Those states are now back at the negotiating table to hammer out new deals to avoid a slow-moving crisis on the river system that supports 40 million people in seven Western states.
For the past 20 years, Pitt says, demands for water have outstripped the supply, meaning Lake Powell and its sister reservoir, Lake Mead further downstream, continue to drop.
Drought contingency planning That dystopian future of shuttered farms, dried up streams and water-stressed cities is one water managers, like the Upper Colorado River Commission’s James Eklund, are attempting to avoid.
Water officials in Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming are working on a plan that covers the river’s Upper Basin and focuses on boosting snowpack with weather modification, better managing existing reservoirs and creating a water bank in Lake Powell.
The Lower Basin plan, being worked on by officials in Arizona, California and Nevada, is meant to create new incentives for water users like farmers and cities to conserve water in Lake Mead and to agree to earlier, deeper cuts to water use so the reservoir can avoid dropping to dead pool levels.
"Historically we’ve always said, ‘Well, next year will be better,’" Kuhn says.
But states in the river’s Upper Basin have had issues, too, especially with the concept of ‘demand management.’
Fear of federal intervention Climate change is just one factor to get these deals done quickly.
"That’s, I think, a fear of everybody on the river especially in the Upper Basin," says Jennifer Gimbel, a former Interior undersecretary, now with Colorado State University.
Back at Glen Canyon Dam, the National Audubon Society’s Jennifer Pitt says it’s more than just the fates of people and economies tied up in river politics: an entire ecosystem is at stake.