May 4, 2026
Colorado River Basin — Today, John Berggren, Ph.D., at Western Resource Advocates and Kevin Wheeler, Ph.D., at Water Balance Consulting released a new concept paper showing that flexible water conservation pools could be the key to getting the Colorado River through dry years like this one.
The Colorado River Basin just experienced its warmest winter on record. Lake Powell and Lake Mead — the river’s two major reservoirs — are at historic lows, threatening the infrastructure that delivers water and hydropower to communities across the West.
According to forecasts from the Bureau of Reclamation, Lake Powell is expected to stop producing hydropower this summer if no action is taken, and the tools to address the problem are limited. Reclamation is now releasing water from an upstream reservoir to prop up Lake Powell, but there are limits to how much water can be moved and how often. The agency is also reducing Lake Powell releases, a move that states in the Lower Basin claim could put the Upper Basin in potential violation of the 1922 Colorado River Compact. And conditions are so dire that, depending on precipitation in the coming months, Reclamation’s model suggests these two actions still might not be enough to maintain critical reservoir elevations.
Today’s concept paper shows that a third option could help solve the problem.
The authors used the Intentionally Created Surplus (ICS) program — an existing water conservation program in the Lower Basin — to explore how flexible conservation pools could be used to protect the entire Colorado River system. Currently, the ICS program allows Lower Basin water users to save water and store it in Lake Mead through actions like increasing irrigation efficiency or fallowing land.
This water could also provide enormous benefit to Lake Powell and the Grand Canyon, but there are institutional barriers to moving it between reservoirs. For example, water levels in Lake Mead are currently used to determine Lower Basin shortages. Moving ICS water out of Lake Mead would lower the reservoir and affect these shortages.
In the concept paper, the authors show how these barriers can be removed to create a conservation pool that is “operationally neutral” to allow water to be moved between reservoirs without impacting Lower Basin shortages or affecting compliance with the Colorado River Compact.
“This allows conserved water to be stored in Lake Mead or Lake Powell — wherever it is needed to protect infrastructure and river health,” said John Berggren, regional policy manager at Western Resource Advocates.
The authors find that if such a conservation pool had been available this year, it could have significantly reduced the need to release large volumes of water from upstream reservoirs. It also would have helped avoid compact compliance issues, reducing the risk of litigation that would plunge the region into uncertainty while consuming valuable time and taxpayer dollars.
This is an incredibly difficult year for the Colorado River and the communities that depend on it. This analysis offers a glimmer of hope for the future. The guidelines for managing the river end in September, and there are several new management alternatives on the table that incorporate flexible conservation pools. These pools could help get us through critically dry years like this one.
Contact: Caitlin Weber, 505-372-4937, caitlin.weber@westernresources.org
