Document Type
Report
Publisher
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
Publication Date
11-6-2025
Journal Article Version
Version of Record
First Page
1
Last Page
8
Abstract
Low Colorado River flows threaten to draw down Lake Powell and Lake Mead below their minimum power pool elevations. Additionally, the U.S. Federal Government through its Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) has set a new deadline for November 11, 2025 for new proposals to operate Lake Powell and Lake Mead after existing operations expire at the end of 2026. In a prior April 2025 post, we shared 13 reasons why we have hope for consensus on new operations (Rosenberg et al., 2026). One reason was that during crisis, rapid changes in policies and operations are possible. More recently, we asked the question How low a Colorado River flow to go? where we used hydrology scenarios that were up to 3 million acre-feet per year lower than regulated inflow to Lake Powell in the 24-month study minimum probable forecast (Fager, 2025; Rosenberg et al., 2025a). Those flows were also some of the lowest 3- and 10-year sequences in the ensembles that Reclamation is using to model new operations for Lake Powell and Lake Mead after 2026 (Myers, 2025; Salehabadi et al., 2024; Smith et al., 2022).
Recommended Citation
Rosenberg, David; Myers, Anabelle; Fager, Brittany; and Porse, Erik, "New collaborative water accounting proposals to protect Lake Powell and Lake Mead during extreme low reservoir storage and river flow (Protect and Flexible during Crisis)" (2025). Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications. Paper 3823.
https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cee_facpub/3823