Their efforts having failed, Washington, unelected judges, or both, stand to write the rules for them. In either scenario, the West loses control of its own destiny. That\u2019s not leadership; that\u2019s abdication.<\/p>\n
The Lower Basin is braced for federal action. The Upper Basin is bracing for blame. Both are right to be worried \u2013 and both are missing the point. The river doesn\u2019t care about politics or priority dates. It only responds to snow, sun, and science.<\/p>\n
Hydrology has changed; leadership hasn\u2019t<\/strong><\/p>\n We built the Colorado River system for a climate that no longer exists. Reservoirs that once promised endless growth now sit half-empty \u2013 Lake Powell at roughly 29%, Lake Mead near 31%. The math is unforgiving: less water is coming in than going out. Yet our governance still pretends otherwise. The Law of the River \u2013 that tangled mix of compacts, decrees, and deals \u2013 assumes a river of at least 16.5 million acre-feet. Nature is now giving us perhaps 12, maybe less. We\u2019re overdrawn every year, and the overdraft is accelerating.<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t a failure of hydrology; it\u2019s a failure of adaptation. The West has always been proud of its self-reliance, but we\u2019re behaving like a bureaucracy waiting for someone else to make the hard call. We need leaders, not hall monitors.<\/p>\n And if you want to know what failure of adaptation looks like, glance halfway around the world. Tehran, Iran, a city of more than eight million, is on the brink of evacuation. Its reservoirs are nearly dry, some below 10% capacity. Rainfall has fallen 40% below average. Iran\u2019s president recently warned that if the skies don\u2019t open, the capital may have to be moved. Moved. Imagine Washington, D.C., abandoned because the Potomac went dry. That\u2019s not science fiction \u2013 that\u2019s what happens when water governance waits too long to face reality. The Colorado River isn\u2019t there yet, but the trajectory rhymes. Tehran is a mirror we should study before it shows our reflection.<\/p>\n The blame game vs. shared responsibility<\/strong><\/p>\n At Arizona State University\u2019s recent Law of the Colorado River: The View from the Lower Basin conference, one thing was clear: the Lower Basin has its legal arguments loaded and ready. So does the Upper Basin. Both are preparing for a fight neither side can win.<\/p>\n Arizona\u2019s governor calls the Upper Basin\u2019s stance extreme; the Upper Basin counters that it can\u2019t conserve water that isn\u2019t there. California points to its billions in saved water and asks why others won\u2019t match it. Colorado replies that it\u2019s already living within its snowpack. Every argument is technically correct \u2013 and collectively disastrous.<\/p>\n Finger-pointing won\u2019t refill a reservoir. The real crisis isn\u2019t between the basins; it\u2019s between the past and the future. The river is shrinking faster than our imagination.<\/p>\n The case for state-led solutions<\/strong><\/p>\n We know how to do this. We\u2019ve done it before. In 2019, when both Lakes Mead and Powell were circling the drain, the Basin States came together to develop the Drought Contingency Plan. It wasn\u2019t perfect, but it kept the system alive long enough for the recent recovery years to matter. That\u2019s proof we can still ride together when it counts.<\/p>\n Utah and Wyoming are finally taking first steps toward real demand-management programs \u2013 voluntary, compensated conservation that could bank water in Powell. They\u2019re six years too late, but they\u2019re at least facing forward. The Lower Basin, to its credit, has cut deeply \u2013 usage there is down to about 5.9 million acre-feet, the lowest since 1983. The economies of Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles didn\u2019t collapse. They adapted. That\u2019s the model.<\/p>\n A state-led deal is the only way to keep Western hands on the reins. Federal control would be blunt; court control, brutal. Every day we delay, we invite both. The West should never outsource its destiny to Washington or to a judge in black robes who\u2019s never stood in an irrigation ditch with a shovel.<\/p>\n The call of the saddle<\/strong><\/p>\n This river built the modern West. It carved our canyons, powered our farms and ranches, lit our cities, and defined our sense of possibility. But it can\u2019t survive our paralysis.<\/p>\n The next agreement \u2013 whatever we call it \u2013 won\u2019t be about dividing abundance. It will be about managing scarcity with grace and intelligence. That means each state giving up a little sovereignty to save the system that sustains us all. It means governors and commissioners finding the courage to sign something imperfect but real.<\/p>\n Our basin remembers how to ride \u2013 hell, we practically invented it. The horse is saddled. The trail is narrow. And the storm is moving in fast.<\/p>\n Either we climb back on together, or we\u2019ll watch someone else take the reins.<\/p>\n James Eklund is a Colorado water lawyer, rancher, former director of the Colorado Water Conservation Board, and formerly Colorado\u2019s Colorado River principal. He advises public and private clients across the West on water, land, and natural resources issues at Taft\/Sherman & Howard.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Nov. 11, the seven states that share the Colorado River missed a critical deadline. The Department of the Interior asked them to agree on the bones of a post-2026 management plan \u2013 the rules that would decide who gets cut, when, and by how much as the river keeps shrinking. James Eklundcca Their efforts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15677,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[125],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-15676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-newsletter-opinion"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15676"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19783,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15676\/revisions\/19783"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15676"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=15676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}