The Colorado River is the lifeblood of a vast majority of the west. Its mighty flow is governed by layer-upon-layer of federal laws, an international treaty, endless court decisions and decrees, countless contracts, and a slew of regulatory guidelines collectively known as the “Law of the River“.
But all Colorado tributaries lead back to a 1922 agreement called the Colorado Compact signed by the seven states and Mexico all located within the watershed — Colorado (where the river starts in Rocky Mountain National Park), Wyoming, New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and California (where the river ends in a dry wash in the Gulf of California). When the agreement was signed, no one had any idea how much water there really was, so they took a wild guess — 16.5 million acre feet (maf). And then they divided the watershed into the Upper Basin comprised of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico, and the Lower Basin which included California, Nevada, and Arizona. The Upper Basin got 7.5 maf, the Lower Basin got 7.5 maf, and 1.5 maf went to Mexico. Nobody ever really expected to give Mexico its fair share, unless by chance there was water left over after all the other greedy piggies grabbed their cut. There wasn’t.
California and Colorado, of course, got the biggest shares, followed by Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico, and Nevada. Most of the water originally went for agriculture, but with the advent of the metropolises in the desert, like Phoenix and Tucson, towns started getting more and more. Las Vegas takes virtually all of Nevada’s allocation and would dry up and blow away in about a month without it. But here’s the thing, the nasty little secret surrounding the whole shady deal: there really wasn’t 16.5 maf to begin with. It was a made-up number. And at first it didn’t matter because there simply wasn’t that much demand. But once the western states began to grow, there was no way in hell that any state was ever going to get as much of the Colorado River water as they were supposed to receive.
Now add in the hot, hard reality that the Colorado River watershed is into the twentieth year of a prolonged drought and there is no let up in sight. Climate Change experts are referring to it as the “Megadrought“. And that means there’s going to be way less than 16.5 maf to go around.
In 2026, the Colorado Compact expires and the western states — we long since forgot about Mexico in the equation — will have to sit back down to renegotiate the water rights for each of the seven states. Can you imagine how much fun that’s going to be.
Water Law goes back to jolly old England and it’s predicated on the time honored tradition of “First in time, First in line.” The people who were the first to start sucking the nearby river, lake, creek, stream or spring get first dibs. Makes perfect sense.
And yet, you know who don’t get any of the western water? The Indians. And they will not even be sitting at the table with the big boys and girls in 2026.
During our recent travels around western Colorado and eastern Utah, we saw parched dry Indian villages like Montezuma Creek on the White Mesa Ute Reservation who live in Utah right next to the San Juan River, and yet, are not allowed to take a drop from the river running right through their town while white farmers many miles away have lush green fields fed by water that is piped and pumped from the San Juan.
So, you tell me, who got there first?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ojTULeBK7I