Widespread drought and fears of a power crisis is forcing the Interior Department to start sending billions of gallons of water from Flaming Gorge Reservoir downstream to prop up Lake Powell.

At 8 a.m. Tuesday, there was only silence and the occasional crunch of rocks as a dozen people in orange vests waited in a moonlike landscape beneath a 350-foot-tall dam near Loveland.

Invasive species are on the march in the Colorado River, threatening everything from endangered native fish in Arizona to Colorado’s juicy Palisade peaches.

Cody Moser with the federal Colorado Basin River Forecast Center said in a monthly briefing Tuesday that just 1.4 million acre feet of Colorado River water is expected to reach Lake Powell through July. That's less than a quarter of what's considered normal.

Estevan López, New Mexico's water negotiator, said talks resumed March 2, and the upper and lower basin states are using a short-term pitch from Nevada as a starting point.

The sluggish Colorado River negotiations have entered a new phase: Long and fiery letter writing.

Colorado's state climatologist said long-range forecasts are also not signaling a 'Miracle March.'

Leaders of environmental groups are issuing fresh warnings this week about the impacts the ongoing gridlock could have in the river basin.

The Fetcher ranch in northwest Colorado is on the frontlines this year of record-low snowpack across the West. It's adding a sense of urgency among seven states to finalize a plan for how to conserve the dwindling Colorado River.

Pressure to reach a deal is building.Forecasts for the water supply from the Colorado River continue to grow worse as snowpack lags far behind normal across the West. And negotiators from the basins have said there are “sticking points” that remain in the negotiations in recent weeks that even marathon talks have failed to resolve.