… The goal of the purchase is to keep the river water flowing perpetually to the Shoshone site long after the plant is defunct, to benefit the region’s vital tourism and recreation industries and the environment. The transaction is set to close in 2027, with several legal, financial and administrative hurdles to clear along the way. The pending Shoshone deal is one of a growing number of non-traditional arrangements for augmenting water supplies in the Colorado River Basin. The Southwest’s most important waterway is shrinking in a hotter, drier climate, and its future rules of operation remain uncertain. The seven Colorado River states are deadlocked in negotiations over how the river’s two key reservoirs, lakes Mead and Powell, will store and release water after 2026 when the current operating rules expire. The outcome of that process will decide how the water supply for 40 million people and 5 million acres of farmland from Wyoming to Mexico will be managed for years to come.

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