On July 31, the Bureau of Reclamation released a framework for the management of the Colorado River starting in 2027, including operations of Lake Powell and Lake Mead and plans for handling future water shortages across the seven Colorado River Basin states.
On August 6 from 5:00-6:00 p.m. ET, SciLine hosted a media availability with Dr. David Rosenberg, joint professor in civil and environmental engineering and the Utah Water Research Laboratory at Utah State University, and Sarah Porter, J.D., director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University. They took questions about what the new framework means for water users across the Upper Basin (CO, NM, UT, and WY), Lower Basin (AZ, CA, and NV), Mexico, and Tribal Nations of the basin. Dr. Rosenberg is a co-author of two publiccomments on the draft environmental impact statement released in early 2026, and Sarah Porter serves on Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs’ Water Policy Council, tasked with managing state groundwater resources.
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Click for transcribed SOT (can be used as-is or modified)
SOT Duration: 0:31
Super: Dr. David Rosenberg, Utah State University
“One of the most important things of this new final environmental impact statement is defining the minimum levels that we’re going to draw down or that we can draw down Lake Powell and Lake Mead to. And those levels are going to continue to generate hydropower. And I think that’s a really, really important feature of this of this new framework, this new agreement, and that’s going to have a lot of benefits throughout the system.”
SOT Duration: 0:48
Super: Sarah Porter, J.D., Arizona State University
“We are in for a lot of legal conflict. And meanwhile, we don’t have good reason to hope that hydrology is going to bail us out. So, we could have a lot of fighting over, you know, less and less water available. So, I don’t feel that we’re in a better place really than we were, than we have been in the last few years. We really need to figure out a way collectively to be reducing demand in the Colorado River by at least 3 million acre feet out of the 15 million. And that probably can’t all fall on the lower basin. The lower basin didn’t agree to be junior to the upper basin.”
Raw, full-length interview and transcript covers:
The most important takeaways from the final Colorado River basin management framework;
How water shortages will be managed between Upper and Lower Basin states in the new framework, unless the states reach an independent consensus;
Whether the hydrology included in the final impact statement reflects the best available science;
How this plan compares to the draft plan released in January of 2026, previous Colorado River basin water sharing agreements, and the joint lower basin proposal released earlier this year;
How the new framework could impact agricultural production and water utilities across the basin; and
When the new management framework becomes binding and what the next steps are for the states.
