Four Things You Can Do Now for the 2025 Colorado River Deadline
By Kristine Zeigler, co-founder and CEO of Planet Women
The Colorado River is the lifeline for seven states, two countries, more than 30 Tribes, and numerous industries critical to the American economy – whether you’re talking about Hollywood, biotech in San Diego, or the food grown in the Imperial Valley for national and international consumption. While the rain and snow over the past year has improved the outlook for river flows, it’s essential we stay vigilant.
A number of crucial agreements governing the river, known as the Colorado River’s “2007 Interim Guidelines” and the Colorado River facilities “operating guidelines,” are set to expire December 31, 2025 and December 31, 2026. Tracking converging deadlines and public involvement processes is complicated, but we’re here to help. With support from our partners, we’ve provided links in this blog that will take you directly to where the information can be found.
If we’ve missed anything or you’d like us to share other resources, please send us a note (scroll down to Contact Us) or get in touch with us on LinkedIn, Instagram, or Facebook.
The situation
“The Colorado River Basin provides water for more than 40 million Americans. It fuels hydropower resources in eight states, supports agriculture and agricultural communities across the West, and is a crucial resource for 30 Tribal Nations. Failure is not an option.”
-Deputy Secretary Tommy Beaudreau in a 2023 Department of Interior press release
Currently the Colorado River Basin’s lower states of Arizona and New Mexico are still very much experiencing an abundance of dryness, despite lots of dramatic rain events over the past year. The U.S. Drought Monitor reports that 78 percent of Arizona is experiencing abnormally dry conditions while in neighboring New Mexico, 96 percent of the state is in the same condition, but worse. More than one-third of New Mexico is under what the Drought Monitor classifies as extreme, exceptional, and severe drought conditions.
Last year, the seven states of the Colorado River Basin came to an agreement with one another to make temporary cuts to water allocations—preventing a federal intervention which would have mandated reductions. These included cuts to the Lower Basin allocations based on water levels in Lake Mead, cuts in water flows to Mexico, as well as voluntary, temporary, and compensated additional water conservation. These cuts, negotiated over many months, have all contributed to making the situation better, but they haven’t fully solved the problem.
So what can we do as leaders interested in access, equality, gender equity, and the health of plants, animals, and communities that rely on the Colorado River?
“Women of the River” by Lynne Hardy. Commissioned by Planet Women for the 2023 Women and Water Convening.
Here are four things anyone can do to participate and have a voice as 2026 approaches:
Read, get educated, talk to folks, and VOTE!
The folks we elect this year will be the ones making (or appointing those who will make) the hard decision around the operating guidelines. Get familiar with the Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) for Near-term Colorado River Operations and the Post-2026 operations. According to the Bureau of Reclamation, the post-2026 process will “identify a range of alternatives and determine operations for Lake Powell and Lake Mead and other water management actions for potentially decades into the future.”
There’s an overwhelming amount of information out there, but the Water and Tribes Initiative has collected all of the Proposed Alternatives for Post-2026 Operating Guidelines in one place here.
Communicate the impacts you are witnessing from weather events, a changing climate and aridification.
Use your preferred outlets to share your observations in blogs, videos, music, dance, visual arts, nonfiction and fiction, photography – get creative! Share the joy and challenges you find in the Basin and in places that benefit from the water that is transferred across hundreds of miles.
To this end, Planet Women and New Nature Writers are launching a new program April 22nd: Journey to Publication Writing Fellowship for Indigenous Women of the Colorado River Basin. Get all the details and find the application link HERE.
Take action right where you are.
While the challenge to create a more sustainable Colorado River Basin is shared across a large geography and 40 million people, many of the solutions and paths forward are inherently local, according to Celene Hawkins, the Colorado River Tribal Partnerships Program Director at The Nature Conservancy. There are many opportunities for volunteer and/or professional leadership and service. For example, Celene recommends joining a local, state, Tribal, or regional watershed group or water management entity that is imagining, designing, and implementing the solutions your community will need to thrive in the future.
According to Planet Women Youth Ambassador and Reporter Bella Kim’s article, community leaders are reiterating a call to diversify water boards to give marginalized groups more power.
Support the human right to water.
Many Tribal communities within the Colorado River Basin “still do not have access to clean and safe water. This lack of access reflects historical and persisting racial inequities that have resulted in health and socioeconomic disparities,” according to the “Universal Access to Clean Water for Tribes in the Colorado River Basin” report co-authored by Planet Women Advisory Council member Heather Tanana and commissioned by the Water and Tribes Initiative.
Support the Water and Tribes Initiative and the Indigenous Women’s Leadership Network. Both groups are focused on increasing the capacity and leadership of Tribes and Indigenous women to sustainably manage water resources and to engage in water policy and community problem-solving.
A plethora of opportunities for getting water to communities are coming out as a result of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. Here’s one the Bureau of Reclamation just issued for $320 million. Get behind projects and lend a hand in responding (either through grantwriting or hosting webinars to learn more). Celene and other partners have seen more collaboration and abundance-thinking lately. Groups are putting in their own applications and supporting other great applications at the same time.
Goosenecks State Park. © Bob Wick for Bureau of Land Management
The bottom line
To save this important river and the 40 million people who depend on it, a holistic approach and more diverse voices are needed. Together, there is a lot we can do to make the most of this critical moment for the Colorado River Basin. Want to know more about what Planet Women is doing in this region? Check out these links: