Dwindling water supply, legal questions push Colorado River into ‘wildly uncharted territory’

Dwindling water supply, legal questions push Colorado River into ‘wildly uncharted territory’

Time is ticking for states that share the shrinking Colorado River to negotiate a new set of governing rules. One major sticking point, which has the potential to thrust the parties into a protracted legal battle, hinges on differing interpretations of a few sentences in a century-old agreement.  In a recent letter, the river’s Lower Basin states — California, Nevada and Arizona — asked federal officials to analyze the effects of a hypothetical …

Enduring Solutions on the #ColoradoRiver Part II: Floating Pools and GrandBargains — Kathryn Sorensen, Sarah Porter, Eric Kuhn, and Cynthia Campbell (Kyl Center for Water Policy) #COriver #aridification

Click the link to read the paper on the InkStain.net website (Kathryn Sorensen, Sarah Porter, Eric Kuhn, and Cynthia Campbell). Here’s an excerpt: April 18, 2025 Conserving water now in reservoir savings banks, as a hedge against future risks associated with drought and declining flows, has emerged as one of the central tools for managing the Colorado River. The Lower Basin “Intentionally Created Surplus” program, created in the 2007 Interim Gu…