Heather Sackett, Aspen Journalism

Seven states rely on the Colorado River, but they continue to struggle to find a deal on how to use the river's water.

At a key meeting to discuss the river's future management, federal officials lay out tools for dealing with falling reservoir levels.

The seven states that share the Colorado River did not meet a Nov. 11 deadline to find a consensus on how to operate reservoirs and share cuts in the future.

Putting a value on the state’s river recreation economic impact is a challenge.

Tribal leaders want to be included again in federal funding through the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation for conservation programs in the Upper Basin. The money would pay groups like the Southern Ute Indian Tribe for water they are not using.

The old water law adage doesn’t capture just how difficult it is to lose a water right. And state policy limits the pool of possibly abandoned water even further.

Grand Valley water managers have a plan to nip a potential zebra mussel infestation in the bud, with one irrigation district beginning treatment of its water this fall. Mesa County plans to apply on behalf of the irrigation districts and water providers for more than $4 million in funding, which will come from the remaining $450 million of Inflation Reduction Act funding for projects in the Colorado River’s Upper Basin.

Water managers in the upper Colorado River basin took another step this week toward a more formal water conservation program that they say will benefit the upper basin states.

Some experts say the System Conservation Pilot Program, or SCPP, is costly and may not be the most effective way to save Colorado River water.

In 2020, a group of nine flood irrigators in the Kremmling area, scientists and conservation groups began a multiyear research project to find out what happens when irrigation water is withheld from high-elevation fields for a full season and a half-season.