With the leaders of seven states deadlocked over the Colorado River’s deepening crisis, negotiations increasingly seem likely to fail — which could lead the federal government to impose unilateral cuts and spark lawsuits that would bring a complex court battle.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has urged negotiators for the states to reach a deal by Feb. 14, but substantial disagreements remain.
“All seven states know that if we’re unable to achieve an agreement, it would likely fall to the courts, and that would be a lengthy and uncertain process,” Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said in an interview.
“I’m confident that Colorado would prevail based on the merits,” Polis said, but a court fight is “something that I don’t think any state desires.”
The Colorado River provides water for about 35 million people and 5 million acres of farmland, from the Rocky Mountains to northern Mexico. The water was originally divided among the states in 1922 under an agreement called the Colorado River Compact.
That agreement overpromised what the river could provide. And in the last quarter-century, relentless drought intensified by climate change has sapped the river’s flow and left its giant reservoirs severely depleted.
The three states of the Lower Basin — California, Arizona and Nevada — are at odds with the four Upper Basin states of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico.
In a meeting this week, Arizona officials seemed to be anticipating failure. They pointed out that the amount of water flowing into Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir, could soon fall to a trigger point — a legal “tripwire” that would allow Arizona to demand cuts upriver and sue for a violation of the compact.
The century-old agreement requires the water released from Upper Basin dams for Arizona, Nevada and California to average at least 7.5 million acre-feet over any decade, plus an allotment for Mexico.
The water reaching the Lower Basin will probably fall below that point later this year or next, which has never happened, said Brenda Burman, general manager of the Central Arizona Project. It’s sobering, she said. “Our Upper Basin neighbors have always met that obligation in the past.”
Arizona will not likely drop that issue unless the Upper Basin states take “significant actions” by agreeing to larger water cuts, said Tom Buschatzke, Arizona’s lead negotiator.
If the states don’t reach a deal, federal officials could sharply cut Arizona’s water starting next year, and at that point, a lawsuit is likely, Buschatzke said.
“I can’t tell you when, but that seems to be the path we’re on.”
Representatives of the Lower Basin states have offered to accept substantial cuts: 27% for Arizona, 17% for Nevada and 10% for California.
“We’re willing to do more if our partners in the Upper Basin states come to the table with reductions of their own,” Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs said during the meeting on Monday.
Hobbs was one of six governors who met last week in Washington with Burgum.
California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot, who attended in place of Gov. Gavin Newsom, said the negotiators are “narrowing down the issues of difference among the two basins, and that gives me optimism.”
They have been talking for more than two years, trying to agree on new rules that will take effect in 2027. At first, negotiators spoke of a 20-year deal. Now, they’ve lowered their sights to five years max.
The Trump administration has hinted at what could come next without a deal. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation outlined several options that would cut water for Arizona between 33% and 69%, and Nevada between 24% and 67%. Under some options, California could see reductions of between 29% and 33%.
Cities including Phoenix, Las Vegas and Los Angeles would be forced to turn to other water sources, and some areas could face shortages and stepped-up restrictions on outdoor watering. Some tribes could get less water. And farming operations, which consume about three-quarters of the water, could be forced to scale back and leave some fields dry.
At the same time, Buschatzke said, the federal proposals actually would allow Upper Basin states to increase their water use.
“As they continue to grow, we’ll have to cut even more,” he said.
Negotiators for Arizona, California and Nevada say they are pushing for Upper Basin leaders to commit to cutting water use to help boost low reservoir levels, and those states’ resistance to firm commitments is a sticking point.
Polis said, however, that demands for mandatory cuts are a “nonstarter” for Colorado.
“The Upper Basin states cannot legally commit to mandatory cutbacks,” Polis said, because they have landowners with senior water rights, and if the states were to take away those rights, they “would be liable for hundreds of millions or billions of dollars.”
“That being said, we absolutely want to do our part on conservation,” Polis said. “We are willing to put specific conservation goals on the table.”
He said he hopes federal funds will be available to support water-saving efforts.
That has happened before. Under a temporary deal reached in 2023, for example, farmers in California’s Imperial Valley and other areas have been paid to leave hay fields dry part of the year.
Polis said the cuts offered by the Lower Basin would be enough in years of average snow in the Rockies, but the plan should also include larger cutbacks for dry years.
The states also disagree on how much water should be released from dams in the upper watershed to prevent the river’s two largest reservoirs, Lake Powell and Lake Mead, from falling to perilously low levels.
Lake Mead is now just 34% full, and Lake Powell 26%.
This winter’s warm and dry conditions aren’t helping. The Rocky Mountain snowpack is at just 57% of average, one of the smallest in decades.
One of the goals of the negotiations is to prevent “dead pool” levels in the reservoirs, where water would lap against the concrete at the very bottoms of the dams, unable to pass downriver — a scenario that would mean a catastrophic water shutoff for California, Arizona and Mexico.
A group of experts last year called for both regions to accept “shared pain” through enforceable water cuts. Without an agreement on that, “it’s hard for me to be optimistic,” said Anne Castle, a senior fellow at the University of Colorado Getches-Wilkinson Center. “The only way around it is for the states to agree how to divvy up the river in an equitable way.”
As the Trump administration’s Feb. 14 deadline approaches, Buschatzke said, federal officials are “pushing us hard to try to come to at least a consensus in concept,” though they have not said what they will do if the states miss the deadline.
The prospects of reaching an agreement “seem pretty dim at this point,” said Stephen Roe Lewis, governor of the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona.
“I know that we are all preparing for the possibility of failure,” he told state officials.
Buschatzke said he is focused on protecting Arizona. The state relies on the Colorado River for more than a third of its water.
“I won’t see that as failure if we can’t come to a collaborative outcome,” he said.
“The only real failure for me, when I look in that mirror, is if I give away the state of Arizona’s water supply for the next several generations,” he said. “And that ain’t going to happen.”
