“The time for action is now”: Pressure mounts for negotiations over the Colorado River’s future

BOULDER — Almost 300 water wonks converged on Boulder Thursday for two days of sobering conversations about the river’s future punctuated by frustration, pleas for creative solutions and references to everything from the musician Lizzo to the kids movie “Frozen.”

The Colorado River Basin is in dire straits: The water supply for 40 million people has been dwindling, and climatologists say the climate future is bleak. State officials have spent months mired in thorny negotiations over things like how to split painful water cuts in the driest conditions — with scant progress to report publicly. The lack of progress and insight into the talks had some conference-goers feeling frustrated. Concerned. Uncertain.

High-ranking federal officials joined the Boulder event to reassert the federal government’s frequent role in talks over the Colorado River’s future: The parent ready to stop the car if the kids can’t stop fighting.

In the event that the states can’t agree on how to manage the river’s reservoirs and water supply in a timely fashion, Department of Interior Secretary Doug Burgum is ready to wield his federal authority over reservoirs, water contracts and more in the basin.

“He’s not looking forward to that, but in the absence of a seven-state agreement, he will do it,” Scott Cameron, the Bureau of Reclamation’s acting assistant secretary for water and science, said Friday at the 45th annual Conference on the Colorado River at the University of Colorado’s Getches-Wilkinson Center.

The basin’s task is to submit a joint management proposal to the federal government for analysis. For months, however, they’ve been stuck working on separate ideas for how to manage the river. 

Upper Basin states — Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — are on one side, and Lower Basin states — Arizona, California and Nevada — on the other. The 30 tribal nations in the basin are advocating for their individual needs, as is Mexico.

Notably, the top state negotiators, except California’s, skipped the Boulder conference this year, unlike in the past. 

The Interior Department will analyze a joint basin proposal as part of a larger process to select draft alternatives and then settle on a final plan.

The final plan could determine everything from how key reservoirs store and release water to who takes cuts in dry years and how environments, like the Grand Canyon, will be impacted for years to come. It will impact water supplies for cities, like Denver, Phoenix and Los Angeles, ecosystems, a multibillion-dollar agricultural industry, hydroelectric power and more.

“The time for action is now,” Cameron told the gathering in a speech. “We do not have a lot of time to waste, people.” 

Mounting challenges and a bleak climate future

The Bureau of Reclamation plans to release a draft outlining management options by the end of 2025 with a final plan in place by early summer 2026, Cameron said. 

But the negotiating challenges are significant. State officials face the political problem of bringing home a deal that includes water cuts. Policymakers distrust each other. Anxious water users are nixing ideas before they have time to grow into policy solutions. 

We have to let people develop their ideas, said Colby Pellegrino with the Southern Nevada Water Authority and part of the Nevada negotiating team.

“We’ve done a really crappy job of that. Everyone in this room,” she said. “We need to do more to support the compromise.”

The basin states are already running behind schedule: In March, Upper Basin officials said the basin states had until May to submit their joint management proposal for federal analysis. But May passed, and all many water users heard was crickets.

It’s like watching the Catholic Church’s secluded conclave to select the next pope, Jim Lochhead, former CEO of Denver Water and state negotiator, said. 

“The smoke is all black right now,” he said. “I’m not hearing of any major breakthroughs.”

That’s not for lack of effort: The states are meeting twice a month, and they’re at the negotiating table together.

“We know that we get the best solutions when the states work together,” Colorado’s top negotiator Becky Mitchell said in a prepared statement. (She wasn’t at the conference.) “I am focused on building a broad consensus to address the risks facing the Basin States.”

One of those risks is a changing climate: The basin, along with the rest of the planet, is facing a “beyond awful” climate future, said Brad Udall, senior research scientist at Colorado State University.

The world is on track to warm by 9 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100, and continue warming from there. It’s a future with even less water to share among the U.S., Mexico and 30 tribal nations — and an outcome that, frankly, terrifies scientists, Udall said.

“That’s a world unlike anything we currently know, and it’s going to challenge us all on every front,” Udall told the gathering.

Searching for a unicorn

While some conference-goers were frustrated, speakers took the opportunity to pull lessons from past interstate negotiations and share their ideas for how to break the deadlock.

Tribal leaders called for continued and increased tribal involvement in the Colorado River talks. 

“Honestly, I think if our state representatives are going to sit silent, then we have 30 tribal nations that are ready to take over and make a decision and save our river,” said Lorelei Cloud, a member of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe bordered by Colorado and chair of the Colorado Water Conservation Board. “We’ve been doing it since time immemorial.”

Some suggested solutions, like bringing in an external facilitator. Former negotiator and federal official Mike Connor said the states need to seize every olive branch and set aside personal agendas or political legacies. (This is where speakers turned to the “Frozen” mantra: “Let it go.”)

Jennifer Pitt of the National Audubon Society said building personal connections has been the key to progress in the past. Many people pushed for states to find creative solutions, like desalting seawater — a very expensive solution with a relatively small benefit (the equivalent of Lizzo’s tiny, Valentino purse, one water expert said).

“People are trying to turn this thing upside down and sideways to find a unicorn,” Chuck Cullom, executive director of the Upper Colorado River Commission, said.

Concerns abounded. Lochhead said the basin had a once-in-a-generation influx of federal funding — and blew it. Reclamation’s staff has been cut, something that Cameron said he was working to address. With shrinking water supplies, the basin’s communities are feeling the impacts of dry conditions more immediately than in the past.

Western Slope water leader Andy Mueller pushed for more information and faster action to help Colorado communities have more time to adapt and come up with water conservation plans.

“I think failure of our negotiators would be to fail to recognize that our hydrology could be just as bad as Brad Udall is predicting, or worse,” Mueller said.