist Allie Mazurek said, “Looking at our data records, those suggest that the snowpack is at least at its worst in 40 years or more. And that includes on the West Slope, including the Colorado River basin that’s currently sitting at some of its lowest levels that we have on record.”
The key impact of the dry mild winter is the effect on the 1,450-mile long river, the 5th longest in the United States. It drains an expansive watershed encompassing parts of seven U.S. states, two Mexican states, and four federally-recognized Indian tribes, some 40 million people. 
The river supplies drinking water, irrigation, recreation, and electric power. It hosts 15 main-stem dams and two major hydropower projects: Hoover Dam (dedicated 1935) on the Nevada-Arizona border, where Lake Mead’s water can generate over 2 GW of power, and the 1966 Glen Canyon Dam in Northern Arizona where Lake Powell’s water can produce 1.3 GW
The Interior Department in 1922 made a deal, the Colorado River Compact, with the seven states through which the river travels: Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, and California. Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation manages the compact, consisting of a series of approximately 20-year renewable agreements.
The 2007 deal — modified in 2012 and 2019 — expires in 2017. It divvies up the water among the upper basin states that provide the water — Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and New Mexico — and the lower basin states that use the water — Nevada, Arizona, and California.
The two basins have different interests, but those have traditionally been resolvable given the ample water the river has supplied. That’s no longer the case. The flow has been declining during the entire lifespan of the current allocation between the basins. The basins have been deadlocked for over a year.
Today, there does not appear to be any progress on a new agreement. Interior may have to implement its threat to impose a deal. Interior has been imposing deadlines for the parties to come together — first last fall and again early this year — but backed away when the parties failed to agree.
So far, BuRec has been largely feckless. It is leaderless, without a White House nominated, Senate confirmed director. Temporary leadership has little clout. Secretary Doug Burgum met the principals at the end of January, after BuRec said it would move ahead with an imposed deal if the parties couldn’t agree on something by Feb. 14.
In January, BuRec produced a 1,600-page draft environmental impact statement outlining six possibilities for a new compact agreement. None met with applause from any of the parties.
Valentine’s Day came and went, accompanied by anodyne bureaucratic waffling. The agency issued a Feb. 14 news release reminding the states of the now-missed deadline. Burgum was quoted, “Negotiation efforts have been productive; we have listened to every state’s perspective and have narrowed the discussion by identifying key elements and issues necessary for an agreement. We believe that a fair compromise with shared responsibility remains within reach.”
The White House has been AWOL, having nominated a BuRec director last June, pulling it back last September (a result of regional politics), and then silence.
Even if the basins agree on a deal or the feds impose one, it may be irrelevant as the drought continues and possibly worsens. The parties are arguing over how to allocate what may be an irrevocable resource.
What to do in the absence of an agreement? Possible responses range from boots-on-the-ground to pie-in-the-sky. High Country News reports on how some basin farmers “are navigating water shortages and uncertainty amid deep political divisions about the river’s future.”
The article highlights three examples of how farmers in both basins are dealing with prolonged water shortages: The Ute Mountain Farm and Ranch Enterprise, a 7,700-acre native enterprise in Colorado’s Four Corners region; a 2,100-acre cotton, alfalfa and Bermuda grass farm in exceptionally area in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert; and a 10,000-acre produce farm in California’s Imperial Valley, dependent on Colorado River water.
All three cases, says the article, “illustrate the stakes — and rising tensions — of the current negotiations over the river’s future management. States, tribal nations and the federal government are reckoning with 100 years of developing water infrastructure based on assumptions of continuing abundance and expansion.” Those assumptions appear false.
Then there is a $40 billion proposal for dealing with California’s dependence on river water. Idaho-based Blue Ribbon Coalition, primarily consisting of public land, off-road, 4-wheel-drive enthusiasts, proposes a federal law leading to building a fleet of Pacific Ocean desalination plants, powered by nuclear reactors.
They call their plan the “Colorado River Abundance Act.” It would authorize BuRec to contract for up to 7 million cubic feet of water annually, primarily from desalinating ocean water, including a “Colorado River Abundance Fund (available without fiscal year limitation)” authorizing $40 billing for FY2026–2035 for “construction, acquisition, and initial operations (plus additional sums as needed).”
Ben Burr, coalition executive director, told USA Today, “At some point we’re going to hit a hard reality. There’s no more water in the Colorado River. You can only squeeze so much more juice out of it.” Burr told the newspaper the most likely source of power for the necessary eight plants would be “small nuclear reactors championed by the White House.”
