You don't have to be a rocket scientist (or a hydrologist, for that matter) to recognize that water is going to be in short supply throughout the Colorado River Basin this year.
In southwest Colorado, the San Juan Mountains are already dry and unusually brown for this time of year. The rivers are swelling with melted snow more than a month earlier than usual, due to unseasonably high temperatures.
Against this backdrop, the Southwestern Water Conservation District hosted its annual seminar at Ignacio, Colorado's Sky Ute Casino, on March 27, 2026. The event brings together irrigators, water managers, scientists, public officials, and business owners.
For this year’s keynote, Becky Mitchell updated attendees on how the current negotiations have been going. As Colorado's commissioner to the Upper Colorado River Commission, Mitchell has been taking the lead in the ongoing negotiations with the 6 other states that use the river.
For the past 2 years, Mitchell and her counterparts have been deadlocked over how to cut their collective river water use by about 20%.
Last Friday, with no news of a breakthrough to share, Mitchell recapped history and summarized the state’s position. At times, her remarks felt a bit like a general 'returning from the front' to remind citizens what and who she's fighting for.
Colorado contends that the lower basin states–California, Arizona, and Nevada–have overdrawn Lake Powell, the massive federal reservoir just upstream from the Grand Canyon. It's time, she told seminar attendees, for those downstream states to make significant cuts in their water use.
"Consistently, what is occurring is about 80% of the time, more is going out than is going in,” Mitchell said. “It is simply a math problem. Taking more than goes into the system. On a regular basis, it will surely sink the system.”
In the year 2000, Lake Powell was 86% full. Last year it was at 28%. Mitchell said 20 years ago, with more water reserves, states signed off on guidelines that enabled Lower Basin States to overuse the river.
“There was a lot of room to be flexible," Mitchell said. "There was a lot of room to be creative. There was a lot of room for sharing, although I feel that sharing went just one way. But there was a lot of space. And not enough triggers of when to get off the train that was crashing.”
Now, in 2026, the system is crashing. In the headwater states, winter snowpack contains less water than it has in decades. Meanwhile, Lake Powell and Lake Mead are at historically low levels.
Meanwhile, the previous guidelines will formally expire at the end of the year.
“We understand our downstream neighbors want certainty," Mitchell said. "Due to the decades of high and unsustainable releases that weren’t aligned with hydrologic realities, the reservoirs are too low now to provide the certainty that the lower basin wants.”
Colorado’s position rests on its interpretation of the Colorado River Compact. That’s the 1922 federal law and legal framework for sharing the river among the 7 states.
"The Compact puts the upper and lower basins on equal footing forever," Mitchell said. "We didn’t agree that one side's economies were more important than the other’s. We didn’t agree that this was based on population. We didn’t agree to manufacture water that isn’t there."
In February, the 7 states missed a second federal deadline to sign off on new guidelines. In an interview following her speech, Mitchell said that the window is closing on a negotiated settlement.
"Once we give up the state’s roles in this, it’s going to be hard, if not impossible, to ever have a major state role the way that we do now," Mitchell said, adding that any of the 7 states could pull out of negotiations and decide to go to court instead.
"If one party makes that decision, they’re making that decision for almost all of us. They’re putting it in someone else’s hands," she said. "I believe that for as long as we can, we need to keep it in our hands. I think there’s a way to do it, but we have to work together."
