(2026-03-06) These Four States Are In Denial Over A Looming Water Crisis

These Four States Are in Denial Over a Looming Water Crisis. Not for the first time, the seven Western states that rely on the Colorado River are fighting over how to keep these reservoirs from crashing — an event that could spur water shortages from Denver to Las Vegas to Los Angeles.

The tens of millions of people who rely on the Colorado River have weathered such crises before, even amid a stubborn quarter-century megadrought fueled by climate change

The states have always struck deals to use less water

This time, a deal may not be possible. And it’s clear who’s to blame.

the Upper Basin states of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming have emerged as the main obstacles to a fair deal. They’ve gummed up negotiations by refusing to accept mandatory cuts of any amount — unlike the Lower Basin states, which have spent years slashing water use.

Upper Basin leaders have long harbored ambitions of using more water to fuel economic development, especially in cities (urban development). “There’s this notion of keeping the dream of growth alive,” said John Fleck, a researcher at the University of New Mexico.

Federal officials have set a Feb. 14 deadline for the seven states to reach consensus, although negotiators blew past a November deadline with no consequence. The real cutoff is the end of 2026, when longstanding rules for assigning cuts to avoid shortages will expire.

the conflict is a century in the making.

Since 1922, the states have divvied up water under the Colorado River Compact, which gave 7.5 million acre-feet annually to the Lower Basin and 7.5 million acre-feet to the Upper Basin

But even though the two groups of states agreed to split the water evenly, Los Angeles and Phoenix grew bigger and faster than Denver and Salt Lake City, gobbling up more water.

Lower Basin farmers and ranchers, too, used far more water than their Upper Basin counterparts — especially growers in California’s Imperial Valley, who staked out some of the river’s oldest and thus highest-priority water rights.

There was never as much water in the river as negotiators assumed even back in 1922 — a fact that scientists knew at the time. The states spent decades outrunning that original sin by finding creative ways to conserve water when drought struck. But deal-making was easier when the river averaged, say, 13 million acre-feet. Over the past six years, as the effects of burning fossil fuels have mounted, flows averaged just 10.8 million acre-feet.

Lower Basin officials largely blame Colorado, the de facto leader of the Upper Basin. They say Colorado won’t budge from what they consider the extreme legal position that the Upper Basin bears no responsibility for delivering water downstream

Upper Basin officials tell a different story. They insist that California and Arizona have been overconsuming water — and by their reading of the compact, that means it’s not their job to keep replenishing the Lower Basin’s savings account at Lake Mead.

On the one hand, the numbers don’t lie: The Lower Basin states used nearly 6.1 million acre-feet in 2024, compared with the Upper Basin’s nearly 4.5 million, according to the federal government. The Imperial Irrigation District — which supplies farmers who grow alfalfa, broccoli, onions and other crops — used more water than the entire state of Colorado.

On the other hand, the Lower Basin has done far more to cut back than the Upper Basin. Los Angeles and Las Vegas residents have torn out grass lawns en masse; Vegas has water cops to police excessive water use by sprinkler systems. Farmers in Arizona and California are leaving fields dry, sometimes aided by federal incentive programs. California is investing in expensive wastewater recycling to reduce its dependence on imported water.

Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming do not want to share the pain — at least not through mandatory cuts. They say they already cut back voluntarily during drought years, although independent experts are skeptical.

The Upper Basin can keep insisting that the river’s challenges are largely the Lower Basin’s to solve — most likely forcing Arizona to sue, because the state’s junior water rights could be some of the first to get cut in a shortage. Or maybe federal officials will pre-emptively order every state to cut back and dare the Upper Basin to file a lawsuit.