WA-26-1: Colorado River Interstate Operating Principles

WHEREAS the Colorado River basin has been experiencing a decades-long drought, and

WHEREAS the current operating plan for the Colorado River does not reflect the decreased snowpack and runoff, resulting in less water flowing into the system’s largest reservoirs, and

WHEREAS the current operating plan does not limit releases from the largest reservoirs to the inflow of water into storage, nor does it appropriately account for the evaporative losses attributable to water storage in the lower basin, and

WHEREAS the result of these deficiencies in the current operating plan has been ever-declining storage levels in the system’s largest reservoirs; and

WHEREAS the official operating principles from the past 20 years expire in 2026, and interstate negotiations are underway among the seven US states sharing the river and the US Bureau of Reclamation, and

WHEREAS these negotiations, whether through a seven-state consensus or a Department of the Interior decision, will result in new operating principles, and

WHEREAS these operating principles must reflect the annual hydrology of the River, the severely depleted amount of water in storage, and the inequities in recent operations between the upper and lower basins, and

WHEREAS the new operating principles must also reflect solutions such as storing water in high mountain reservoirs as a conservation measure to decrease the current evaporative losses; and

WHEREAS runoff from watersheds in western Colorado is the source of nearly three-quarters of the total flow into Lake Powell,

NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that Club 20’s objectives for the post-2026 Colorado River Operations are:

• Protect the integrity of the 1922 and 1948 Colorado River compacts and the Law of the River,

• Recognize the dramatic differences between the upper and lower basins’ historical water use, over- and under-use, and operational constraints due to the location of the primary storage reservoirs, Powell and Mead,

• Respect the Congressionally-authorized purposes of Colorado River Storage Projects (e.g., allowing for in-state uses of Blue Mesa Reservoir water),

• Respect individual states’ water law and protect existing water rights,

• Ensure that hydrologic conditions affecting runoff into the River are adequately reflected in determining any releases of water from the primary reservoirs,

• Provide flexibility in management and operations commensurate with the ample history of widely variable (and declining) annual river flows,

• Respect individual states’ rights to develop Colorado basin resources in accordance with the compacts’ allocations and the best available hydrologic data,

• To the extent that it becomes necessary, any mechanism for upper basin water users to forego historical consumptive water use must be voluntary, temporary, and compensated, and must not encourage or require the long-term, permanent reduction of Colorado agriculture. Further:

  • All water “conserved” must be tracked and accounted in accordance with state water law to its place of “conservation” (storage), and where possible timed to protect or provide environmental benefits,

  • Any such savings program must be used under the exclusive direction of the Upper Colorado River Commission for the exclusive benefit of the upper basin states,

  • Any such program must be designed and operated to avoid disproportionate harm to any one region or economic sector, and the program should be designed to mitigate negative impacts to participating communities,

  • Consumptive use savings should come from all regions and water use sectors that consume water from the Colorado River and should be contributed roughly proportionately from those regions and sectors.

• Fully evaluate and mitigate loss of electric power production from affected federal storage facilities,

Adopted 04/17/2026