Colorado River states bluster and bicker ahead of an uncertain future for the water supply

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States that use the Colorado River have spent the better part of 2024 deadlocked about how to share its shrinking water supplies, and annual water meetings in Las Vegas laid bare how far those states are from an agreement.

The seven states can’t agree on who should feel the pain of water cutbacks during dry times. The river is getting smaller due to climate change, and states need to come up with new rules to share its water.

Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico make up the Upper Basin. California, Arizona and Nevada represent the Lower Basin. The current rules for sharing water expire in 2026, and each group has submitted a separate proposal for new guidelines after that point.

In Las Vegas, the Colorado River Water Users Association annual conference provided a rare peek behind the curtain of talks between those states. Surrounded by the golden wallpaper and shimmering chandeliers of the Paris Hotel, policymakers showed little progress towards an agreement but brought plenty of bluster.

In recent years, negotiators from all seven states have appeared on one panel together. This year, amid their public disagreement , they appeared on stage at separate times.

State leaders made subtle and not-so-subtle jabs at their counterparts, alleging an unwillingness to use less water. Between those jabs, though, they preached the value of collaboration.

“We have this conference so that we can try to pull together, not pull apart,” said Gene Shawcroft, Utah’s top Colorado River official.

Some of Shawcroft’s downstream neighbors also urged togetherness.

“I'm not looking for a fight,” said John Entsminger, Nevada’s delegate. “We need a dance partner, so let's get back to the table and make this happen.”

Others were less gentle with their choice of words.

“All of the rhetoric, the saber - rattling and other distractions going on right now are bull****,” said Brandon Gebhardt, Wyoming’s top water negotiator. “It needs to stop.”

Despite all the calls for collaboration, state leaders didn’t use the Las Vegas conference to hold closed-door policy talks like they have in past years. Tom Buschatzke, Arizona’s water director, said the states don’t even have another meeting on the books.

“We are willing to meet with them,” he said. “We want that meeting to be something of substance.”

People mingle in the hallway of the Colorado River Water Users Association conference at the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas on December 5, 2024. The event brought together more than 1,500 water experts from across the Southwest.

Looming large in the background of this week’s water talks is the unpredictability of the next presidential administration. Those water leaders said they do not expect Donald Trump’s return to the White House will shake up the Colorado River negotiation process, but some water users and onlookers say the next administration could impact the future of the river in other ways.

The past few years have seen an influx of federal spending that Nevada’s Entsminger called a “once-in-a-generation windfall.”

The Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction A ct set aside $4 billion for Colorado River work .

Some presentations at the conference felt like a bittersweet sendoff for the administration and its willingness to spend. Water leaders from around the West eulogized the work of Camille Calimlim Touton, the outgoing head of the Bureau of Reclamation, the federal agency that operates Western reservoirs.

Money from the Inflation Reduction Act has been spread far and wide across the cities, farms and native tribes that use the river’s water. While some of it has been spent on physical infrastructure, like fixing old pipes and upgrading water treatment facilities, large portions of funding have been used to conserve water, particularly in the river’s Lower Basin.

Farm districts , tribes and cities have taken federal cash in exchange for using less water and leaving it in Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir.

“All these programs cost money, all this investment, all this infrastructure, costs money,” said Gina Dockstader, who sits on the board of directors for the Imperial Irrigation District in California. “Without these additional funds, these farmers can't afford to put it in by themselves.”

While the exact details of P resident-elect Trump’s plans for federal spending are still coming together, he’s provided some indications that they will look different from the Biden administration’s.

Climate scientists are projecting a drier future for the Colorado River. Hannah Holm, a policy expert with the conservation group American Rivers, said the kind of water conservation programs that have been made possible by federal funding will only get more important.

“If that funding doesn't materialize,” she said. “We just won't be able to adapt as well to the conditions we already have, let alone the conditions that are coming our way.”

American Rivers receives funding from the Walton Family Foundation, which also supports KUNC's Colorado River coverage.

The clock will keep ticking for states to find some common ground on the next set of rules. A snowy winter could help buy them a little bit more time and space for negotiations by raising reservoir levels with runoff in the spring , but even record-breaking snow totals would make a relatively small dent in the long-term supply-demand imbalance along the Colorado River.

This story is part of ongoing coverage of the Colorado River, produced by KUNC in Colorado and supported by the Walton Family Foundation. KUNC is solely responsible for its editorial coverage.

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Colorado River states bluster and bicker ahead of an uncertain future for the water supply

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