Utah and the six other Colorado River states reached a tentative agreement to continue working together on a plan to share the river’s water, but failed to secure a consensus plan ahead of an important Tuesday deadline.
Utah, Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Wyoming, all of which rely on the river for water, agreed to continue to meet until they have a “framework solution” by mid-February 2026, said Gene Shawcroft, chairman of the Colorado River Authority of Utah.
“We were able to have enough of a framework put together that the federal government agrees with us that the framework can be continued to be refined in order for us to have a deal by the middle of February,” he told reporters in a negotiations update briefing on Wednesday.
Any future deal figures to play a vital role in Utah’s water future, as it accounts for over a quarter of the state’s water supply. It also directly benefits close to two-thirds of all Utahns.
Should the states fail to reach an agreement as part of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s post-2026 Colorado River plan, the federal government could intervene in how the river’s water is used. However, Utah officials say they’re optimistic they can strike a deal before that happens.
“Our commitment to a state-led path remains,” Utah Gov. Spencer Cox wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. “We will continue to engage with our partners across the basin to develop a framework that protects water users and the system as a whole.”
The basin states have had agreements in place on how Colorado River water has been allocated for over a century, and the post-2026 plan seeks to be the largest operational update since a 2007 plan to address how water is stored and pulled from Lake Powell and Lake Mead, the nation’s two largest reservoirs.
Its users agree that prolonged drought and low reservoir conditions remain persistent challenges facing the river, but there’s still division on how to handle the discrepancy between water needs and what’s available in the system within one of the fastest-growing regions of the country.
Lower Basin states have called for mandatory reductions during dry years. In a public letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum on Tuesday, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs and other Arizona leaders called it “alarming” that Upper Basin states, including Utah, “have repeatedly refused to implement any volume of binding, verifiable water supply reductions.”
Upper Basin states don’t believe those types of cuts are necessary because they use less water than Lower Basin states, largely because of how water rights are allocated, favoring senior rights holders like California, Shawcroft said. These are the types of arguments still holding up a long-term deal.
“The major sticking point is there’s a whole lot less water in the system than we anticipated, or there’s historically been,” he said. “The question is, how do you divide a pie that’s significantly smaller than it has been, when everyone’s used to getting that big piece of the pie?”
The basin states were able to finalize a short-term agreement last year on a plan to reduce consumption by 3 million acre-feet, which offers some hope that a long-term solution can be reached. Several meetings are scheduled over the next few weeks and months, leading up to a goal to reach a deal by February 2026.
The scope and length of a long-term solution to cut back on water are part of the ongoing discussions. Flaming Gorge, Blue Mesa and Navajo reservoirs, all of which are part of the Upper Basin, “will play a role” in the long-term plan, but that role is part of the ongoing negotiations, Shawcroft said.
“Concepts” of natural flow — a measurement of what flows into Lake Powell, as explained by E&E News — could be part of the long-term agreement, as well, he added.
It’s unclear if Utah will have curtailments or reductions in water rights as the final details are hammered out. The state could look at ways to cut back on water should that be the case, but Shawcroft points out that there are already projects that help reduce water consumption because of the never-ending threat of drought.
That’s true across the river basin.
“Every state is involved in aggressive conservation measures, and those measures are ultimately what we’ll have to continue to do in order to stretch this water supply as far as we possibly can,” he said.