Under the rusty cliffs of Marble Canyon, the start of the Grand Canyon in Arizona, a nondescript river measurement gauge has been tracking the flow of the Colorado River for decades. It’s a picturesque place, often filled with rafters and swimmers, about 15 river miles downstream from one of the nation’s largest reservoirs, Lake Powell.
It’s also central to looming legal battles over the river’s future — and the potential of forced water cuts in Colorado.
The Colorado River’s flows at the gauge, called Lees Ferry, are fundamental to water sharing agreements among upstream states, like Colorado, and downstream states including Arizona, California and Nevada. If the river’s flow falls too low, the three downstream states can raise a ruckus, arguing the upstream states are breaking century-old agreements and forcing the basin into a legal mire that might only be decided in the U.S. Supreme Court.
For Colorado communities, the prospect of forced cuts, and legal battles to stop them, would ramp up competition over water within the state. Cuts would compel state officials to choose which businesses to support and play havoc with the water supplies for some Front Range communities, according to Colorado water managers.
Coloradans should be concerned, said Steve Pope, manager of the Uncompahgre Valley Water Users Association, which provides irrigation water to farmers and ranchers in Montrose and Delta counties.
“We need to be prepared for the inevitable,” he said, especially if the states can’t agree on how to manage the Colorado River going forward.
Upper Basin states have been calling on the downstream officials to agree not to go to court as part of ongoing negotiations over how to manage the river’s key reservoirs after Oct. 1. Those talks are on the brink of failure, primed to leave the decision up to the federal government.
The river’s flows at Lees Ferry are on a razor thin margin and could be low enough this year to trigger calls for forced cuts — or lawsuits to prevent them — depending, in part, on river management decisions being made over the next month.
Some Lower Basin states seem primed to go to court. Arizona officials confirmed this week that the state hired a top-tier law firm to help with Colorado River litigation.
“I believe that Arizona and California have threatened to file an action in the Supreme Court. I have no reason to believe they won’t follow through with that threat,” said Andy Mueller, general manager of the Colorado River Water Conservation District, which was formed by the state to protect Western Slope water.
“I think that we will be in litigation in the Supreme Court within the next 12 months,” he said.
(Some speculate lawsuits could start flying as soon as this summer, according to news reports. Whether the issue will center on the river’s flows or other legal issues remains to be determined.)
In Colorado, water managers from Windsor to Aurora to Glenwood Springs are watching closely.
“Our cities, our hospitals, our fire hydrants: They’re going to have water. There’s no question about it,” Mueller said.
But he and other water managers are concerned about long-term water certainty for new housing developments, small farms and ranches, outdoor lawn watering and urban landscapes.
“It’s … things that matter to our quality of life that are at risk here,” Mueller said. “That’s from our food supply to our urban canopy — all of which, frankly, are really important to all of our communities within our state.”
A legal battle brewing
Over 100 years ago, river officials struck an agreement, called the 1922 Colorado River Compact, to split the Colorado River’s flow roughly in half: Four states in the Upper Basin would be able to use up to 7.5 million acre-feet per year. The three states in the Lower Basin could use 7.5 million acre-feet with an option for 8.5 million acre-feet.
The upstream states agreed at the time not to cause the flow of the river to go below a total of 75 million acre-feet over 10 years, measured at Lees Ferry.
The Upper Basin states say that amount is the extent of their interstate water sharing obligation right now. The Lower Basin states say it’s actually 82.5 million acre-feet over 10 years to include half of the United States’ delivery obligation to Mexico.
(And here come the lawyers. Each state has its own legal arguments in favor of its position on the obligation amount, what violating that obligation looks like and how it plans to defend its water supplies.)
About 84.38 million acre-feet of water flowed past the boat ramps and river gauge at Lees Ferry between 2016 and 2025.
This year, the total flow between 2017 and 2026 is expected to be about 82.74 million acre-feet.
The Bureau of Reclamation and upstream states are set to make decisions about how much water to release from Lake Powell by late April that could drop that projected 10-year flow even lower.
“Nothing’s going to happen this year in terms of curtailment or a call, but Arizona is going to sue this year,” Alex Davis of Aurora Water said. “What exactly they sue on and who they sue will be really interesting to see.”
Key decisions at Lake Powell
The Colorado River, which begins in western Colorado, is caught in Lake Powell on the Utah-Arizona border before Glen Canyon Dam releases water to supply millions of people in Lower Basin communities.
The Bureau of Reclamation wants to keep enough water in Lake Powell to continue generating electricity for Western communities and to avoid risking damage to the dam’s outlets.
Generally, that means keeping the reservoir at or above 3,500 feet in elevation. This year, after a historically hot and dry winter, the water level is projected to decline to 3,476 feet — unless water managers make some changes.
Reclamation is already holding back water that would have otherwise gone downstream. The federal bureau and state officials can also decide to call on upstream reservoirs, like Flaming Gorge on the Utah-Wyoming border and Blue Mesa, the largest reservoir in Colorado, to release extra water.
There’s another tool: Reclamation can simply release less water overall this year. The dam’s releases are regulated by interstate agreements, and the current plan is to release 7.48 million acre-feet from Glen Canyon Dam. (One acre-foot roughly equals the water use of two to four households in a year.)
But the feds can legally release as little as 6 million acre-feet.
The Glen Canyon Dam at Lake Powell in Page, Arizona. (Jesse Paul, The Colorado Sun)That record-low release would drive down the Colorado River’s total flows at Lees Ferry, making the 10-year total closer to 81.24 million acre-feet for 2017 through 2026 — and bringing the specter of water sharing violations, plus the forced cuts and economic uncertainty, closer to reality than ever before.
Reclamation and the Upper Colorado River Commission, which includes representatives from states like Colorado, are planning to make key decisions about the dam’s operations this year by late April, said Chuck Cullom, UCRC executive director.
But it’s a high-stakes decision: The lower the release, the higher the risk that someone will sue — and water court cases can take decades, said Eric Kuhn, a long-time Colorado River expert and former general manager of the Colorado River District.
“To the person living on the Front Range, it doesn’t matter this year,” he said. “It could matter in five years if we have litigation and the Upper Basin loses, and Denver has to curtail how much water it takes from Dillon Reservoir, then Denver might have to impose some pretty serious restrictions.”
How would Colorado cut its use?
If the Lower Basin states argue they are entitled to more water, it could result in forced water cuts in Colorado but only if upstream officials on the UCRC agree — or if the Supreme Court orders cuts.
Colorado, however, does not have a statewide plan for who would have to cut back or how it would track the water to ensure it reaches state lines.
Among those at risk: Any water user in Colorado with Colorado River water rights that were established after 1924, including big water providers like Denver Water, which supplies 1.5 million people in the Denver area, and Northern Water, which serves more than 1.1 million people and 615,000 acres of farmland.
“It is hard for us to speculate on the possibility of a compact call and its possible effects, as so much remains unknown at this time as to how that might play out, legally, politically, and hydrologically,” Denver Water said in an email to The Colorado Sun.
Denver Water and other utilities, including Aurora Water, already have tools to conserve and manage their supply with many different risks in mind, officials said.
But both lawsuits over forced cuts, and the cuts themselves, would cast a cloud of uncertainty over Colorado communities, the Colorado River Water Conservation District’s Mueller said.
Water managers plan 50 to 100 years into the future, and often require decades of water certainty when developers propose new housing and commercial projects.
“If you’re running a city, whether it’s on the Western Slope or the Eastern Slope, and your portfolio is largely junior to the (1922) compact, I would think that we would see those water managers and their entities trying to get pre-Compact water,” he said. “Much of which sits in Western Slope agriculture.”
Cities like Windsor, in northern Colorado, could be impacted by forced water cuts or the uncertainty that comes with litigation. Windsor gets about 87% of its water supply from the Colorado-Big Thompson Project, which is managed by Northern Water and brings Colorado River water from the Western Slope to northeastern Colorado communities.
Even one of the oldest federal projects in Colorado, the Uncompahgre Project, could be affected — as would the farmers in the Gunnison River Basin that depend on its irrigation ditches, canals and drains, said Pope of the Uncompahgre Valley Water Users Association.
Colorado’s Constitution prioritizes domestic water, then agricultural water, then water for industrial use. (Its definition of what is included in domestic water has never been fully decided in court, Mueller said.)
As water providers with more recent water rights search for ways to secure backup supplies, will they come looking to agricultural water? That’s already happening, but the economic pain that comes with water cuts can’t just hit one industry. It needs to spread across the state somehow, Pope said.
The million-dollar question is how that gets done, he added.
The state could use its authority to call on agricultural water users to send water supplies to populous areas for health and human safety — homes, schools, hospitals, doctor’s offices, fire stations, etc.
Can western Colorado irrigation districts refuse? Pope doesn’t know.
But Western Slope water users want assurances that, if they supply that water, it would strictly be used for health and human safety, he said.
Not to water someone’s lawn.
Not for car washes or coffee shop faucets.
“I’d hate to see them come to us and dry up one of our family farms for that coffee shop to run or somebody else’s small business,” Pope said. “Or for them to even water the lawn outside of that house. It should be used for indoor purposes and residences, schools and hospitals.”
Hence then, the article about the colorado river is on the brink of possible forced water cuts one thing is certain there will be lawyers was published today ( ) and is available on Colorado Sun ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( The Colorado River is on the brink of possible forced water cuts. One thing is certain: There will be lawyers. )
Also on site :
- Skip Ballet Flats, Jane Fonda Proved This Elevated Shoe Will Take Over Spring 2026
- Montana Senate candidate says he will introduce bill to draft Graham if elected
- Exclusive: Anthropic acknowledges testing new AI model representing ‘step change’ in capabilities, after accidental data leak reveals its existence