Colorado Basin States Resume Water Negotiations; Focus Largely On Short-Term, Stopgap Measures

Critical negotiations about the future of the Colorado River took a two-week hiatus last month after the seven states in the basin missed a key Valentine’s Day deadline for striking a deal, New Mexico’s water negotiator said Thursday. Estevan López said talks resumed March 2, and the upper and lower basin states are using a short-term pitch from Nevada as a starting point.

“Right now, we’re in discussions with the lower basin about a potential short-term agreement,” Lopez told New Mexico’s Interstate Stream Commission. Nevada is proposing to increase water releases from upper basin reservoirs like Flaming Gorge “by at least 500,000 acre feet” to help prevent Lake Powell from dropping too low.

The latest forecasts predict that Powell could drop enough to stop producing hydropower by December. In return, lower-basin states would agree to cut their water use by 1.25 million acre feet “until system conditions have meaningfully improved.” López said upper basin states had a counter proposal and talks about it were scheduled on Thursday afternoon.

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Water negotiators are also facing a worsening water supply forecast with record-low snowpack across the West. Cody Moser with the federal Colorado Basin River Forecast Center said last week just 2.3 million acre feet of Colorado River water is expected to reach Lake Powell through July. That’s about a third of what’s considered normal.“You’ll notice it’s not a pretty picture here with lots of reds,” he said as he presented a color-coded map of how much water is expected to reach certain locations in the river basin. “That’s 50 to 70 percent of normal April through July runoff. Those maroon colors are 30 to 50 percent and we even have some of those pinks, which indicates less than 30 percent normal seasonal spring runoff.”

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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/23032026/colorado-river-negotiations-resume-with-focus-on-stopgap-measures/