Colorado
Tribes want input, influence on Colorado River drought plan
Tribes grow impatient for a Colorado River agreement
As Western water leaders prepare to gather in Las Vegas, tribal leaders say they want a say in a final agreement.
With several key Colorado River management agreements set to expire this year — including the 2007 Colorado River Interim Guidelines for drought management — tribes have submitted comments on the draft environmental impact statement for a replacement plan.
The draft EIS aims to guide adoption of more reliable, predictable rules, but doing so is challenging due to low reservoir levels, variable water supply and a drier future, according to the Bureau of Reclamation, which manages the reservoirs on the Colorado.
Federal law requires the Secretary of Interior to coordinate reservoir operations. New operational guidelines for Lake Powell and Lake Mead will begin in 2027.
“We are grateful for the ongoing tribal leadership an collaboration with us on Colorado River matters and the Post-2026 process,” said Carly Jerla, senior water resources program manager with the Bureau’s Lower Colorado River Basin, during a presentation on the new guidelines. “We’ve been engaging with tribes in several ways, through government-to-government consultation…since the beginning of the EIS process.”
Jerla said the EIS process began with a notice of intent in June 2023, followed by a public scoping period and development of alternatives. The public comment period closed in early March, and feedback will be considered to help identify a preferred alternative.
“The current guidelines have not been sufficient to protect water supplies, hyrdopower and infrastructure,” said Jerla. “Low reservoir levels have persisted due to long-term drought and increasing aridity.”
Navajo officials want to link settlement and river plan
Several tribes, including the Navajo Nation and Hopi Tribe, submitted comments for consideration. Along with the San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe, they recently testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, urging support for the Northern Arizona Indian Water Rights Settlement. Reclamation support for the settlement was emphasized in comments submitted regarding the draft EIS from both Hopi and Navajo.
“It is critical for the Navajo Nation to secure and develop its water rights.,” Navajo officials said in their comments. “The Northeastern Arizona Indian Water Rights Settlement Act is pending in Congress and is stalled due to a lack of consensus among the seven Colorado River Basin states.” The Navajo Nation asked the bureau to acknowledge the settlement in the final Environmental Impact Statement.
The landmark agreement settles claims to water in Arizona for the Navajo Nation and the Hopi Tribe, and with $5 billion in planned infrastructure, will deliver clean drinking water to thousands of people who lack reliable supplies.
The Navajo Nation said two key mechanisms in the settlement that address Colorado River operations can be applied across all alternatives in the draft EIS. The first proposal is a water savings pool in Lake Powell that could store up to 321,000 acre-feet over 20 years. It would help offset impacts across all modeled alternatives, support reservoir elevations and rely on some of the most reliable water in the Colorado River system.
The second is a potential program for tribes to lease Upper Basin water to the Lower Basin in Arizona. This would allow water to continue generating hydropower at Lake Powell while temporarily helping address shortages in Arizona as the system adjusts to drier conditions.
“We respectfully urge all stakeholders in the Basin to view (the settlement) not as a complication to Post-2026, but as an opportunity, a chance to take an incremental step forward that benefits tribal communities and the Colorado River system alike,” Lamar Keevama, chairman of the Hopi Tribe, told the Bureau. The settlement, he said, “represents progress that can be achieved now.”
Kaibab Paiutes seek attention for water supplies
To provide stability and predictability for Basin water users, the Interior Secretary proposes an interim period of about 20 years, while remaining open to a shorter or phased approach as consensus develops on post-2026 operations.
The Bureau of Reclamation will lead the development and implementation of the guidelines under the National Environmental Policy Act, with support from five cooperating agencies: the Bureau of Indian Affairs, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, Western Area Power Administration, and the U.S. Section of the International Boundary and Water Commission.
Tribes such as the Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians, located north of the Grand Canyon along the Arizona–Utah border, have asserted aboriginal and federally reserved rights to surface water, including Kanab Creek, a tributary of the Colorado River. Tribal officials suggest that when resources are affected, support should go directly to tribes, and any preferred alternative should include long-term programs, funding, and monitoring to address impacts on tribal economies, resources, and ecosystems.
“Our Tribe is one of the last tribes in Arizona whose water rights have yet to be partially or fully quantified, either through litigation or in settlement, and the flows of Kanab Creek and its tributaries are a critical component of our water supply that is needed to meet the permanent Tribal homeland needs for our People,” wrote the tribe’s chairman Roland Maldonado.
As the EIS continues to develop, the tribe asked that the Bureau of Reclamation:
- Provide additional tribal comment and consultation opportunities regarding the development and adoption of a preferred alternative;
- Continue to engage with the tribe in the development of the agreement;
- Analyze hydropower impacts specific to tribal WAPA contracts, including the associated economic impacts; and
- Incorporate mitigation measures in the Post-2026 guidelines to address impacts to tribal resources.
Alternatives outline strategies, but most lack tribal input
The Hualapai Reservation is downstream from Lake Powell and upstream from Lake Mead and encompasses approximately 1 million acres in northwestern Arizona. The Colorado River forms the northern boundary of its tribal lands through a 108-mile portion of the Grand Canyon.
“The Reservation is arid and has no significant surface water streams other than the Colorado River. It has very limited groundwater resources, on which the tribe currently depends for all its water needs,” wrote attorneys from the firm of Sonosky, Chambers, Sachse, Endreson & Perry for the Hualapai Tribe.
“Water availability is even worse elsewhere on the reservation. There is a small groundwater well on the east side of the reservation that provides water to ranchers and wildlife in that area, but this water is not potable for human consumption.”
The tribe’s attorneys wrote that the draft EIS evaluates five strategies for managing Colorado River shortages after 2026. While it includes extensive information on tribal water rights and potential impacts, they argue the analysis is fundamentally flawed because it does not consider any option that fully protects all federally confirmed tribal water rights, such as those held by the Hualapai, from reduction during shortages.
The alternatives presented in the draft EIS by the Bureau of Reclamation are:
- No action alternative
- Basic Coordination Alternative (formerly the Federal Authorities Alternative)
- Enhanced Coordination Alternative (formerly the Federal Authorities Hybrid Alternative)
- Maximum Operational Flexibility Alternative (formerly the Cooperative Conservation Alternative)
- Supply Driven Alternative
- Continued Current Strategies Comparative Baseline
“What you don’t see is a preferred alternative, as there was no preferred alternative identified in the draft EIS because of a lack of a kind of consensus-based approach to the post-2026 reservoir operations among basin entities,” said Alan Butler, hydrologic engineer with the Bureau of Reclamation Lower Colorado Region.
Butler said the bureau anticipates identifying a preferred alternative after the publication of the draft EIS.
Hualapai attorneys noted that the draft document takes a narrow view by assuming there is no viable option to fully protect tribal water rights during shortages, effectively treating reductions to some congressionally approved or court-recognized rights as unavoidable in dry years.
“But of course, this outcome is not inevitable and the department sets forth no factual basis to support its assumption that this outcome is unavoidable,” wrote the tribe’s representative. “Instead, the DEIS could and should — indeed must — consider a different available alternative for managing shortages, one that would not impose any shortages on tribal water rights that have been confirmed by Congress and/or by final court decrees.”
Arlyssa D. Becenti covers Indigenous affairs for The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com. Send ideas and tips to arlyssa.becenti@arizonarepublic.com.
Colorado
Colorado community concerned about wildfire risk, over 1,000 residents practice evacuation drills
Most experts agree that the summer of 2026 could be a very active and dangerous fire season in Colorado. That’s why one of the state’s most vulnerable communities spent their Saturday morning preparing.
Much like the meager melting snowfall, it started off as a trickle, eventually gathering at a lower elevation. It was the stream of people in the hills of Evergreen evacuating their homes.
“We are petrified, it is so dry. It has never been this dry. We’ve always worried about wildfires, but this year it’s not an if but a when, I think,” said Evergreen resident Sarah Forbes.
This wasn’t an emergency, just a drill put on by Clear Creek and Evergreen firefighters and the Clear Creek and Jefferson County Sheriff’s Offices. They say practice is important because if a fire starts in or near Evergreen, getting people to safety will take a lot of work.
“The roads weren’t built for mass evacuations. The populations are growing up here in the mountains, and getting that many people out in a very short period of time is going to be a challenge,” said Evergreen Fire Chief Michael Weege.
The drill gives the fire and sheriff’s departments data they can use in a real emergency, and highlights flaws in the system that can be fixed ahead of time.
“We’re hearing some things about the 911 system itself. The notice came out as spam on their phone, and that could be a setting on their phone not recognizing the number,” said Weege.
And residents got a chance to shore up their own evacuation plans. Forbes said they had to re-evaluate things partway through the evacuation drill.
“We had already packed our bags a while back, and we had a list of last minute items to plan to grab. And then my husband starts pulling up with all these bins and boxes from the basement. I was like, ‘What is all this?’” said Forbes. “He thought we were taking two cars.”
Forbes said she’d rather take one car and that they would need to pare down the items they bring during an evacuation.
Officials say they were blown away by the community’s willingness to participate in this exercise. They say they were expecting a couple of dozen volunteers to evacuate their homes. Instead, they got around 1,300.
Colorado
‘The idea of selling them is insane:’ Colorado senator offers new bill to prevent public land sales
Last summer, Senate Republicans attempted to sell off millions of acres of federal public land as part of the budget reconciliation process. Now, a group of Western Democratic senators wants to send a clear message that this cannot happen again.
“Public lands are owned by the American people and are managed to provide perpetual benefits that far outlast a 10-year budget period, a Senate career or even our lifetimes,” said Colorado Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet on a Thursday, April 30, press call. “In Colorado, they are part of our DNA, the foundation of our economy and treasured parts of our culture, geography and history … The idea of selling them is insane and something that I will never stop fighting.”
Bennet introduced a new bill called the Public Lands Integrity Act this week alongside Sens. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., to bar public land sales from being included in any future reconciliation processes.
The Colorado senator said this was an appropriate venue for preventing public land sales, “because it is this process that (Sen.) Mike Lee used to try to basically terrorize the Senate last year over this issue.”
Lee, a Republican Senator from Utah, spearheaded the effort to mandate the sale of between 2 million and 3 million acres of U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands in 11 Western states, purportedly for housing and “community needs” as part of the “One Big, Beautiful Act” last June. In Colorado, the sales could have impacted the 16 million acres managed by the Forest Service and the 8.3 million acres managed by the Bureau.
Ultimately, it was opposition from congressional Republicans, Democrats and members of the public to the sale proposal — and the Senate parliamentarian ruling it improper for the budget reconciliation bill — that led the provision to be stripped from the final package.
The new legislation introduced by Bennet would make public land sales a seventh exception to the Byrd Rule, which establishes guardrails to what senators can include in a reconciliation process. It is the Senate parliamentarian — a nonpartisan, appointed advisor who is often described as a referee — who makes determinations based on the Byrd Rule.
Last year, Lee’s proposed public land sale was found in violation of the Byrd Rule’s requirement that all items in a reconciliation package must have a direct and substantive impact on federal spending or revenues.
As Lee and other congressional Republicans continue to push for privatizing public lands, Bennet has defended the proposed legislation as necessary.
“Sen. Lee’s proposal was a radical idea, but he’s been clear ever since that he’s not giving up the fight to sell off our treasured public lands — and we aren’t done either,” Bennet said. “Public lands must be off the table to pay for short-term, partisan spending.”
Colorado House Speaker Julie McCluskie, D-Dillon, spoke in favor of the federal legislation on Thursday’s press call.
“More than $17 billion of our economy is driven by our outdoor recreation usage and the connection that so many people feel with nature,” McCluskie said. “More than 130,000 jobs rely on access to our public lands. And just as importantly, our public lands define who we are as Coloradans. It is really a testament to the spirit of the West when you can get out into the great outdoors, connect with nature and understand how really serene and beautiful these special places are.”
For the second year in a row, Colorado’s legislature introduced and passed a joint resolution opposing “all efforts” that “directly or indirectly diminish the public’s voice, access and recourse in the management of national public lands,” including widespread land sales and “erosion of bedrock laws” such as the Federal Land Policy and Management Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.
While it did have some dissenting votes — from 15 Republican representatives and eight Republican senators — legislators from both parties supported the resolution.
Bill Fales, a Carbondale rancher who owns a cattle operation that straddles Garfield and Pitkin counties, spoke of the importance of public land access for producers, especially in Western Slope counties like Pitkin, where nearly 85% of the land is federally owned.
“Every family ranch in the valley that I know of — well, I know almost everyone from Rifle clear to Aspen — every one of them relies on public land grazing. It’s the only land there is,” Fales said, adding that cattlemen were called on to support Sen. Lee’s federal land proposal because they could buy the land themselves.
“That is just totally ludicrous, the idea that a small family ranch will outbid the insane number of billionaires and oil companies who also treasure this land,” Fales said. “It would end multiple use on these public lands and/or federal land grazing, and the important recreation economy.”
Bennet was optimistic about the act’s chances due in part to the widespread support of public lands. Several Western Slope county commissioners expressed support for the act in a Thursday news release.
“Our public lands, which represent 85% of our county, nourish critical wildlife habitat for fish, bird, elk and bear populations, serve as the backbone of a thriving recreational economy, and inspire the love and awe we have for this place we call home,” said Jeffrey Woodruff, Pitkin County Commissioner. “We are stewards of this land. Our residents, international visitors, and the over 40 million Americans who depend upon the Colorado River, all trust that public land will be a vital resource, not just today, but for all of the generations to come.”
Public land sales are widely opposed in the West regardless of political affiliation, according to the 2026 Conservation in the West Poll — an annual survey of eight western states, including Colorado, on environmental issues. Around 80% of the Colorodans surveyed expressed opposition to public land sales for housing development and to private companies for oil, gas and mining development. Similar rates of opposition were reported in all the states surveyed.
“There was a time when we were passing, every generation was passing, strong bipartisan public lands bills,” Bennet said. “That has been stopped in recent years by the Republicans, particularly by Sen. Lee and Sen. (Ted) Cruz, (R-Texas), and I hope someday we actually get back into the business of passing bipartisan bills, so we can protect more land, so we can pass bills like the GORP Act.”
Bennet introduced the GORP Act, or Gunnison Outdoor Resource Protection, last year to add protections to more than 700,000 acres of public land in and around Gunnison County.
“In the meantime, what we’ve got to do is make sure that they know that we’re gonna fight every single effort to sell off the public lands of the United States, and that’s what the Public Lands Integrity Act is meant to do,” he added.
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