Given a looming negotiation deadline and recent changes in federal operations, this is an apt time for us to check back in on how things are going with Colorado River management. Frequent listeners and 10X Summit attendees alike will be well acquainted with how clearly this topic illustrates our collective responsibility to be proactive in the face of the "knowable future".
A 100-year-old miscalculation of water availability and the recent multi-decade drought have put our use of the Colorado River on an unsustainable path.
This became apparent in 2021, as critical reservoirs at Lakes Mead and Powell approached a deadpool low-water scenario that would endanger hydropower generation at major dams and water deliveries to users further south. The risk level triggered immediate federal intervention and the renegotiation of a basin-wide agreement for sharing and conserving this vital resource.
Stakeholders now
have less than a month to submit a joint management proposal to the Bureau of Reclamation in time to be vetted for a new interstate compact. If this September, 2026 deadline is missed, the
cooperative systems and oversight that have protected the Colorado River since 1944 may expire without an immediate replacement.
Meanwhile, major layoffs
are planned or
and the Department of the Interior, and federal
. Anne Castle, former U.S. commissioner and chair of the Upper Colorado River Commission is among those employees to have lost their positions in this transition.
Three years after their first Ten Across Conversations appearance together, today Anne and fellow renowned Western water policy expert John Fleck revisit the key themes and offer their thoughts on progress toward a positive policy future in the Colorado Basin.
Related articles and resources:
(The Hill, March 2025)
(Anne Castle and John Fleck, 2021)
(Anne Castle and John Fleck, 2019)
(US Water Alliance, 2019)
(Hanif Abdurraqib, The New Yorker, Feb. 2025)
Credits:
Host: Duke Reiter
Producer and editor: Taylor Griffith
Music by: Lupus Nocte, Tellsonic, and Pearce Roswell
Research and support provided by: Kate Carefoot, Rae Ulrich, and Sabine Butler
About our guests:
Anne Castle is a senior fellow at the Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy, and the Environment at the University of Colorado Law School. She is a founding member of the
and co-founder of the initiative on
. From 2022 to 2025, she served as U.S. Commissioner and Chair of the Upper Colorado River Commission and was Assistant Secretary for Water and Science at the U.S. Department of the Interior from 2009 to 2014.
John Fleck is a writer in residence for the Utton Transboundary Resources Center and professor of practice in water policy and governance at the University of Mexico’s Department of Economics. He is also the co-author of
and author of
John is the former director of the University of New Mexico
, where he continues to teach and advise graduate students.
