As Colorado River states missed yet another deadline to strike a drought deal, a new forecast shows a grim outlook for the river’s major reservoirs.
For the first time, the Bureau of Reclamation’s most probable forecast shows that Lake Powell could fall below 3,490 feet in elevation in December of this year. Below that elevation, the turbines in Glen Canyon Dam would be unable to generate electricity that keeps the lights on in Utah and six other states.
The forecast, released Friday, also shows that the nation’s second-largest reservoir could dip to 3,476 feet in March of 2027 — “the lowest elevation on record since filling, further constraining the ability to release water from Glen Canyon Dam,” the agency wrote.
As an abnormally warm and dry winter drags on, the latest forecasts are more than 20 feet lower than the projections released by the bureau last month.
The projections come as representatives of the seven Colorado River Basin states have failed to reach a deal ahead of a Valentine’s Day deadline set by the federal government. The states have been negotiating for months over how to manage the river that supplies water to 40 million people after current guidelines expire this year.
“I’m disappointed to say that in spite of nearly non-stop negotiations between the seven basin states over the last several months, we have been unable to reach agreement on a post-2026 operations plan,” Gene Shawcroft, Utah’s negotiator, said during a press conference Friday.
While the states continue to negotiate, Utah and its fellow Upper Basin states — Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming — are pivoting to “deal with the real enemy on the river: hydrology,” Shawcroft said.
“We have lost one and a half million acre-feet of forecasted flow into Lake Powell over the last month, setting us up for one of the lowest inflow years in recent record,” he added.
The Upper Basin states are working with the Bureau of Reclamation on a plan to release water from Flaming Gorge and other reservoirs to prop up Powell this summer, Shawcroft said.
“Utah and our sister states will insist that any water that is released from Flaming Gorge be fully recovered ... once that release operation concludes,” Amy Haas, executive director of the Colorado River Authority of Utah, said Friday.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) The Green River flows through Red Canyon and Flaming Gorge on Tuesday, June 20, 2023.
Where negotiations stand
How and when to release water from upstream reservoirs to prop up Powell and Lake Mead in the future is one of the remaining sticking points between the Upper Basin and Lower Basin — Arizona, California and Nevada — states, Shawcroft said.
The states have also been at odds over how to share the burden of water cuts on the drought-stricken river.
“The Colorado River is essential to our communities and economies, and our states have conserved large volumes of water in recent years to stabilize the basin’s water supplies for years to come,” governors of Arizona, California and Nevada said in a joint statement on Friday.
Arizona has offered to reduce its use of the river by 27%, California by 10% and Nevada by nearly 17%, according to the governors’ statement.
“Our stance remains firm and fair: all seven basin states must share in the responsibility of conservation,” the statement said.
Shawcroft said he was “extremely encouraged” by the Lower Basin’s offers to reduce their water consumption. “That is absolutely huge,” he added. “That’s a tremendous amount of water.”
However, disagreements continue over whether the Upper Basin should be forced to cut.
The Lower Basin has insisted that it must see mandatory and enforceable conservation from the Upper Basin in a deal. Upper Basin representatives, though, say that enforceable conservation in their states is not possible because of the state water laws and hydrologic realities upstream of Lake Powell.
While the Lower Basin receives Colorado River water deliveries directly from Lake Mead, Upper Basin states say they don’t have such a large reservoir to pull from and get much of their water from smaller upstream tributaries with flows that vary year to year.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Kevin Cotner, a farmer who uses Price River water, fallows some of his fields and leases the saved irrigation water to benefit the over-allocated Colorado River system, as seen on Aug. 16, 2023.
“We may not have the ability in Utah and in the Upper Basin to mandatorily cut folks off, but mandatory cuts come in the form of hydrology,” Haas said on Friday. “We just saw this last year: we had water rights, very senior water rights in the state of Utah dating back to the 1860s, get cut off simply because there wasn’t available supply.”
That argument still doesn’t appear to move the Lower Basin, though.
“The river doesn’t care about legal interpretations, political comfort zones, or arguments about why a state can’t do more to conserve,” John Entsminger, Nevada’s negotiator, said in a statement on Friday. “Posturing doesn’t fill the taps.”
What happens now after another missed deadline?
Whether the states strike a new deal or not, though, the clock is ticking, and reservoirs are dropping. The current guidelines for operating the river and the nation’s two largest reservoirs, Lake Powell and Lake Mead, expire at the end of this year. If the states can’t agree how to move forward, the federal government could decide the path forward.
“It’s disappointing,” Anne Castle, senior fellow at University of Colorado Law School’s Getches-Wilkinson Center, said Friday about the states’ failure to reach a deal.
“The states are the ones that have the ability to craft an agreement that would make for a sustainable river — an operation that balances supply and demand,” Castle added. “The federal government has some ability to move toward that, but their authority is limited. They can’t do as much as the states could do together, and for the 40 million people that depend on this river, we would all be benefited by a seven-state agreement.”
The Bureau of Reclamation released a draft environmental impact statement last month that presented a series of alternatives. If the states reach a deal, the bureau will insert that as the preferred alternative into the final document, Scott Cameron, the bureau’s acting commissioner, told The Tribune in December.
If the states don’t reach consensus, there’s only one path, called the “basic coordination alternative” that the agency could implement without an agreement between the states or an act of Congress, according to the bureau.
“In below-average or dry years, the basic coordination alternative doesn’t do nearly enough to protect the system and you’re facing catastrophic levels at Lake Powell and Lake Mead,” John Berggren, policy manager with the Western Resource Advocates, said.
“It would not be able to handle this type of year going forward,” he added.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Lake Powell near Glen Canyon Dam in Page, Ariz. on Tuesday, May 20, 2025.
Colorado River Compact compliance looms large
The states have hoped to reach a deal that includes a pledge not to sue one another over compliance with the Colorado River Compact — a century-old law that says a certain amount of water must flow to the Lower Basin each year.
“The essential consideration for Utah is that we have that certainty that we’re not going to wind up in court defending a compact claim as early as next year,” Haas told The Tribune.
Utah, Arizona and Colorado have already begun preparing for possible litigation, though.
“We are prepared to defend our interests if necessary, but our first choice is collaboration,” Gov. Spencer Cox said in a statement Friday.
As drought continues to plague the region, the river’s ten-year flow may drop below that compact requirement for the first time this year.
“We may breach the compact in 2026 and almost certainly it will be breached in 2027,” Brenda Burman, general manager of the Central Arizona Project, said during a meeting last week. “Sobering news, something that hasn’t happened before.”
Winter across the Colorado River Basin has been one of the driest on record. Most water in the Colorado River Basin comes from snow melt, so a poor snow year means a poor outlook for water supply.
Brenda Alcorn, a forecaster with the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center, said last week that early February snow cover across the Upper Colorado River Basin, which includes Utah, was the lowest on record dating back to 2001.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Little snow covers the mountain above the Deer Valley East Village on Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026.
“Warm temperatures have significantly impacted the amount of snow currently being observed,” she added.
Lake Powell’s water supply is forecasted to be 38% of average this summer, according to the forecast center.
“I’ve been looking at the forecasts … and it’s dismal,” Castle said.
“One would think it would put more pressure on coming to an agreement, but it hasn’t succeeded in doing that, obviously — not yet,” she added.