(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Glen Canyon Dam and high-voltage transmission towers in Page, Ariz. on Tuesday, May 20, 2025.
Dismal runoff led to a precipitous drop in water levels at Lake Powell this summer, forcing the National Park Service to close boat ramps and move docks into deeper waters.
If this coming winter's snowpack proves as poor as the last, Lake Powell and the entire Colorado River system that 40 million people rely upon could reach a dangerous low point, according to a recent paper analyzing the river system's storage and overall use.
"The system is going to get highly constrained in the future," said Jack Schmidt, director of the Center for Colorado River Studies at Utah State University and co-author of the paper.
In the paper, Schmidt and other experts at universities across the Southwest called for immediate action to reduce consumption of water across the Colorado River Basin. They found that if the coming water year is as dire as this year, the amount of water used along the river will exceed its natural flow by 3.6 million acre-feet. For comparison, California, which has rights to the largest share of water from the river, consumed 3.9 million acre-feet in 2024.
That would lead to a drawdown of the "realistically accessible storage" in Lake Powell and Lake Mead, the largest reservoirs on the river, the report said.
That "realistically accessible storage" in Powell is the water above 3,500 feet of elevation, Schmidt said. Below that point, air can get into the turbines on Glen Canyon Dam and damage the power plant that generates enough electricity to power roughly 350,000 homes.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Power lines near Lake Powell and Glen Canyon Dam in Page, Ariz., on Monday, May 19, 2025.
The Colorado River Basin includes seven U.S. states, 30 tribes and parts of northern Mexico. But the region's precious water has been dwindling as the climate warms.
Dire drought conditions have put pressure on the Colorado River Basin's seven states -- Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming -- as they negotiate how to share the water before current operating guidelines expire at the end of 2026.
The Upper Colorado River Commission, which consists of representatives from Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming, met on Wednesday to share updates on their conservation efforts and the post-2026 negotiations.
"Part of the challenge we face, as we continue to go through our new negotiations, is we could be at a very dire situation as we begin the new guideline period," Gene Shawcroft, Utah's Colorado River commissioner, said during the meeting.
The Bureau of Reclamation's latest minimum probable forecast shows Powell dropping below 3,500 feet by the end of August next year. Because Reclamation's models have skewed more towards patterns of the past rather than the changing climate of the future, the minimum probable scenario has been more reliable, said Schmidt and his co-authors in an August analysis.
"If a scenario like the one we've examined comes to fruition, then the management options in a post-'26 world become much more tightly constrained ... because they begin in a serious crisis," said Schmidt.
The crisis right now
Before new guidelines would even go into effect in 2027, the seven states will have to confront the river's current low levels.
"We're so focused on the post-'26 negotiations ... we actually have taken our eye off the ball that we have a crisis right now," Schmidt said. "And to deal with that crisis right now, it's going to take actions right now."
The basin's 2019 drought contingency plan, which also expires at the end of 2026, allows for the drawdown of Flaming Gorge and other reservoirs upstream of Powell. "The problem with that is it's one time water, and if there's no mechanism to replace it, then you just continue to drain Flaming Gorge," Shawcroft said.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) The view of Flaming Gorge from the Sheep Creek overlook on Tuesday, June 20, 2023.
Reclamation released water from Flaming Gorge to prop up Powell in 2021 and 2022. A heavy snowfall that winter helped refill what was released. That's not guaranteed in the future, though.
The natural flow of the Colorado River has been 13 or 14% less over the past two and a half decades than the average flow from 1930 to 2000, according to Schmidt. As the climate warms, soils dry and less snowpack -- the greatest source of water for the region -- reaches the Colorado River.
"It's all about climate change. ... And there's no serious water manager anywhere in the basin who doesn't recognize that," Schmidt said.
Currently, Flaming Gorge only holds 3 million acre-feet -- less than next year's projected shortage -- and only a portion of that is likely to be released, according to the paper Schmidt co-authored.
"Unless overall system water use is brought down to a sustainable level, using Flaming Gorge Reservoir releases simply exacerbates future shortages," the report said.
Rather than waiting until the river potentially reaches a dangerous level next year, Schmidt and his colleagues believe Reclamation should start implementing more gradual cuts now.
How negotiations are going
Since April, the commissioners from the seven basin states and leaders at Reclamation have been negotiating in person twice a month, Shawcroft told The Tribune. The latest basin-wide meeting was on Sept. 15 in Las Vegas.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Colorado River Commissioner of Utah Gene Shawcroft spoke at a water town hall in St. George after meeting with other basin states in Las Vegas on Monday, September 15, 2025.
The Upper Basin negotiators had strong words for their counterparts in the Lower Basin.
"They're asking me to give up the future we were promised," Wyoming's Colorado River Commissioner Brandon Gebhart said during the Upper Basin meeting Wednesday.
The feds told the seven basin states they must decide on post-2026 plans by Nov. 11. From there, they'll have three months to flesh out details and hand over a more developed plan in February.
If they fail, Reclamation will step in and create a plan for them -- a possibility the basin states would like to avoid.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Senate has still not confirmed a new leader for Reclamation since President Donald Trump was elected. The White House had nominated Ted Cooke, former general manager of the Central Arizona Project, for the role earlier this year. But the White House asked him to step back, according to reporting from KUNC.
Despite the challenges ahead, Shawcroft told The Tribune he believes the basin states will reach an agreement. "The seven states recognize that we're better off if we are architects of a solution, rather than have something imposed," he said. "And it may not be as robust as we would like it to be, or people expect it to be, but what we're trying to do is figure out any potential low hanging fruit."
The basin states are hoping to reach another 20-year deal, like they did in 2007, with a check-in at 10 years, Shawcroft told The Tribune. But because of the tenuous condition of the river, they'll likely continue negotiating near-term solutions for the next couple of years.
"I think we're going to be at the table for the next year or two, regardless of whatever kind of a deal we come up with, simply because of the critical nature of the water supply," Shawcroft said.