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Flexible pool of water could be key to protect Lake Powell

By
Heather Sackett, Aspen Journalism
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Lake Powell is formed by Glen Canyon Dam. In a concept pitched by a conservation organization, a flexible pool of water could be moved between Upper Basin reservoirs to wherever it’s needed most. Credit: Heather Sackett/Aspen Journalism

This story was originally published by Aspen Journalism on May 12, 2026

An environmental organization is floating a concept that could help the Colorado River system during extremely dry years like this one and keep the nation’s two largest reservoirs above critical thresholds.

Boulder-based Western Resource Advocates has released a concept paper that explores the idea of a flexible pool of water that can be moved wherever it’s needed most among the basin’s biggest reservoirs.

Water users in the Lower Basin states — California, Arizona and Nevada — currently have about 3.2 million acre-feet stored in Lake Mead through voluntary conservation and efficiency measures. Water users bank water in this pool, known as the Intentionally Created Surplus, and can take this water back out again to use under certain circumstances.

The paper’s authors — John Berggren, a regional policy manager with Western Resource Advocates, and Kevin Wheeler, principal and engineer with Water Balance Consulting — used the ICS pool as an example to explore how the idea would work. They say that if the ICS pool could be moved from Lake Mead to Lake Powell, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation could have a buffer to more easily protect Glen Canyon Dam infrastructure, minimize the need for large releases from upstream reservoirs and reduce the risk of litigation among the seven basin states that share the Colorado River. 

“If you took a million or two million acre-feet out of Mead in the form of a conservation pool and moved it to Powell, then you could protect Powell without having to do all the DROA and the 6e releases,” Berggren said. “This is a perfect year where we would like to have the flexibility to move this water wherever it’s needed most, in this case in Powell.”

Berggren is referring to the actions that the federal government is taking this year: releasing up to 1 million acre-feet from Flaming Gorge Reservoir to prop up Powell, as well as reducing releases down to just 6 million acre-feet from Powell instead of the originally expected 7.48 million acre-feet. Projections from Reclamation show the reservoir falling below 3,500 feet by this summer if these actions aren’t taken, jeopardizing the ability to make hydropower at Glen Canyon Dam.

This is a pivotal moment for the Colorado River Basin’s 40 million water users, with a historically bad snowpack and streamflows pushing reservoir levels to new lows and management into crisis mode. The seven states that share the river have not been able to reach an agreement for how reservoirs will be operated and shortages will be shared after the current framework expires this year. The feds are poised to step in with their own management rules, but the actions they are allowed to legally take may not go far enough to keep the system from crashing.

An invisible pool

Berggren’s paper lays out a surplus pool that would be flexible and “operationally neutral,” and would be separate from the rest of the stored water in both reservoirs. That means it wouldn’t count toward calculations of how much water is in Lake Powell or Lake Mead for the purpose of determining how water shortages would be shared. 

There isn’t a way to physically move water upstream, but according to WRA, water could be transferred between reservoirs through adjustments to dam releases and careful accounting. A pool could be “moved” from Mead to Powell by holding back water in Powell. It could be moved back to Mead by increasing releases from Powell.

The concept paper does not advocate for taking such actions this year, presenting them as a potential strategy to be used under a new river management framework that is being hashed out between the states that share the river and the federal government.

“There are a lot of concerns about operational neutrality, but we’re trying to show that it’s actually not that scary and can provide benefit with less risk than the current options,” Berggren said.

Reservoir levels in Mead currently determine how deep cuts to the Lower Basin states are; as Mead is drawn down, it triggers deeper cuts. Some water experts have said the ICS pool allows Lower Basin water users to game the system. By leaving their water in the ICS pool, it keeps reservoir levels artificially high and lets water users avoid taking deeper cuts. If the ICS pool had remained separate from the rest of Lake Mead, shortage triggers and mandatory conservation would have happened earlier. 

Making this pool “operationally neutral,” or invisible to reservoir operations, fixes this issue.

In a proposal submitted to the federal government May 1, the Lower Basin states expressed support for this concept, but they did not lay out a plan to implement it. 

“The goal is to achieve operational neutrality of ICS,” the submittal reads. “The Lower Division States will continue to determine when and how to convert ICS to operational neutrality at higher elevations in Lake Mead.” 

They also said the long-term goal is to create an operationally neutral common pool of new water savings to be strategically deployed at low elevations to help delay and offset additional reductions to the Lower Basin. 

Some experts say there are concerns and unanswered questions about these types of pools. The dividing line where water delivery is measured from the Upper Basin (Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming) to the Lower Basin is Lee Ferry, just downstream of Lake Powell. Water measured at this location determines whether the Upper Basin remains in compliance with the 1922 Colorado River Compact. Moving water between reservoirs would have to deal with this issue.

“You would just have to agree on the rules of when is it considered a delivery at Lee Ferry and when isn’t it a delivery at Lee Ferry,” said Colorado River expert and author Eric Kuhn.

Another problem is that removing the ICS pool from reservoir accounting would leave a 3.2-million-acre-foot hole in Lake Mead that would need to be filled. 

“It’s hard to get there because there isn’t a way to make ICS operationally neutral unless you impose the shortages that would occur if the ICS weren’t there,” said Kathryn Sorensen, director of research and professor of practice at the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University. “I don’t know how else you can do it. You have to pay the piper.”

The infamous bathtub ring around Lake Mead can be seen in this photo of the intakes at Hoover Dam in December 2021. A conservation organization says flexible pools could be used to “move” water from Lake Mead to Lake Powell, where water levels could be critically low this year. Credit: Heather Sackett/Aspen Journalism

Lower Basin proposal

Last week, the Lower Basin states submitted a proposal to Reclamation to operate the reservoirs through 2028 that includes more conservation. This short-term deal could provide a temporary fix while states continue to hammer out a long-term strategy to share the river. 

The Lower Basin states are proposing to cut another 700,000 acre-feet of water per year through 2028, on top of the 1.5 million acre-feet they had already promised. California and Arizona will each take another 300,000 acre-feet of cuts and Nevada will take a cut of 100,000 acre-feet. The proposal does not include any mandatory conservation from the Upper Basin. 

“It was a monumental undertaking in a very short time frame to come up with all of this,” said JB Hamby, California’s lead negotiator. “We need a bridge to the future, and we welcome and look forward to an opportunity for a full seven-state deal where all states are part of the solution.”

The Lower Basin proposal also says that this year’s release from Flaming Gorge to prop up Powell should be as close to the maximum amount of Reclamation’s range of 1 million acre-feet as possible. The proposal also calls for increasing releases from Lake Powell if hydrology and projected reservoir levels improve.

“The intent under improved hydrology is to share the benefits of improved hydrology between both basins,” the proposal reads. 

Colorado’s negotiator, Becky Mitchell, said in a prepared statement that the Lower Basin’s proposal for water-use reductions is a good first step but they still call for too much water to be released out of Lake Powell and other Upper Basin reservoirs.

“The Lower Division States’ proposal would also drain the Upstream Initial Units with limited opportunities for recovery,” Mitchell’s statement reads. “Lake Powell should properly be viewed as a savings account for the Lower Basin: The Lower Basin’s own resiliency depends upon it. The entire Basin should support sustainable, supply-driven operations at Lake Powell that rebuild storage.”

Upper Basin officials have proposed a mediator to help move the needle on talks about future management to try to get to a seven-state deal.

Berggren said that although the concept of a flexible, floating pool doesn’t solve the basic supply-and-demand problem on the Colorado River, it’s still an important tool for future management. 

“There are a bunch of other things needed, including Lower Basin users and Upper Basin users using less water overall,” Berggren said. “This is just one component. But it helps provide some benefit in dry years like this one.”

Just add water: West Texas wetlands project brings new life to ancient riverbed

By
Amanda Pampuro, Courthouse News Service
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Rio Bosque park manager Sergio Samaniego describes the flow of water into the restored wetland in El Paso, Texas on March 27, 2026. (Amanda Pampuro/Courthouse News)

EL PASO, Texas — The wild waters of the Rio Grande have not flowed freely through the Rio Bosque wetland since 1943.

After being left to run dry for most of the 20th Century, locals in recent years have secured enough water to flood new life into this El Paso ecosystem — though its challenges are far from over. These days, the 372-acre Rio Bosque Wetlands Park gives visitors a glimpse at what the riparian environment looked like long before urbanization and a hardened U.S.-Mexico border fundamentally altered the landscape.

“We’re trying to reestablish the historic environment of the valley for people to experience,” said John Sproul, sporting a worn baseball cap as he hiked through the wetland one windy spring morning.

Although Sproul retired as park manager two years ago, he continues to work here as a volunteer, guiding tours, sharing the park’s history and cultivating its future. That painstaking work entails hand-pulling invasive species and watering new native saplings one by one.

Binoculars slung across his chest, Sproul pointed at a Cooper’s hawk nesting above — one of 270 bird species now observed in the bosque. Though bird diversity has doubled since restoration began in the mid-1990s, he’s still awaiting the return of yellow-billed cuckoos.

Signs of human impact over the years were hard to miss. Empty chip bags caught in the snares of Russian thistle, an invasive species that dries out into rolling tumbleweeds. Clumps of invasive, water-thirsty salt cedar spread their seeds as far as the wind can carry them.

For better or worse, this park is a parable of human intervention. The reconstruction of this wetland is not a story about how environmental management successfully brought an ecosystem back from extinction to thrive on its own. Rather, the wetland now requires constant tending, as humans painstakingly control the flow of water throughout the Chihuahuan Desert region and redirect some of it here.

Spring buds absorb every drop of moisture in the Rio Bosque Wetlands Park in El Paso, Texas, pictured on March 27, 2026. (Amanda Pampuro/Courthouse News)

Water is the single most important factor in determining what lives here.

On average, this area of the Chihuahuan Desert receives just 9 inches of rain each year, with most of that falling during the late summer monsoon. In 2023, the park received just half its usual gift from the sky. Last year, El Paso marked its third-warmest year on record, leaving even average precipitation vulnerable to evaporation.

To make up for the loss of the riverflow, two electric pumps and two windmills run 24 hours a day, feeding Rio Bosque with everything they can pull out of the ground. Though that 500,000 to 700,000 gallons could fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool every day, it’s still just a drop in the bucket for what a thirsty wetland needs.

The wetland’s greatest source of water comes from the nearby Roberto Bustamante Wastewater Treatment Plant, which delivers whatever is left over after fulfilling obligations to the surrounding irrigation district. From May to September, when the nearby pecan farms drink irrigated water from the Rio Grande, the treatment plant gives the park an average of 4.5 million gallons per day.

That’s in a typical year, at least. The Rio Grande starts in Colorado, and the Centennial State suffered a dry winter amid a regional drought. Hydrologists are forecasting that 2026 will be one of the driest years for the Rio Grande basin in decades, with most reservoirs’ water levels at just 15% of capacity and the Elephant Butte Dam in New Mexico holding back the Rio Grande’s annual release until later this month.

Elephant Butte Reservoir, along the Rio Grande near Truth or Consequences, N.M., in August 2022. (Mitch Tobin/The Water Desk)

Humans have divided up every drop along the Rio Grande, sustaining not just neighborhood faucets and flushes but a multibillion-dollar agricultural industry. And yet climate change and regional drought leave each year’s water supply uncertain.

Although the treatment plant tends to produce the same amount of water every year, less water in the Rio Grande means the irrigation district will need more graywater this year. That leaves less for Rio Bosque. The water needs of thirsty pecan and alfalfa farms often come first, even under Texas’ rule of capture, where the entity with the strongest pumps gets the most groundwater.

The Rio Bosque wetland has persevered through countless dry spells, as desert ecosystems are evolved to do. But water still marks the difference between a recovering wetland and a stable one.

In the mid-2010s, the treatment plant added a second batch of water deliveries in the winter. The city built the groundwater pumping stations to supplement throughout the year. This creation of year-round moisture helped maintain a water depth that supported the return of native plants. As researchers put it last year in the journal Wetlands, the plant community moved from “invasive tumbleweed to one dominated by tolerant, competitive wetland plants.”

On the tour, Sproul pointed out living proof of the project’s success: young willows, mature willows, evidence of a resident beaver with a growing fan club.

Beavers are a good sign, not just because they require a certain amount of water to move in but also because they give back. By holding water in place, their dams further nourish surrounding plants and strengthen the ecosystem as a whole.

Andrea Everett, a member of the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo, recalled a story from her uncle about how a single beaver’s dam created a vibrant “green up” 60 miles upstream at Mesilla Valley Bosque State Park in New Mexico.

Drone view of the Rio Grande and surrounding farmland near Garfield, New Mexico, on March 27, 2026. (Mitch Tobin/The Water Desk)

“There was about an inch to three inches of water that kind of sat in there, and right now there’s about a foot of water because of the beaver,” she said. “This is what one species can do.”

For Everett, Rio Bosque is more than a city park. It’s still part of the Rio Grande, which flowed through just 80 years ago — a blink of an eye, in the grand scheme of things. U.S. border policy limits when and how she can visit the sacred river, but she can always rely on Rio Bosque to rekindle a sense of peace.

“The Rio Bosque is a mitigated wetland, but it still holds some of the original channels,” she explained.

From time immemorial, plants living alongside the Rio Grande adapted to cyclical water patterns, soaking up spring swells, then falling dormant during hot and dry periods.

Animals followed much the same pattern, migrating when there was water and leaving when there was not.

But the fluctuating and temperamental Rio Grande made for a messy national border, as well as a dangerous liability for the rapidly growing cities filling the banks on either side: Ciudad Juarez in Mexico and El Paso in the United States. Thus, in the 1930s, American and Mexican officials agreed on a literal concrete solution: the Rio Grande Rectification Project.

Encasing the channel in concrete, engineers locked the river’s flow into place, redirecting the Rio Grande more than 100 yards away from the historic channel that would become Rio Bosque.

Before the project, Rio Bosque actually sat on Mexico’s side of the border. With the border solidified and a new map drawn up, the dehydrated wetland ended up on U.S. soil. The land was eventually granted to the City of El Paso in 1973 through the Federal Lands to Parks Program.

Without water, thirsty cottonwood and willows dried up. Wetland herons and ducks flew past. Invasive Russian thistle and salt cedar settled into niches left in the newfound dryland.

It looked like the old wetland had been lost — but desert organisms are adept at surviving even decadeslong dry spells. While the willows and native grass vanished from the surface, their seeds remained embedded in the soil, awaiting the right conditions to reawaken.

Rio Bosque park manager Sergio Samaniego, left, speaks as park volunteer John Sproul looks on at the restored wetland in El Paso, Texas. (Amanda Pampuro/Courthouse News)

Even as it comes back to life, the wetland’s challenges continue to grow.

Among them: an increasingly hardened border and urban projects in El Paso.

Although birds can fly over it, the border wall to the east otherwise closes off natural migration into the Rio Bosque. (This section of wall was exempted from the rigors of an environmental review by the Real ID Act of 2005.) On the American side, roads, concrete irrigation canals and lush farms further fence in the wetland. Many locals also fear a proposed highway expansion will be more than the scrappy ecosystem can take.

Although a highway already runs through El Paso, the Texas Department of Transportation released new plans in 2024 to extend Texas State Highway 20 more miles through the city, along a route directed right toward Rio Bosque.

A spokesperson for TxDOT told Courthouse News the department is still evaluating different proposals. The department expects to finalize its plan in December, but many advocates of Rio Bosque are preparing for the worst.

“Everywhere you look, there’s something being built and more layers of concrete going on the desert floor,” said Rick Lobello, founder of the El Paso Wildlife Conservation Society.

All that concrete has implications for native species — including burrowing owls, which Lobello has worked to conserve and actually visits Rio Bosque to observe.

“If you don’t have ground where they can go into a burrow, because it’s been paved over for a parking lot, they struggle,” he said.

An educator by trade, Lobello believes protecting habitat starts with teaching people about it.

“My philosophy is: If you want to protect the environment, then the first thing you got to do is help people know what’s out there,” he said. “If people don’t know what that bush is, if people don’t know what that bird is, they’re never going to love it. And if they don’t love it, they’re never going to fight for it.”

Another big fan of this wetland is Mary González, a Democrat who has represented El Paso in the Texas statehouse since 2012.

“In the middle of a desert, to have a wetland like the Rio Bosque is a true treasure,” González said in an interview. Like others, González worries the Highway 20 expansion might bury it. She hired a consultant to develop an independent environmental review and push back. Still, she says the highway proposal is just the latest development to threaten this fragile ecosystem.

“The location is what makes it unique — but it also makes it challenging,” she said. “It’s right there on the border. It is in a highly trafficked area with continued development.”

Although the land here is healing on its own, park staff and volunteers continue to hand-pull invasive species one by one. Young native trees are often hand-watered and protected with mesh to ensure their roots grow deep.

“One year, we had to bring in a water truck to water the trees,” recalled park manager Sergio Samaniego.

Years ago, as a graduate student, Samaniego conducted fieldwork in Rio Bosque. Today, he’s one of two full-time employees who maintain the park alongside Sproul and other volunteers. This site remains a priceless outdoor classroom and laboratory, where scientists study the diet of burrowing owls, how the border wall affects habitat, and the impacts of wetland restoration on local water quality.

This wetland was once shaped entirely by natural forces. Now, it depends on human intervention. People like Samaniego and Sproul watch for where native seeds are germinating, then move in to support them. They make sure the wetland gets enough water and advocate against threats like highways.

All of it is a delicate, fragile balance, said Samaniego. “We work hard, like the trees.”

This story was produced by Courthouse News Service, with support from The Water Desk at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Center for Environmental Journalism. 

‘It’s a different lake now’: As Lake Powell drops, an iconic marina chases deeper water

By
Brooke Larsen, The Salt Lake Tribune
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Capt. Titus Crawford, Director of Bullfrog Marina Services and Dry Storage, talks about the marina before the busy season begins around Memorial Day, Monday, April 27, 2026. Following years of water level fluctuations, the marina is scheduled to undergo it’s largest change when it is moved closer to Halls Crossing Marina in the main channel of the reservoir. (Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune)

Titus Crawford spent four days calling Lake Powell boaters this spring. After a record low snowpack and off-the-charts March heat, the reservoir was on track to dip so low that Bullfrog Marina would have to move from its namesake bay.

As a captain and director of the popular marina, Crawford knew he needed to call the owners of the roughly 350 boats docked there year-round.

“There’s definitely concerns,” he said. “The biggest portion of it, however, are just happy to be able to keep their boats in the water. …We were very, very lucky that we were able to move this entire operation to another location and continue to be a full-service marina.”

Crawford and his crew began relocating the Bullfrog Marina to deeper water near Halls Crossing on May 4. The relocation process will take about four to six weeks to complete, Crawford said. The boat rental and fuel dock were already moved to Halls Crossing at the end of March.

“There’s just not going to be enough water here shortly to sustain the Bullfrog Marina where it is,” Crawford said.

The marina’s new home near Halls Crossing has “a lot deeper water,” he added. “It’ll be a lot more of a resilient location for us as the water levels change.”

Bullfrog Marina, a major access point for boaters within Lake Powell, which has shifted location numerous times over the years due to fluctuating water levels within the reservoir, is pictured on Monday, April 27, 2026. The next move will be more dramatic as the docs will be moved closer to Halls Crossing Marina in the main channel of the reservoir. (Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune)

Bullfrog Marina is one of four remaining marinas around Lake Powell. The Bullfrog North Launch Ramp is also just one of two launch ramps that remains open to public motorized vessels, according to the National Park Service, but the agency warns to “launch at your own risk.” The other open ramp, Stateline Auxiliary, is on the southwest end of the lake at Wahweap.

The park service is constructing a primitive ramp at Bullfrog to allow “boats to be launched and retrieved throughout the summer,” a park service spokesperson said over email. Aramark, the park concessioner that manages marinas and lodges around the lake, is also working to further extend the Wahweap Stateline Auxiliary ramp, the park service said.

Moving a marina

Over the next few weeks, marina staff will use tugboats to push whole docks — including giant houseboats with waterslides — at a slow 1 mph pace to the marina’s new home three miles south, Crawford said.

“It’s all floating,” he added while walking along the dock on a calm and sunny morning in late April. “So as we disconnect anchors and cables, we can set new ones and move on to a new location and just push it with tugboats.”

Bullfrog Marina, a major access point for boaters within Lake Powell, is set to be moved closer to Halls Crossing Marina in the main channel of the reservoir due to dropping water levels, Monday, April 27, 2026. (Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune)

While the marina is only moving three miles down the lake, there’s not a direct road between Bullfrog and Halls Crossing, so it will add about an hour to the drive for visitors from the north.

Crawford is exploring the possibility of running a water taxi to shuttle people to their boats from Bullfrog’s old home to the new location. He’s still working out the logistics but said he’s hoping to have a plan figured out once the marina move is complete.

Some small work vessels, particularly towboats, will remain at the former Bullfrog Marina location so staff can quickly access them for emergencies, Crawford added. Those boats, and the dock, will have to move around as the water level continues to drop.

“Due to the low water, there’s a lot of operational changes we’ve got to make,” Crawford said.

Once the rest of the marina is relocated, staff will continue to commute from Bullfrog to the new location each day. Staff live in housing, including dormitory-style units and mobile homes, in Bullfrog provided by Aramark.

“It’s going to be a little bit interesting commuting back and forth across the lake every day,” Crawford said, “but all of our staff will still continue in their same positions at the same marinas.”

House boats are pictured at Bullfrog Marina on Lake Powell on Saturday, April 25, 2026. Glen Canyon National Recreation Area officials plan to move the marina to the deeper waters in the main channel of the reservoir across from Halls Crossing. (Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune)

Witnessing a changing lake

The new work commute will feel familiar to Crawford: he used to take a boat back and forth between Halls Crossing and Bullfrog, where he attended school as a kid.

“[It] is a little bit different than riding the bus,” he said.

Crawford has called Lake Powell home much of his life. His mom was a store supervisor at Halls Crossing Marina and his dad worked at the same marina in harbor maintenance.

Crawford and his wife even got married on a beach at Lake Powell, booking out half the Defiance House Lodge and renting two houseboats for their guests.

“It was definitely fun getting to explore as a child,” he said. “And then as I grew up, starting to get into driving boats myself, getting my captain’s license, actually really seeing and understanding what was going on was a lot of fun.”

Capt. Titus Crawford, Director of Bullfrog Marina Services and Dry Storage, gives a tour of the marina before the busy season begins around Memorial Day, Monday, April 27, 2026. Following years of water level fluctuations, the marina is scheduled to undergo it’s largest change when it is moved closer to Halls Crossing Marina in the main channel of the reservoir. (Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune)

Just over 10 years ago, Crawford started working at the reservoir, too. His first job was on the Charles Hall Ferry, which connects State Route 276 across the reservoir.

The ferry, managed by the Utah Department of Transportation, used to travel between Halls Crossing and Bullfrog in 25 minutes. It’s not running this year, though, due to the low water levels.

Over the years, Crawford and the boaters he’s come to know have seen the lake levels fluctuate. “It’s a different lake now,” he said.

Before the current move, the Bullfrog Marina has had to make several adjustments. When the reservoir was at its peak in the 1980s, the marina was nearly a mile back, Crawford said.

In late April, the marina’s power, water and sewer lines that floated in the lake just three years ago — after a record high snow year — hung down a dry rock cliff.

Sewer, water and power lines stretch into Bullfrog Marina, a major access point for boaters within Lake Powell on Monday, April 27, 2026. The marina is scheduled to be moved closer to Halls Crossing Marina in the main channel of the reservoir due to dropping water levels. (Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune)

Beyond marina shifts, the way Crawford and visitors experience the vast reservoir has also changed.

A canyon that may have been shallow and wide in the past, Crawford explained, now just has a narrow strip of water for boats to squeeze through towering 110-foot walls. The “bathtub rings,” bands of once orange sandstone that now look bleached, remind boaters where the lake formerly reached.

“As the lake water has gone down, there’s been a lot of fun new beaches, new coves, new canyons — stuff that people haven’t seen in generations coming out of the water,” he said. “It’s definitely a good time to explore it.”

Over the last month, he’s taken three groups on private tours to Cathedral in the Desert — a large chamber, lit from a narrow gap in the sandstone walls overhead, that ends at a small, trickling waterfall.

“It’s calm, it’s quiet, very rarely actually sees the sun,” Crawford said. “So it’s just amazing.”

(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Creed Murdock, GIS Manager for Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, takes a moment of reflection at Cathedral in the Desert, once covered by water in Clear Creek Canyon, a tributary of the Escalante River arm of Lake Powell on Saturday, April 25, 2026.

Increased visitation to the formerly little-known spot has left its mark, though. Graffiti, including names and years written with charcoal, now covers the orange sandstone walls.

“We definitely discourage it, but there’s not much that we can do about it,” Crawford said.

Park service staff “educates the public about the damage of graffiti through direct education to school classes and volunteer service groups,” a park spokesperson said over email. That includes in-park programming, informal visitor conversations, junior ranger booklets, social media and more.

Graffiti isn’t the only challenge the park service has as the lake changes, though. Low water levels “expose new boating hazards and reveal sensitive resources,” the park service said. Rangers have to manage increased congestion and more inspections for invasive quagga mussels at each launch area because of fewer ramps.

Adjusting boating infrastructure as the lake drops is also costly. The park service plans to award a contract this December for the design and construction of a new ramp at Stanton Creek, which will be the eventual home of Bullfrog Marina. The park service estimates the project will cost $73.4 million.

“The project is complex due to fluctuating lake levels, the need for significant in-water construction and the requirement to run new utilities to support the relocated Bullfrog Marina adjacent to the new ramp,” the park service said.

This article is published through the Colorado River Collaborative, a solutions journalism initiative supported by the Janet Quinney Lawson Institute for Land, Water, and Air at Utah State University. See all of our stories about how Utahns are impacted by the Colorado River at greatsaltlakenews.org/coloradoriver. It was produced in partnership with The Water Desk at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Fish out of water on the Colorado River

By
Heather Sackett, Aspen Journalism
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The Colorado River flows through Las Colonias Park in Grand Junction on April 22, 2026. The river reached an extremely low level due to heavy diversion upstream and record low snowpack.
(Luke Runyon/The Water Desk)

With drought and high temperatures putting unprecedented pressure on water users throughout Colorado, from cities to agriculture, there’s one segment that can be affected first — and maybe worst — when it comes to a lack of water: rivers themselves and the ecosystems that depend on them. 

As cities enact water restrictions and farmers and ranchers prepare for the worst, impacts of the water shortage are readily apparent in a chronically dry stretch of the Colorado River between Palisade and the confluence of the Gunnison River that is critical habitat for endangered fish, known as the 15-mile reach. 

The Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program works to return water to this stretch of river in the Grand Valley, but because of this year’s historically dry conditions, the program could have only 16,000 acre-feet, half its typical amount of water for fish. 

Beyond that guaranteed amount, the program mostly uses water-sharing agreements that can secure additional acre-feet to boost flows — but only when other users don’t need the water and can voluntarily loan it. This year finds nearly everyone who depends on the Colorado River and its tributaries in dire straits.

There won’t be any surplus water for fish in the Historic Users Pool, which is stored in Green Mountain Reservoir and is the largest source of water to potentially augment fish flows. A pool of water in Ruedi Reservoir that is available in four out of five years isn’t there, and the program could get only about 340 acre-feet from a pool in Wolford Reservoir upstream of Kremmling that typically has up to 6,000 acre-feet.

“It is really clear to me that we do not have enough tools in our toolbox to be able to manage for conditions like we have this year in the 15-mile reach,” said Julie Stahli, recovery program director. “We are so far outside the bounds of what we have ever seen before, that it’s really just hard to be able to make any good decisions.”

Stahli said she anticipates the program can contribute about 75 cubic feet per second through mid-July, at which point they will drop it down to 50 cfs, a bare-bones amount that is just enough to keep the riverbed wet. 

“That is what we are anticipating being able to have for the entirety of the season in the 15-mile reach,” she said.

As flows plummet, fish could become stranded in pools that are disconnected from the rest of the river, and program managers say they will try to prevent fish from using that stretch of river during times when flows are predicted to be at their lowest. Crews could use netting to keep fish out of the reach or close the flow of water that returns fish to the river after they accidentally enter an irrigation canal, which would keep them in the stretch of river above the diversion that has more water.

“Our main goal at this point is just to keep fish out of that reach,” Stahli said. “There is not a whole lot of attractive habitat in there right now for fish. Flows dropped so early in the season. We’re already seeing some pretty dire conditions in April.”

For several days in April, flows fell to just over 50 cfs, among the lowest levels in recorded history and far below the recovery program’s target flow for April in a dry year of 1,240 cfs. According to Stahli, the river’s flow at that low point could be solely attributed to recovery-program water that it had released from upstream reservoirs.

The goal of the recovery program when it was created in 1988 was to protect the humpback chub, razorback sucker, bonytail and Colorado pikeminnow, while also allowing the seemingly opposing goal of developing more water. An aim of the program was to allow farms and cities to continue using water and even expand their use without violating the Endangered Species Act.

Palisade High School students released razorback suckers and bonytails they helped raise into the Colorado River on Friday, May 1. The two species live only in the Colorado River Basin and are endangered. (Heather Sackett/Aspen Journalism)

And the program has had some success, with one of the four species — the humpback chub — being downlisted from endangered to threatened in 2021. (The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has also proposed downlisting the razorback sucker.) These fish evolved over millions of years and are only found in the Colorado River basin. In today’s highly engineered and managed river ecosystem, they live mostly in just a few key locations in the Upper Basin, including the 15-mile reach, and in parts of the Yampa and Green rivers. Grand Junction’s minor league baseball team has adopted the charismatic fish as its team name and mascot; last year it was the humpback chubs, and now it’s the razorback suckers.

But the program has had trouble meeting target minimum flows in the 15-mile reach, even though upstream water development has not kept pace the way it was expected to. A main culprit is climate change, which has robbed the river of about 20% of its flows during the 21st  century.

“We just don’t have the tools as a society to be able to handle what’s happening right now in any cohesive way,” Stahli said. “This isn’t an endangered fish problem; this is an everyone problem.”

Why is the river dry?

The reach is just downstream of large Grand Valley agricultural diversions, which are used to grow crops such as corn, alfalfa and the famous Palisade peaches, and which can take a combined 1,950 cfs from the river. At certain times of year, there can be more water in the Grand Valley’s canals than there is in the nearby Colorado River. Collectively, they are the biggest agricultural diversion from the Colorado River on the Western Slope.

“There has been so much diversion and damming of the river farther upstream,” said Bart Miller, healthy rivers director at environmental group Western Resource Advocates. “There are a lot of uses right there, and you’re seeing the impacts of all the Front Range diversions. [The 15-mile reach] is a pinch point in the system based on all the water development we’ve done.”

Side channels on the Colorado River ran dry early during spring runoff on April 22, 2026. Cobble bars and muddy banks emerged as the river receded near Dos Rios Park in Grand Junction.
(Luke Runyon/The Water Desk)

Water rights for the environment and recreation were latecomers to the legal system. It wasn’t until the 1970s — nearly 100 years after the most-senior agricultural rights on the Western Slope were established — that Colorado began protecting the value of water in streams with its instream flow program. Under Colorado’s system of water law, those who use water by taking it out of the river — including farmers, cities and industry — usually have the oldest rights, giving them first use of the resource. There’s nothing illegal about drying up a river. 

“It’s like you’re running in a race and it’s four laps around the track,” Miller said. “The folks with the instream, recreational, environmental values are there at the starting line, but they’re held back for the first two or three laps. Everyone else is already running. And that’s why the environment often ends up in a really bad place.”

‘April hole’?

It’s not totally unheard of to have a small window of diminished streamflows in April. In a phenomenon known as the “April hole,” irrigation demands in the Grand Valley ramp up, while the needed water remains frozen solid as high-country snowpack. This problem remedies itself within a couple weeks as the snow begins melting. But this year, little snowpack remained by April and water managers think spring runoff at Cameo, where the big Grand Valley diversions are located, peaked during the March heatwave.

Kate Ryan is executive director of the Colorado Water Trust, which works to put water back into streams through temporary water sharing agreements with agricultural, municipal and industrial water users. Although the Water Trust is still finalizing contracts for this year, Ryan said she expects the Water Trust to add about 4,700 acre-feet of water to the 15-mile reach by leasing water from Ruedi Reservoir owned by the town of Palisade, and oil-and-gas company QB Energy. 

In past years, water from this project has been released between the end of July and beginning of October. But that timing may change if the recovery program is trying to keep fish out of the reach.

“We will make sure that we deliver water at a point that complements the work of the recovery program,” Ryan said. 

The Water Trust has also used the Colorado River Water Conservation District’s water marketing program — where acre-feet are available for purchase — to restore water to streams. But the River District board at its April meeting voted to freeze all new contracts, which are usually doled out first come, first served, while staff figures out the best use of the limited water supply. 

Palisade High School students released two species of endangered fish into the Colorado River on Friday, May 1. Target flows for these fish in the 15-mile reach are often not met.
(Heather Sackett/Aspen Journalism)

The move was part of a series of drought mitigation actions aimed at easing shortages for water users. The board last month also approved a system for prioritizing water sectors, with keeping water in rivers at the bottom of the list: municipal and domestic water needs over agricultural and industrial needs; and agricultural and industrial needs over in-channel uses such as those that benefit the environment, endangered fish and recreation.

The Water Trust this week sent a letter to some water managers recognizing the historic drought and acknowledging that many of its temporary water sharing agreements, which pay water rights holders to leave water in streams, may not operate this year because their agricultural partners may not have enough water for their own use. Projects are voluntary and happen only in years when participants have enough water to share and it can benefit a stream. 

But the letter also said there may be others who are interested in using their water rights to help prop up a stream this year.

“There is just so much uncertainty right now that we are trying to be as flexible and responsive as possible,” Ryan said.

Recovery-program officials said this year they will double down on other actions that benefit endangered fish, including removing nonnative predator species such as smallmouth bass and stocking the river with hatchery-raised fish. On Friday, students at Palisade High School released 1,500 young razorback suckers and bonytails that they helped raise into the Colorado River at Riverbend Park in Palisade. 

Recovery-program staff said managing the 15-mile reach this year is about preventing the worst impacts and seeing what lessons can be learned from one of the driest years on record.

“It is just new terrain,” said David Graf, instream flow coordinator for the recovery program. “I think we are just flying by the seat of our pants in a lot of ways trying to do triage management as opposed to really adapt.”

For now, one of the few ways to add water back to a depleted river remains borrowing it from other, more senior users. 

“I think until our water suppliers and state government hear from people that the environment really is a priority, not just the recovery program and need to support endangered species, but also for communities and local economies across the board, it’s going to stay that way,” Ryan said.

Aspen Journalism is a nonprofit, investigative news organization covering water, environment, social justice and more. Visit aspenjournalism.org.

Winter’s alarmingly low snowpack offers a glimpse of the changing rhythm of water in the western US

By
The Conversation US
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Low snowpack in the San Juan Mountains in southwest Colorado on March 14, 2026. Photo by Mitch Tobin/The Water Desk.

By Imtiaz Rangwala, University of Colorado Boulder

Winter is more than just a season in the western U.S. – it is a savings account to get farms and homes through the long, dry summer ahead. As the snowpack that accumulates in the mountains through winter slowly melts in late spring and summer, it feeds into rivers and reservoirs that keep communities and ecosystems functioning.

The April 1 snowpack measurement has long been the single most important number in western water management, considered a strong proxy for how much water the mountains are holding in reserve.

But in 2026, that savings account has been woefully deficient.

Across the western United States, temperatures from November through February were among the warmest on record, with many areas 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit (2.8 to 5.5 degrees Celsius) above the 20th-century average. March continued to break heat records, leaving California’s snowpack at just 18% of normal on April 1. At lower elevations, the higher temperatures meant a significant part of the winter’s precipitation fell as rain rather than snow. In some places, snowfall accumulated but melted quickly during warm periods.

A chart shows an unusually low amount of area in the West with snow cover during winter 2026.
The total area of the western U.S. with snow cover was exceptionally low compared with the rest of the 21st century. National Snow and Ice Data Center

As a result, even regions that received near- or above-normal precipitation for the season failed to build substantial snowpack. In the northern Rockies and the mountains of the Pacific Northwest, any above-average snow accumulation was largely confined to the highest elevations, while middle and lower elevations had relatively little snowpack.

This situation is a hallmark of warming winters. As global temperatures rise, the freezing line where precipitation changes from rain to snow moves up the mountains, shrinking the area capable of sustaining a seasonal snowpack.

A map shows most of the stations across the western mountains were below 50% of average. The best conditions were in the northern Rockies and Pacific Northwest, and most of those were still below average.
At the vast majority of the U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service’s snow measurement stations across the West, the snowpack’s snow-water equivalent on March 30, 2026, was less than 50% of the 1991-2020 median. Natural Resources Conservation Service
A map shows wide temperature anomalies in the western U.S. compared with the 20th-century average.
Temperatures were well above the 20th-century average across the western U.S. in winter 2025-26. National Centers for Environmental Information

The exceptionally warm winter of 2025–26 across much of the western U.S. delivered a powerful preview of what the regional water cycle in a warmer climate may increasingly look like: less snow and a fundamental reshaping of the hydrograph – the chart of how much water flows through streams across the year.

A flattening hydrologic pulse

The consequences of this shift for water supplies are already visible in streamflows.

In multiple river basins in the West, streamflows were above average in winter and early spring, and some locations were approaching record-high levels. Historically, that water would have remained frozen in the snowpack until late spring. Instead, precipitation arriving as rain – along with intermittent midwinter melting events – increased the runoff.

Scientists who study natural water flows, as I do, pay attention to the hydrographs of streamflows in river basins to see when the water flow in mountain streams is strongest and how long that flow is likely to continue into summer.

A chart shows a typical arc of increasing water flows as snow melt in 2025, compared with several peaks of snowmelt and rainfall during 2026.
This hydrograph showing two years of water flows in the St. Mary River near Babb, Mont., reflects the difference between a typical late-spring peak, as 2025 saw, and several midwinter peaks from warm temperatures and rain, as 2026 is seeing. U.S. Geological Survey

In recent years, rising temperatures have led to a redistribution of streamflows throughout the winter and early spring in ways that are fundamentally reshaping the hydrographs of snowmelt-dominated rivers. Rather than a single dominant peak during late spring or early summer, smaller peaks emerge in winter and early spring. At the same time, the traditional snowmelt pulse, relied on to fill reservoirs in late spring, weakens.

In effect, the hydrograph is flattening. The winter of 2025–26 illustrates this phenomenon: Higher early-season streamflows suggest the West will see less runoff later in the year when communities, farms and wildlife need it.

The Colorado River: A system on the edge

Nowhere does the convergence of record warmth, depleted snowpack and altered hydrology carry higher stakes than in the Colorado River Basin. More than 40 million people in seven states plus Mexico and 5.5 million acres of farmland depend on the river’s water, but the river’s flow is no longer meeting demand.

The April-through-July 2026 runoff into Lake Powell – the reservoir behind Glen Canyon Dam and the primary index of the Upper Colorado River Basin’s annual water budget – is currently forecast to rank among the lowest in recent decades. It has been tracking close to the grim years of 2002 and 2021, considered benchmarks of western drought.

Unless spring brings substantial late-season snowfall to the high mountains, 2026 could join those years as a marker of how thin the margin between water supply and demand has become in a river system already under sustained stress from two decades of drought and water overuse.

The low reservoir levels in the basin in 2026 and the low snowpack are adding fears of water shortages just as the seven states that rely on the Colorado River are struggling to reach a new water use agreement.

The changing rhythm of water in the West

The winter of 2025–26 highlights two emerging realities.

First, temperature is increasingly dominating precipitation in determining western water supplies. Even above-normal precipitation cannot compensate for persistent warmth when it falls as rain rather than snow and accelerates snowmelt in the mountains.

Second, the nature of the West’s streamflows is shifting in ways that complicate water management.

Rain-on-snow events can produce flooding in winter, as the Seattle area saw in late December 2025. A low snowpack also means less runoff in summer, which can exacerbate water shortages and raise the wildfire risk as landscapes dry out. Even if a year has normal precipitation, if it falls as rain or there is earlier snowmelt, then evaporation through summer, in a warmer climate, will leave less water in the system.

Snowpack declines, earlier runoff, elevated winter flows and flattened hydrographs are all consistent with long-standing projections for the western United States as global temperatures rise.

What makes the winter of 2025-26 notable is how clearly these signals appeared, even in a year without widespread precipitation deficits.

This shift highlights the need for adaptive reservoir operations – the ability to adjust water storage and release decisions in real time to capture earlier runoff and preserve water for longer dry seasons, while still maintaining space in reservoirs for flood control during wetter winters. For communities across the West, it also reinforces the growing reality that the familiar seasonal rhythm of mountain water is changing.

This article, originally published April 1, 2026, has been updated with California’s April 1 measurements.

Imtiaz Rangwala is Senior Research Scientist in Climate, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Glen Canyon Dam faces its existential moment

By
Brett Walton, Circle of Blue
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Glen Canyon Dam, which holds back the waters of Lake Powell, has emerged as a significant water supply chokepoint in the Colorado River basin. (Brett Walton/Circle of Blue)

PAGE, Ariz. – In the span of U.S. history certain years are turning points, milestones in the nation’s story. 1776. 1865. 1929. 1968. Circumstance and consequence conspire to make it so.

For the Colorado River and those who rely on it, 2026 is on the verge of similar prominence. Circumstances in the basin today are that urgent.

A slow-developing water supply calamity, decades in the making, has boiled over, like a cold war turning hot. Extreme heat in March – triple-digit temperatures never witnessed that early in the year – obliterated a meager snowpack. The basin’s big reservoirs, the supposed buffers against short-term drought, were already uncomfortably low after a quarter-century of declining river flows. They will drop even lower. The amount of water flowing this summer into Lake Powell, the nation’s second-largest reservoir, will be one of the smallest ever measured, barely a trickle.

“This is unprecedented, but it’s not unpredicted,” said Eric Balken, executive director of the Glen Canyon Institute. “I like to say that this is the most predicted disaster of all time.”

Lake Powell is formed by Glen Canyon Dam, a striking 710-ft tall concrete arch braced against ruddy sandstone walls. It plugs the Colorado just after the river enters Arizona. Meant to ensure water deliveries to the lower basin states of Arizona, California, and Nevada, Glen Canyon Dam was finished in 1963 to complement the Colorado River’s audacious engineering that distributes water through mountains and uphill to the largest cities in the Southwest and to the region’s most productive farmland. When full, Lake Powell holds enough water to flood the entire state of Virginia to the depth of one foot.

Climate change and water demand that still exceeds supply have flipped the engineering script. Lake Powell is less than 25% full today. Glen Canyon Dam, instead of being a guarantor of water, is now the most significant water chokepoint in the basin. The hard-won asset has become a glaring liability.

Glen Canyon Dam’s powerhouse sits at the base of the 710-foot-tall structure. Hydroelectric generation has dropped in tandem with the falling water levels in Lake Powell. (Brett Walton/Circle of Blue)

The reversal of fortune is because of how Glen Canyon Dam was designed. The dam was never meant to be operated at the extremely low water levels that Lake Powell is rapidly approaching. Doing so for extended periods of time could damage the pipes that move water through the dam, according to the Bureau of Reclamation, the federal agency that manages the structure.

Reclamation is now studying its options for retrofitting Glen Canyon Dam to accommodate a lower Lake Powell. It expects to release those findings later this year or in early 2027. As any home remodeler knows, renovating an aging structure is neither quick nor cheap, especially when failure could have disastrous consequences.

In the short term, Reclamation is relying on operational band-aids for Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell. With the consent of the seven states in the basin – Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming – the agency took unprecedented action this month to prop up the reservoir. Releasing more water from upstream reservoirs and holding back more in Powell will delay Glen Canyon’s infrastructure reckoning. But that day will soon come, and Reclamation’s answer to the dam’s engineering problems will have far-reaching implications – not only for the reliability of the basin’s water supply, but also for its power customers, ecology, and recreation economy.

An assessment deferred

Dams are difficult to manage under any circumstance. Management is even more troublesome when operators must balance multiple, conflicting objectives. In Glen Canyon’s case those objectives are water supply, flood control, hydropower generation, and releasing water to protect the ecology downstream in the Grand Canyon – namely, beach-building and threatened native fish like the humpback chub. This is in addition to ensuring the safe operation of the dam itself.

How to operate Glen Canyon Dam and Hoover Dam, its larger downstream sibling, is what the seven basin states and Reclamation are attempting to figure out right now. The current agreement covers operations through 2026. Reclamation published a draft environmental impact statement, or EIS, in January that would impose severe cuts on water users in the lower basin, particularly Arizona, in part to protect Glen Canyon Dam’s fragile infrastructure.

For that reason, water users in the lower basin and elsewhere support an engineering fix for Glen Canyon Dam. Many were incredulous that Reclamation did not include an assessment of dam modifications in its draft environmental analysis.

“This EIS could have been a great avenue to look at real changes at Glen Canyon Dam that could solve the water delivery problem and some of the ecological problems, too,” Balken said.

The mineral “bath tub ring” above Lake Powell shows where its water level has been. (Brett Walton/Circle of Blue)

Patrick Dent is the assistant general manager for water policy at the Central Arizona Project (CAP), which delivers Colorado River water to the densely populated center of the state. He said that CAP does not favor any particular fix – only one that provides dam managers with more flexibility.

“Our primary interest is that they could release water at a lower lake level,” Dent said.

The Gila River Indian Community, which receives Colorado River water through CAP, told Reclamation that the agency has a duty to safeguard the tribe’s water rights, which are at risk if the dam cannot release enough water. “The United States must take action to fix Glen Canyon Dam,” Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis wrote in a March 2026 letter.

The Colorado Water Conservation Board, which represents that state’s water interests, said it supports a reevaluation of Glen Canyon Dam, but “in a separate action” from the EIS.

Becki Bryant, a Reclamation spokesperson, said the agency will release an appraisal study assessing three dam modification alternatives at the end of this year or in early 2027. Any action beyond the study, she said, requires congressional authorization and funding.

‘Antiquated plumbing’

The tool for managing the dam’s multiple objectives, which are a legislative requirement as well as a practical necessity, is the water held in Lake Powell, said David Wegner, a scientist who has worked on Glen Canyon policy for more than four decades. But even water has limits when the engineering is inadequate. “Sadly, these dams were not built for multiple objectives,” Wegner said. And Glen Canyon was certainly not built for extremely low water, he added.

The problem with Glen Canyon is what a coalition of environmental groups calls the dam’s “antiquated plumbing.” The groups – Glen Canyon Institute, Great Basin Water Network, and Utah Rivers Council – published a report in August 2022 that outlined these engineering deficiencies.

Water can exit Glen Canyon in only three ways. One is the spillways, a pressure-release valve for flooding, which are located at elevation 3,648 feet, near the top of the dam. They are irrelevant today. Lake Powell rests 122 feet below them.

The main exit point is through the eight penstocks, the 15-foot diameter tubes that move water through the turbines to generate hydroelectricity. The penstocks are incapacitated when Powell drops below 3,490 feet. (The lake today is 36 feet higher than that level.) If the lake falls below what is known as minimum power pool, hydropower generation also ceases.

If that happens, water must be released through four 8-foot diameter pipes called the river outlet works. Smaller than the penstocks, the river outlet works are located at elevation 3,370. Below that elevation water cannot be released from Powell, a status known ominously as “dead pool.” (Functionally, the river outlet works may be useless at elevation 3,394, Reclamation says.)

As of late April 2026, Lake Powell was less than 25 percent full and projected to drop to a record low in the next 12 months. (Brett Walton/Circle of Blue)

The environmental groups identified two limitations with the river outlet works. One is that they were not designed to be operated full-time. They are a role player, not the star. The other is that their smaller size means less water can pass through them. That’s a problem because the upper basin states of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming are required to send a set amount of water downstream to the lower basin, according to the 1922 Colorado River Compact that divided the river.

The flow restrictions imposed by the river outlet works, if they had to be used full time, means that the upper basin could violate the compact, which could mean water cutbacks imposed by the lower basin.

“It’s just so counterintuitive that the tool that was designed to meet this delivery obligation” – the construction of Glen Canyon Dam – “is now going to be the roadblock that may prevent the delivery obligation from being met,” said Balken of the Glen Canyon Institute.

The engineering problems are not a new discovery. Wegner, who was with the Bureau of Reclamation at the time as its Grand Canyon environmental studies manager, helped lead a 1987 National Academies report on Glen Canyon. The report recommended that the Interior Department consider the “installation and operation of multiple outlet structures” at Glen Canyon, which would give dam managers more flexibility with water releases.

Glen Canyon’s structural problems were substantiated in 2023, when Reclamation used the river outlet works during an experimental “high-flow” release of water to flush sediment downstream and rebuild eroding Grand Canyon beaches.

The high-volume release caused pitting, or cavitation, within the river outlet works, a risk that was heightened due to the physics of water when Lake Powell is low. Reclamation coated the pipes with epoxy as a temporary fix to prevent more damage, a process that took several months. The agency has since used two small-scale physical models at its Technical Service Center in Denver to test dam operations at low water levels and the effect on infrastructure. Reclamation acknowledged the limitations of the river outlet works in a technical memo published in March 2024 by Richard Lafond, director of the agency’s Technical Service Center. The memo’s conclusions were endorsed by the top decision-makers in Reclamation’s Upper Colorado River Office.

“Long term operation of the river outlet works will result in accelerating regular operation and maintenance tasks,” LaFond wrote. Reclamation should “not rely on the river outlet works as the sole means for releasing water from Glen Canyon Dam.”

Wegner put it in starker terms. If the river outlet works had to be relied upon and the pipes began to erode again, then Reclamation could potentially lose control of water flows.

“Potentially that could fail,” Wegner said, meaning an inability to control water releases through the dam if the pipes are structurally compromised. “And if that fails, now you have a catastrophe on your hand and you have limited options to manage that catastrophe.”

In other words, there would be no way to release water downstream into the Grand Canyon and into the lower basin.

Neither quick nor easy

What fixes are possible? Reclamation received $2 million from Congress in the fiscal year 2022 budget for an appraisal study. Reclamation outlined three engineering possibilities in a 2023 presentation, most of which centered on preserving hydropower generation as Lake Powell declines.

One possibility is a new, lower intake that uses the existing power generation turbines. An intake located deeper in the reservoir would allow Glen Canyon to pass water in what is currently dead pool. But it would entail “increased risk from penetration through the dam.”

The second would connect new power generation equipment to the river outlet works.

The third option is tunneling through the canyon wall and installing a new underground power station. This would also provide more flexibility for water releases.

Reclamation also included three operational or policy changes for power production, including investing in wind and solar to offset hydropower declines.

Other ideas that seemed kooky and fringe just a few years ago – draining Lake Powell and filling Lake Mead first; changing the basin’s water accounting system – are now being discussed throughout the basin with more seriousness and candor.

Glen Canyon Dam, completed in 1963, was not designed to be operated at extremely low water levels that Lake Powell is now approaching. (Brett Walton/Circle of Blue)

Beyond that presentation, Reclamation has not said much publicly about dam modification. The agency declined an interview request to discuss Glen Canyon Dam’s engineering problems.

Whatever direction Reclamation chooses – an option outlined above or something new – the process will not be quick or easy. Any change to Glen Canyon must go through an environmental analysis and public comment period. Congress will have to authorize actions and appropriate the funds. Construction alone will take years.

Wegner, who was the staff director for the House Natural Resources Water and Power Subcommittee from 2008 to 2014, knows the difficulty and sees a lack of leadership. “There’s nobody in Washington who has been willing to lead the charge trying to get Congress to provide authorized funding to do this sort of work.”

‘Reservoir triage’

Because Reclamation is not confident it can operate the river outlet works for an extended run, the agency is focused on keeping Powell above elevation 3,500 feet.

Protecting 3,500 feet comes with all sorts of baggage. It preserves hydropower generation, which power customers appreciate. But in effect the redline at that elevation strands some 4.4 million acre-feet in Lake Powell. (Only 3.7 million acre-feet is technically accessible with the current plumbing.) Some have called this elevation a “de facto” dead pool. Thus, the agitation in the lower basin for a plumbing system within the dam that provides access to this water.

Balken said that downstream water deliveries, not preserving hydropower, should be Reclamation’s biggest concern.

“When these decision makers are talking about Glen Canyon Dam from only a hydropower perspective, I think it’s missing the larger point, which is the dam is about to become the biggest roadblock of water deliveries that the basin has ever seen,” Balken said.

Flows from upstream Flaming Gorge reservoir will be used this spring and summer to bolster the flagging levels at Lake Powell, the nation’s second largest reservoir. (Brett Walton/Circle of Blue)

To avoid the infrastructure risks of dropping below 3,500 feet, Reclamation has started to take extraordinary action. The agency has two emergency levers it is pulling. One is to hold more water back in Lake Powell. Reclamation cut water releases to the legal minimum this year, something it has never done. The other is releasing more water from Flaming Gorge, a reservoir upstream that is in better shape.

As Balken describes it, “This is reservoir triage.”

These emergency actions have serious side-effects. Upstream, Flaming Gorge is expected to lose 35 feet of elevation by next spring, once the extra water has been released. That will hurt the recreation economy of northeastern Utah and southwestern Wyoming – fewer boat ramps in the water, less fishing access.

These upstream releases have limited utility, Wegner said. “You can do that once or twice. But you got to then depend upon Mother Nature refilling those reservoirs upstream.”

Downstream, Lake Mead will drop quickly and it too will approach a level in which hydropower generation at Hoover Dam severely drops. Algal blooms in a warmer, shallower lake could be a problem. “They’re going to be robbing Mead to pay Powell,” Balken said.

Trying not to hit bottom

The idea of dead pool – when Lake Powell can no longer release water – was almost inconceivable when the reservoir was designed and filled. The official device for measuring Lake Powell’s elevation ends at the top of the penstocks, at elevation 3,477.5 feet. According to Reclamation’s 2024 technical memo, “This is an indication that reservoir elevations below minimum power pool” – 3,490 feet – “were not anticipated.”

Reclamation finished filling the reservoir in 1980. Three years later, after an intense El Niño winter, the dam’s upper limits were tested. Floodwaters in the summer of 1983 nearly broke the dam. Such volumes are almost inconceivable now.

In a typical year, Lake Powell would be rising in late April, flush with the deposits of snowmelt from headwater basins in the Rocky Mountains. Not this year. The snowpack peaked in many basins in late February or early March. What little snow there was has already melted. As of April 28, Lake Powell inflows are projected to be just 16% of average. Lake level forecasts from mid-April showed a long downward slope for the next 12 months. Those projections were what triggered the emergency release of water from Flaming Gorge and the reduction in Lake Powell releases.

Scientists have been warning about circumstances like this for years. In a defining period for the basin, all the predictions of water supply shocks in the Colorado River from the past two decades are coming to pass.

“We should have been prepared for this,” Balken said.

This story was produced by Circle of Blue, in partnership with The Water Desk at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Center for Environmental Journalism.

Colorado River emergency actions leave root causes of crisis unaddressed

By
Caitlin Ochs, High Country News
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Flaming Gorge Reservoir stores water from the Green River in Wyoming, and is shared by Wyoming and Utah. (Ted Wood/The Water Desk)

On April 17, the federal government ordered emergency measures to prevent water levels at Lake Powell from falling so low that Glen Canyon Dam, which created the reservoir, could no longer generate power or deliver water downstream. Without this intervention, models showed that the reservoir could drop below safe operating levels in August, meaning that the river would not have a reliable way to flow past the dam. This would threaten water and power supplies for millions of people across the Southwest, as well as the flow of water through the Grand Canyon.

Across the Colorado River Basin, an extremely low snowpack combined with a record-shattering March heat wave, have left water managers with few other options. The region’s reservoirs were already depleted from years of relying on wet winters to balance the growing demand with the ongoing drought.

The Bureau of Reclamation ordered releases from Flaming Gorge Reservoir, which straddles the Utah-Wyoming border, to bolster Lake Powell’s water levels. At the same time, the amount of water delivered from Powell to downstream users will be significantly reduced.

“This is a short-term solution,” said Jenny Dumas, water attorney for the Jicarilla Apache Nation, which sits near the border of Colorado and New Mexico. “It’s going to take time to recover these reservoirs before we can do this again. So while we can exhaust our reserves to avoid system collapse this year, it means reserves won’t be there next year.”

This is not the first time water managers have turned to Flaming Gorge to stabilize the larger river system. In 2022, the federal government ordered the reservoir to release 550,000 acre-feet to stabilize the downstream river system, which disrupted recreation and rattled upstream communities. This time, Reclamation has authorized releases of up to 1 million acre-feet. Over the next year, a third of the reservoir’s storage is expected to be gradually released. By September, water levels are projected to drop about 12 feet.

“This is an unprecedented release volume — more than double the last time,” said Amy Haas, executive director of the Colorado River Authority of Utah, who briefed communities bracing for the releases at Flaming Gorge Reservoir. “We really just don’t know the actual impacts of these releases to surrounding communities, and our water users are struggling. My goodness, we are on target to become one of the worst water years on record. The forecasts are stunning to all of us.” 

The amount of water projected to flow into the river from snowmelt is rapidly declining. Over the first two weeks of April, forecasts for Lake Powell fell by 500,000 acre-feet. The spring forecast is shifting so quickly, some experts believe the releases from Flaming Gorge may need to increase.

“I think it’s a target, and they’re going to have to revise it,” said veteran water manager and researcher Eric Kuhn, who co-authored a paper last September predicting this kind of shortage and calling for action. “It’s many river miles from Flaming Gorge to Lake Powell. What are the transit losses?”

“Also, when March looked like June, what are June and July going to look like?” he added. “I could easily see that 1 million becomes 1.5 million acre-feet by March of 2027.”

Kuhn sees the emergency actions as a sign of broader failure to address the underlying issues that led to the current situation. “The Department of Interior no longer acknowledges that the fundamental problem is climate change. We’re dealing with the symptoms of the disease. We’re not dealing with the underlying problem,” he said. “The law of the river was written for a river that no longer exists from a hydrologic standpoint.”

Flaming Gorge Reservoir straddles the Utah-Wyoming border and has remained a bright spot for water storage in the Colorado River basin amid worsening conditions elsewhere in the watershed. (Ted Wood/The Water Desk)

In an April 21 meeting, Upper Basin state commissioners acknowledged the need for emergency action but warned that this was not a long-term solution. 

“I want to make darn sure people understand … the incredibly difficult, heartbreaking decisions that are having to be made with the lives of generations of cattle production, and farming communities in the Upper Basin states,” particularly in Utah, said Gene Shawcroft, Utah’s Colorado River commissioner.

Wyoming Commissioner Brandon Gebhardt reported that 13,000 acres of agricultural land in the South Piney drainage on the eastern slopes of the Wyoming Range had been cut off from water, adding that even some of the state’s oldest and most senior water rights — some dating to 1898 — will likely be impacted. 

“We expect three of the five Flaming Gorge boat ramps in Wyoming will be rendered unusable, and low reservoir levels will have long-lasting negative impacts on reservoir fisheries,” said Gebhardt. “We recognize what we are approving today will have significant negative impacts on our water resources, local economies and recreation.”

Shortage is affecting more than agriculture and recreation. The Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, for example, reported its sacred springs going dry, affecting ceremonies, and the tribal farm will have to operate with just 14% of its normal water supply. Meanwhile, the Jicarilla Apache Nation said it received just 25% to 35% of its contracted water allocation, leaving tribal leaders uncertain about whether they can divert enough water from the Navajo River to meet the community’s domestic needs.

With no sign of long-term agreement on how to manage the river past September, legal tensions among the basin states remain high.

Arizona’s Department of Water Resources released a statement agreeing with plans to order upstream releases to stabilize Lake Powell but also warning that the revised downstream releases were “substantially less than required under the 1922 Colorado River Compact,” referencing the foundational legal document dividing the river. “Failure to comply,” the release stated, “is itself a serious development that Arizona will assess and respond to accordingly.”

Upper Basin state commissioners plan to hold a special meeting to revisit the issue and vote on whether to continue emergency actions past August after assessing water levels and determining whether or not the releases are working.

Regardless of the possible legal battles, the reduced water in the river, infrastructure limits and political gridlock have left basin communities feeling uncertain about their future water security. After the planned releases from Flaming Gorge, if next winter brings another dry year, it is unlikely that upstream reservoirs will have enough water to stabilize Lake Powell.

The basin needs more than emergency actions, Dumas said. “We really want to emphasize the need for serious and permanent changes in how we use and manage the river to adjust to current and future hydrology.”

This story was produced by High Country News, in partnership with The Water Desk at the University of Colorado Boulder.

The driest year revisited: Five takeaways from 2002 for today’s Colorado River

By
Annie MacKeigan, The Water Desk
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The Colorado River carves through mud left behind from Lake Powell when the reservoir was at full pool, near Hite, Utah in October 2022. (Alexander Heilner/The Water Desk with aerial support from LightHawk)

The Colorado River basin has been here before. 

This year’s historic winter of low snow might feel novel. But recent years give some insight into just how dry the West’s most important river system can get. This season’s scant snowpack is melting rapidly, and turning up memories of other notably dry years. 

Prolonged drought conditions and warming temperatures since 2000 have produced severe single-year droughts in 2002, 2012, 2018 and 2020 in the river’s headwaters states of Colorado, Wyoming and Utah. As severe drought years continue to put the Southwest’s water infrastructure to the test, communities in the region are grappling with how best to understand and adapt to a changing climate. 

2002 stands as the worst drought on record for the Colorado River, measured as the flow into one of its biggest reservoirs, Lake Powell on the Utah-Arizona border. It’s possible 2026 could break that record. Back then the year acted as a wake-up call to the region’s water leaders, spurred important policy changes, and reshaped attitudes around conservation. 

We asked Colorado River experts Eric Kuhn, Jeff Lukas and Jim Lochhead to share five important takeaways from the 2002 drought, and what to know as we enter the warmer, drier months of 2026.  

1. Reservoirs have memory

Reservoirs act as batteries for water availability, charged by inputs such as snowmelt, streams, rivers and precipitation. 

“What you did two or three years ago can affect your water supply now,” said Eric Kuhn, former general manager for the Colorado River Water Conservation District. “So in a good year, if you are conserving, you are actually helping the system out for the next drought.” 

The 2002 drought prompted municipal utilities to rethink their reservoir usage. 

“Water managers and agencies have absorbed several lessons from 2002, including holding something back. They’re operating the reservoirs a little differently,” said Jeff Lukas, an independent climate and water researcher who has lived on Colorado’s Front Range for 40 years. 

By conserving reservoir water, municipal utilities can maintain water storage for less abundant water years of the future. But as dry conditions have dogged the entire Colorado River basin for more than a quarter-century, the system’s buffer is gone. 

“The biggest issue is that Lake Powell and Lake Mead were relatively full in 2002,” Kuhn said. Now, both Lake Powell and Lake Mead are at critically low levels, and the water scarcity is increasing the likelihood of multi-state litigation.

In 2002, drought was dealt with on a local level; water utilities were not thinking about drought in terms of the entire river system, but instead how to regulate municipal water use. This year’s dry conditions are pushing the whole region to the brink. 

2. Conservation can make a big difference, if it is mandatory

Individual contributions to water conservation, adhering to local outdoor watering restrictions for example, can make a difference. Prompted by the 2002 drought, a 2004 University of Colorado study aimed to measure the effectiveness of water restrictions put in place by water providers on the state’s populated Front Range. 

The study followed municipal water providers Thornton, Aurora, Westminster, Fort Collins, Boulder, Louisville, Lafayette and Denver Water, comparing 2002 usage to average water usage in 2000 and 2001. Researchers determined that water restrictions are most effective when mandatory. Mandatory restrictions in Lafayette reduced water usage by as much as 53%, according to the study. 

The same study found that under mandatory restrictions, savings of expected water use per capita was as successful as 56%, while voluntary restrictions only measured up to 12%. 

Outdoor watering represents a big slice of a city’s water budget, and 2002 showed utilities that in times of crisis people can rein in their use. 

“Everyone should realize that they can make a small contribution to the solution,” Kuhn said. “Even though their individual contribution might be miniscule, when you add up all their neighbors and other people, it’s not miniscule. It’s very, very big.” 

Watering a lawn once or twice a week, and not during peak hours, is a practical way to conserve water while keeping grass alive. 

3. This is not a one-off year

It’s easy to shrug off a dry year and hope for wet weather’s return. But the long-term trends are concerning. 

“This is really the 26th year of extreme drought,” said former Denver Water CEO Jim Lochhead. On a larger scale, the seven Colorado River basin states—Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming—have been preparing for worsening drought conditions since the shock of 2002. But river policy hasn’t kept pace with the aridification, leaving the region’s largest reservoirs at near record lows. 

The Colorado River flows through canyons in northern Arizona in October 2020. (Ross Rice/The Water Desk & LightHawk)

“This has been a slow moving train that I think the states have known was coming, and they have frankly failed to do anything about it,” said Lochhead, who also represented the state of Colorado amid interstate Colorado River negotiations in the 1990s and early 2000s.

The Colorado Climate Center anticipates droughts to increase in severity and frequency, a trend that is only expected to continue in Colorado and across the Southwest as warming temperatures upend the water cycle. 

“We should be managing and thinking about water, using water, as though it were always a drought,” Lukas said. 

4. Communities have more practice dealing with drought, but still struggle  

Drought conditions in 2002 led some municipal water utilities to organize and create incentives for conservation, and transformed the urban landscape, swapping grass for more drought-tolerant plants. Those water restrictions allowed municipal water providers to curb water demand while steadily growing in size. However, there is still room for improvement in disproportionately affected communities.  

According to Lochhead, urban areas need to prioritize heat reduction in neighborhoods that have fewer trees in order to lessen the impacts of drought and warming temperatures. Using scarce water supplies to encourage tree-planting and increase shade should remain a priority. 

“I think we need to work with those communities to enhance some landscaping,” Lochhead said. “Whether it’s the homeless population, whether it’s just kids that are out, whatever it may be, those areas are where they’re pretty hard hit by heat.” 

Farmers and ranchers are used to riding the highs and lows of western weather. But extremely dry years like 2002, and now 2026, can push their operations to the limits. 

“This is going to be a really tough year,” Lukas said. “You’re going to have a lot of people selling off their herds and taking insurance out because of low crop yields.”

The majority of Colorado’s annual water supply is used for irrigation, so any proposed restrictions can be costly for the agricultural community. “There are going to be a lot of farms and ranches that just can’t operate because they don’t have any water,” Lochhead said. “There are going to be some significant economic consequences.” 

5. Stay aware, even if things seem bleak 

For Lukas, this year and its predecessors test our expectations about what nature can provide.

Even in periods of prolonged drought, there are wet years. “Judging from history, that tends to put everyone back on their heels, a little complacent,” Lukas said, but maintaining water storage relies on year-to-year vigilance, not complacency.  

Another primary concern during drought years is wildfire. With less moisture in the soil, dry vegetation acts as fuel for wildfire, which becomes harder to contain under hot and dry conditions. 

“I worry a lot less about municipal water supply than I do about wildfire,” Lukas said. Many of Colorado’s notably dry years have also recorded severe and destructive wildfires. 

It comes at no surprise that worsening drought falls in line with worsening wildfires. “Climate change is delivered to people through changes in the hydrologic cycle,” Kuhn said, so being aware of water usage now is just as, if not more important as it was in 2002.

This story was produced and distributed by The Water Desk at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Center for Environmental Journalism.

As the West’s scant snowpack melts, Coloradans brace for a lean water year

By
Annie MacKeigan, The Water Desk
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In early March 2026, bushes and vegetation stick out from under the snow under a lift at Arapahoe Basin. (Annie MacKeigan/The Water Desk)

Call it the winter that wasn’t.

Throughout Colorado a record-warm and dry winter has come to a close. Attention now pivots to spring and the potential for additional snow to allay increasing drought concerns. Though, there appears to be  little relief in sight. 

The Denver-metro area went months without measurable snowfall this winter. The city’s daytime temperatures often surpassed 60 degrees. Hikers and trail runners rejoiced over the warm weather while grumbling skiers lamented their underused season passes. 

In the state’s Rocky Mountains snow accumulation was sluggish, as warmer than normal temperatures led to midseason snowmelt, and caused more precipitation to fall as rain instead of snow. A persistent mid-March heatwave kicked off rapid snowmelt. Colorado’s snowpack, and in the broader Colorado River basin, set new record lows throughout winter. T-shirt weather wasn’t just confined to lower elevations either. The high country too experienced balmy days and nights. 

Spring snowmelt is underway near Red Mountain Pass in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains on March 14, 2026. (Mitch Tobin/The Water Desk)

The mild year has already led to lifestyle changes for Colorado residents, and threatens to do even more. Ski resorts are closing early, ranchers are worrying about the security of their irrigation supplies, and water managers are considering contingency plans if such conditions persist.  

This year, powder days that rev the state’s ski economy were replaced with sunshine. Recreation is not the only industry under threat from rising temperatures and low snowpack. The state’s agricultural economy hinges on access to snowmelt.

Marsha and John “Doc” Daughenbaugh call the Rocking C Bar Ranch near Steamboat Springs home. Marsha is a third generation rancher in the area, and the couple have passed the business off to their two children. They still worry that if such dry conditions continue, it would “seriously affect our ability to keep going,” Marsha said. 

Marsha and Doc Daughenbaugh of Rocking C Bar Ranch, west of Steamboat Springs, Colo., say dry winters call into question their ranch’s longterm viability. (Annie MacKeigan/The Water Desk)

A well-welcomed snow system worked its way through parts of the state in early March, providing the nearby Steamboat Ski Resort a self-reported 6 inches of new powder. But it quickly melted, and the Daughenbaughs were ankle deep in mud come midday. 

Doc has long made a habit of measuring inches of snowpack in the ranch’s meadow each year on March 20, right around the spring equinox. Few of his recordings—which began in 1989—noted no snow.

The most sobering of Doc’s notations is also the most recent. During a visit in early March, the entry read, “all snow gone by Feb. 26.” 

The Daughenbaughs have collected snow measurements on their ranch near Steamboat Springs since 1989. (Annie MacKeigan/The Water Desk)

The noticeably scant snow is not the only observation the Daughenbaughs have made this year. Robins, geese and sandhill cranes had already returned to the family’s ranch by early March, not usually due back until the first week of spring. 

Marsha, who has lived in Steamboat since 1953, recalled “three-wire winters,” when snow would build up to the third wire on the barbed-wire fences that surrounded their property. “They were really a common thing,” she said. 

Their main concern is that any snowpack that does accumulate this spring will travel down the mountains fast, due to warm temperatures and limited reserves, which means less water availability sooner in the year for high country ranchers like themselves. 

South of the Daughenbaughs, skiers and snowboarders in Summit County are seeing their seasons cut short.

At its summit, Arapahoe Basin is one of the county’s highest ski resorts in elevation. But instead of the high elevation benefitting the mountain, it has become somewhat of a disadvantage. According to Doug Petrick, a skier from Erie, Colo. who frequents Arapahoe Basin, the back side of the mountain was extremely icy because of its exposure to this year’s unseasonably high winds. 

In addition to Arapahoe Basin, Petrick also skis at Breckenridge, Keystone, Vail, Copper and Winter Park. Petrick has recorded 30 days of skiing this season which is on par for seasons past. However, the difference in conditions this year has been noticeable. 

“There has been a lot of exposure of rock and dirt. The snow is not enough to cover the mountain,” he said. “My skis have taken more of a beating due to the exposed rock and dirt.” 

While Arapahoe Basin benefits from high elevation terrain, other Colorado resorts struggled to stay viable. Powderhorn in Mesa County, Sunlight in Garfield County, and Ski Cooper near Leadville all shuttered before their scheduled closing days this spring. 

Because skiing is his favorite winter activity, Petrick is holding out hope for more snowfall and a better next season. “But if next year is the same or worse,” he posed, he may start to worry. 

Runners, hikers and bikers recreated in t-shirts and tank tops on Foothills South Trail in Boulder, Colo., on March 4, 2026. The month is typically Colorado’s snowiest. (Annie MacKeigan/The Water Desk)

Petrick is not the only one holding out hope for the future. Colorado’s cities too look seasons ahead to ensure they have enough water to meet their needs. Matt Fater, senior director of infrastructure engineering for the City of Fort Collins’ water utility, is hopeful for more spring snow. Without it, the city may have to tap into existing water storage. 

“We’re not in a crisis mode yet,” Fater said. “We’re watching it closely. We do have short term and long range plans when it comes to drought planning.” 

The long range planning includes a policy that requires the city to be prepared for a 1-in-50 year drought. In the case of a severe drought, the city pulls water from different storage reserves that accumulate during particularly wet years. Fater reinforced the need for additional storage in the city, to “make sure we can meet the demand of our community.” 

Snowpack that supplies the Cache La Poudre River has lagged well below average this year. The river is a main water source for the city of Fort Collins. (Annie MacKeigan/The Water Desk)

Other cities aren’t waiting. Denver Water has already let its customers know they’ll be restricted on their outdoor summer watering this year. In Erie, residents who flouted the town’s voluntary outdoor watering restrictions now face the potential of being cut off completely, according to CBS Colorado. And planning for the potentially hot and dry summer ahead has led Governor Jared Polis to activate a statewide drought task force too. 

Snowpack in the high country acts as a battery for water availability, Fater said. Without enough snowpack to “recharge” those additional storage sites, a future drought could result in limited water availability and potential restrictions in the city.

Ranchers, skiers and water users throughout the state were hopeful that March would bring a miracle, and the snowpack deficit would decrease after a few big storms. But with a warm winter transitioning to an even warmer spring, the hopes of a few high-powered snowstorms are fading.

This story was produced and distributed by The Water Desk at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Center for Environmental Journalism.

Upper Basin states test methods to fill Powell pool

By
Heather Sackett, Aspen Journalism
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Lake Powell, on the Colorado River, is seen from the air in 2019. The Upper Basin states are planning how to potentially fill a dedicated pool in the nation’s second largest reservoir. Credit: EcoFlight

This story was originally published by Aspen Journalism on March 19, 2026.

With a Lake Powell conservation pool nearly guaranteed for the future of Colorado River management, the four Upper Basin states are exploring and refining the ways they could fill it.

Conservation by those states (Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming) could be one of the keys to reaching a deal among the seven states that share the Colorado River and an important part of the framework for managing the drought-stricken river after this year. The water saved by the Upper Basin states could be stored in Lake Powell as a means of maintaining higher water levels and as an insurance policy against drastic cuts.

This type of pool isn’t yet being used in Lake Powell; it would have to be established by an agreement among the seven states. An agreement in the 2019 Drought Contingency Plan allowed for a 500,000 acre-foot Upper Basin storage pool in Lake Powell, but so far, the states have not utilized this and the agreement expires this year.

The Upper Basin and Lower Basin (California, Arizona and Nevada) have been at an impasse for more than two years about how the nation’s two largest reservoirs — Lake Powell and Lake Mead — will be managed and shortages shared in the future. The situation has never been more dire: The current guidelines for river management expire at the end of the year, while record-low snowpack is expected to push reservoir levels below critical thresholds. The seven states have blown past two deadlines to come up with a plan, and the federal government is gearing up for emergency actions to manage reservoirs.

The crux of the disagreement between the two basins has been over who should take shortages in drought years. The Lower Basin has committed to 1.5 million acre-feet of reductions annually and wants cuts beyond that to be shared by the Upper Basin. The Upper Basin says its water users already take cuts in some years because streams run dry by midsummer and any contributions they make must be voluntary.

The main boat ramp at Wahweap Marina was unusable due to low water levels in Lake Powell in December 2021. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is projecting that the reservoir will fall below critical thresholds later this year. Credit: Heather Sackett/Aspen Journalism

Contribution not conservation

Some Upper Basin officials have made a slight shift in the way they now talk about a pool in Lake Powell. No longer referred to as a conservation pool, it is called a “contribution” pool, reflecting the different methods — not only conservation of agricultural water — of contributing water to a Lake Powell pool.

Traditionally, the Colorado River basin states have turned to programs that pay irrigators to voluntarily leave fields dry for a season or two as the primary way to cut water use. With agriculture representing the majority of water use in the Upper Basin, it’s often the low-hanging fruit when it comes to water savings. 

But at least two Upper Basin states are turning to other methods to contribute water to a Lake Powell pool. 

For example, New Mexico can contribute water from Navajo Reservoir that it leases from a tribe. In Colorado, the method is less straightforward, but officials say the state is prioritizing and expanding existing programs and projects that save water. 

“When you talk about things like turf removal, water-loss prevention, watershed restoration, forest-health efforts that are happening on the ground, those are benefits not only to Colorado but to the entire system,” said Becky Mitchell, Colorado’s lead negotiator in talks among the seven states that share the Colorado River. “So we’re trying to figure out: How do we acknowledge all of that work?”

Raymond Langstaff, a rancher and president of the Bookcliff Conservation District, irrigates a parcel north of Rifle. The state of Colorado explored the feasibility of a demand management program that would pay irrigators to cut back, but did not implement one. Credit: Heather Sackett/Aspen Journalism

Utah touts pragmatic approach

Over its run in 2023 and 2024, the federally funded System Conservation Pilot Program doled out $45 million to Upper Basin irrigators to cut their use by about 100,000 acre-feet. Utah water users received about $15 million of that in exchange for temporarily forgoing about 37,000 acre-feet of Colorado River water. The state put lessons learned with SCPP to use and is now in the second year of its own demand management pilot program, funded by $5 million from the state legislature and run by the Colorado River Authority of Utah. 

The pilot program lets water users temporarily participate in a conservation program, and pays them $390 an acre-foot of water to do it. In 2025, Utah sent about 8,000 acre-feet downstream to Lake Powell under this pilot program, according to Marc Stilson, deputy director and principal engineer of the authority. There are a couple industrial water users and one municipal water user among the participants, but the majority are agricultural, he said.

“The pilot program is trying to iron out all these issues so that if we end up with some type of post-2026 commitment to do these types of voluntary conservation programs, we’re ready to do it,” Stilson said. “There is a very pragmatic approach in Utah looking at the big picture, and I think generally there is a sense that we have to adapt to changing conditions.”

Whether the program will continue after this year is unclear and could depend on whether the states reach a deal.

“We were anticipating that we’d have an agreement and that these types of programs would be part of that agreement,” Stilson said. “I think we just have to take a wait-and-see approach.”

Wyoming is also looking to traditional programs: State lawmakers are establishing a voluntary water conservation program. Wyoming state engineer and lead negotiator Brandon Gebhart did not respond to phone calls, emails or a list of questions from Aspen Journalism.

Boater on the San Juan River in May 2023. New Mexico officials say they can contribute water to a pool in Lake Powell through releasing water they lease in Navajo Reservoir. Credit: Heather Sackett/Aspen Journalism

New Mexico seeks ‘more diverse’ ways to contribute water

The state of New Mexico plans to contribute to a Powell pool mostly through 20,000 acre-feet of Navajo Reservoir water, which it leases from the Jicarilla Apache Nation and can be released down the San Juan River. Along the way to Lake Powell, it boosts flows for endangered fish. Officials say because they can control when they release the water, it can be tracked with certainty to the reservoir. 

“We all need to focus on more diverse ways of contributions, not just the classic conserved consumptive use,” said Ali Effati, Colorado River basin bureau chief for the New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission. 

Water managers say that automatically turning to agricultural water isn’t always reliable because as climate change continues to rob rivers of flows, even if senior water users want to participate in these types of conservation programs, they may not have any water to spare in dry years.

“That doesn’t mean that we have shied away from those sorts of activities, but to the extent that we can do our part without having to ask our agricultural community to cut water where they already take significant cuts almost annually, that’s just a preferable perspective,” said Estevan Lopez, lead negotiator for New Mexico.

Lopez said the likelihood of seeing a future Upper Basin contribution pool in Lake Powell is nearly 100% and that New Mexico will be ready, willing and able to contribute its share of water when the time comes.

“We have our percentage easily covered, plus a significant amount more,” he said.

These hay bales stand ready to be collected on a ranch outside of Carbondale in July 2024.  Upper Basin states have traditionally looked to agricultural to conserve water, but some are now turning to other ways to contribute water. Credit: Heather Sackett/Aspen Journalism

Colorado points to programs already in place

Colorado water users participated in both years of SCPP, but the state has been reluctant to take the leap into setting up its own program, despite being an early leader of the conservation conversation among the Upper Basin states.

In 2019, Colorado convened nine workgroups to explore the feasibility of a demand management program. The process included Colorado River water users from across the state and in multiple water-use sectors, who looked at how to set up a temporary, voluntary, compensated state program. But in 2022, the state water board shelved the studies without implementing a program, in favor of focusing on drought-resiliency initiatives. 

Mitchell said the demand management feasibility investigation was an incredibly valuable exercise, but that there are still a number of open questions. Inaction on a demand management program doesn’t mean inaction on conservation overall, she said.

“The CWCB board voted to pause that investigation until there was clarity about whether any such program would be achievable, worthwhile and advisable and until there’s evidence that a demand management-esque program would benefit Colorado,” Mitchell said. 

In 2023, Colorado lawmakers created a task force to again examine how the state could implement demand reduction and conservation programs. Water managers punted the issue again, failing to make recommendations to lawmakers on this topic, with some members saying conservation programs were “premature.” 

The state still does not seem to have the policies in place to implement a large-scale, traditional conservation program in the near future. Mitchell said Colorado’s plan to contribute water to a Lake Powell pool is through the programs and projects already in place, many of which are funded through the state’s Water Plan grants.

At its March meeting, the CWCB approved more than $13 million for 38 projects across the state, according to a press release. They include things like urban turf replacement, creek and wetland restoration, outdoor water budgeting and wildfire ready action plans.

“Our strategy is to continue on with the programs that are already in existence, continue to fund conservation efforts that benefit all Coloradans as well as the entire system, continue to live within the means of the river and adapt our uses to align with available supply,” Mitchell said. “Because of all those programs already set up, we believe we have the majority of the structure in place.”

But Mitchell would not put a number on the amount of water that Colorado could contribute.

“We want to be a part of the solution when and how we are able to, but no, I’m not going to say we can do 100,000 acre-feet in a year like this,” she said.

Colorado River watchers may soon get some clarity around exactly how — and how much — Upper Basin states plan to contribute to a Lake Powell pool. On March 24, the Upper Colorado River Commission plans to consider projects to include in a “provisional accounting” memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, according to UCRC Director Chuck Cullom. 

Some Upper Basin projects that are not traditional agricultural conservation programs may be counted under the MOU, allowing the states to “get credit” for the water they save through unconventional means. Cullom said the UCRC and Bureau of Reclamation will also soon have an accounting report of water-saving activities undertaken in 2025. 

Mitchell said Colorado is still committed to a seven-state consensus agreement and wants to avoid litigation. But acknowledgement of what the Upper Basin is already doing to cut back on water use will be important.

“The MOU is one component where we would like to see some sort of real acknowledgement of what is occurring in terms of the way that we live within the means of the river and what our strict administration is doing,” Mitchell said. “As long as we are not acknowledged in what’s happening on the ground, I think we’re going to have struggles.”

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