What are Colorado River states doing to conserve water?
The issue of water — who gets it, how much they get and what happens when Mother Nature doesn’t provide enough — is not a new conflict in the Intermountain West. Lake Powell in Glen Canyon National Park is the link in the multistate system that feeds the Colorado River from the upper basin states to its lower basin counterparts. In its trip, the Colorado River water, mainly provided by snowmelt from the Rocky Mountains, travels through the upper basin states comprising Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico. It then flows through Lake Powell down to Lake Mead, feeding the lower basin states: Nevada, Arizona and California. … In their post-2026 operations proposal, the lower basin states said they would cut water use by 1.5 million acre-feet per year as long as Lake Powell and Lake Mead’s combined storage remains at a certain level.
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