title: "3 downstream Colorado River states will bear the brunt of water cuts under new 2-year plan" url: "https://coloradosun.com/2026/08/21/colorado-river-water-restrictions-cuts-federal-management-plan/" author: "Shannon Mullane"

GRAND LAKE — The future of the Colorado River, which provides water to communities across Colorado, is more clear — at least for the next two years.

The federal government released Friday its near-term management plan for the river system, which provides vital water supplies to nearly 40 million people. The river, which begins in the hills above Grand Lake in western Colorado, is the workhorse of the West and the reason communities and economies have been able to grow to what they are today. But it has also been overstressed by rising temperatures, ongoing drought and persistent demands while water regulations have been slow to address the looming need for water restrictions.

Now, downstream states will bear the brunt of those mandatory water cuts, totaling 1.25 million acre-feet, under the new river plan for 2027 and 2028. Upstream states, like Colorado, are being called on to conserve water and help avoid crisis lows at the river basin’s key reservoirs, but do not have to cut their water use.

“These decisions provide a water management strategy for Basin stakeholders to respond to the prolonged drought by incorporating flexible tools and voluntary actions while leaving room for consensus agreements,” Andrea Travnicek, the Bureau of Reclamation’s assistant secretary of water and science, said in a statement Friday.

The basin’s communities have endured three years of heated debates over how to manage the river’s key reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, after 2026, when the current rules expire.

In the past, the river’s management has frequently been determined by agreements between the basin states. But the states failed to reach an agreement during tense negotiations over everything from the level of mandatory cuts to the time period for the next set of rules. Those negotiations are not over: The federal government has said it will incorporate a seven-state agreement into its management plan as soon as the states can reach a consensus.

Washington officials moved on with the federal planning process when states missed several deadlines to contribute a united proposal. It announced this summer that the next set of rules will last for 10 years, and states and tribes will weigh in on reservoir management with new operational plans every two years.

The Department of the Interior and its subagency, the Bureau of Reclamation, said the 2027-2028 plan is based on feedback from the states and tribal nations in the basin.

The Secretary of the Interior, who has the authority to decide shortages for the downstream states, plans to cut releases from Hoover Dam by 1.25 million acre-feet each year for the next two years.

If the Lower Basin states stick to their proposed plan for distributing the cuts, Arizona would reduce its water use by 760,000 acre-feet, California would cut its use by 440,000 acre-feet and Nevada would have to cut its use by 50,000 acre-feet.

California applauded Lower Basin states for stepping up in a statement Friday.

“California, Arizona, and Nevada have shown that states can compromise, make difficult decisions, and reduce water use when the river demands it,” JB Hamby, Colorado River negotiator for California, wrote. “But three states cannot carry the responsibility of all seven.”

Colorado’s negotiating team did not respond to requests for comment Friday morning.

(Who takes cuts has been a tension point in negotiations. While Lower Basin states have argued everyone needs to share water cuts, Upper Basin officials say they already have water cuts imposed by nature and do not use their full share of Colorado River water. Upstream states also allege that their downstream counterparts have repeatedly gone over their legal water allowances.)

“We remain committed to developing a solution that works for all the Colorado River states, tribes, and interests,” wrote Becky Mitchell, Colorado’s top negotiator and Commissioner to the Upper Colorado River Commission in a prepared statement Friday. “We also acknowledge that the Upper Division States face mandatory cuts already, including water rights that predate the 1922 Colorado River Compact by decades.”

The plan for the next two years also includes voluntary conservation targets for the downstream states totaling 700,000 acre-feet of water savings over the two-year period. That’s in addition to the required cuts.

One acre-foot roughly equals the annual water use of two to four households. Colorado uses about 5.3 million acre-feet of water each year from multiple major river systems. It used less than 2 million acre-feet of Colorado River water on average between 2021 and 2025, according to federal records.

While the Interior Department can decide shortages for the downstream states, it does not have the same authority in the four upstream states, including Colorado. Its authority mostly involves managing federal water projects, like Blue Mesa Dam and its sister dams, Morrow Point and Crystal, in western Colorado.

Colorado and the other upstream states, New Mexico, Wyoming and Utah, will likely enter into an agreement to use those federal dams, including Blue Mesa, to help avoid critically low water levels at Lake Powell, on the Utah-Arizona border.

At Lake Powell, the federal government’s main goal is to manage the immense reservoir and Glen Canyon Dam in a way that protects the dam’s hydropower facility, water intakes and other infrastructure while balancing its water release obligations.

The bureau is aiming to keep the reservoir’s water elevation above critical levels over the next two years. By setting the minimum elevation at 3,510 feet above sea level, officials said they will have a buffer before the water drops to more problematic lows.

“That will give us a little bit more time on decision making if we need to make some changes somewhere else with the system,” Travnicek said in a press conference Friday.

If the water level falls below 3,490 feet, Glen Canyon Dam can no longer generate hydropower, cutting a source of renewable, cheap and reliable energy for communities across the West.

Powell’s elevation was 3,519 feet above sea level Thursday. In the worst case scenario, it’ll fall below 3,510 feet by December, but the bureau anticipates it can keep the water level above the target elevation, according to federal projections.

The combined contents of Lake Powell and Lake Mead have not been this low since before Lake Powell began filing. Both Lake Powell and Lake Mead have hit record lows the last few weeks.

The new management plan alone cannot reduce the risk to the entire Colorado River Basin, said Jennifer Pitt, Colorado River program director for The Audubon Society. She’s pushing for substantial investment in conserving water and improving the watersheds that feed the river system.

“What’s clear after seeing the projections for reservoir elevations over the next couple of years is that the buffer the Colorado River reservoirs provided over the last many decades is gone,” Pitt wrote in an email to The Colorado Sun. “There is real risk for the cities, farmers and ranchers, Tribes, and the entire natural world that depends on the Colorado River.”