Lacking agreement from the seven Colorado River states, federal managers of the critical waterway are planning to implement a framework for its future that will require a renegotiation every two years as the basin faces unprecedented water supply uncertainty.
Scott Cameron, the acting commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, outlined the concept Thursday afternoon at an annual conference for Colorado River professionals hosted by the University of Colorado Boulder. It was the first time federal leaders had publicly discussed their final management scheme for the river.
The plan to renegotiate every two years will give the river’s leaders flexibility to adapt to shifting water supplies, he said.
For more than two years, negotiators for the seven basin states have failed to agree on how the river should be managed and shared for the coming decades, as drought and overuse shrink water supplies. Without a state consensus, Reclamation officials will implement their own plan — though all parties agree that a seven-state plan is the ideal outcome for the basin.
“I wish I could tell you that we have a solution,” Cameron told the crowd in Boulder, which included several of the state negotiators. “As you are very painfully aware, we do not have a solution, at least at this point.”
Read the full story from our media partners at the Denver Post.
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