Governors and negotiators from the seven Colorado River basin states met behind closed doors for about two hours in Washington on Friday to talk with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum about the dwindling waterway’s future.
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After they left the meeting, governors were quick to issue statements praising the gathering as ‘productive’ and ‘meaningful,’ but no deal among the states was announced by Monday afternoon.
“There is still a lot of work ahead to get to an agreement, but everyone wants an agreement, and we’ll work together to create a pathway forward,” New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham said in a statement.
Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs said she was “encouraged to hear Upper Basin governors express a willingness to turn water conservation programs into firm commitments of water savings.”
Upriver in Colorado, Gov. Jared Polis said in a statement he “defended our mighty Colorado River.”
“I always fight to defend our water, whether it’s at the Department of Interior, Congress, or the courtroom,” he said.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said he left the meeting “hopeful that we’ll avoid the path of litigation.”
“No one wins going down that path,” he said in a statement.
And Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon issued perhaps the most optimistic statement of the group.
“I am wholeheartedly encouraged by our conversation and believe there is a definitive path” toward a deal, he said.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom missed the meeting, but his natural resources secretary, Wade Crowfoot, was in the room.
Crowfoot said in a statement afterward that he was “cautiously optimistic that an agreement is possible, and we’re working hard to make it happen.”
Negotiators from the lower and upper basins entered the meeting at a yearslong impasse over how water restrictions should be managed during dry years.
They now have less than two weeks until a federal Feb. 14 deadline to reach an agreement.
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.
"Some in the lower basin wanted some sort of guaranteed supply, irrespective of hydrologic conditions,” Becky Mitchell, Colorado’s top negotiator, told KUNC last week on the eve of the DC summit. “And I think asking people to guarantee something that cannot be guaranteed is a recipe that cannot get to success.”
California’s negotiator, J.B. Hamby, said during a recent speech that “continued back and forth between the basins haven’t really been moving the ball forward.”
He welcomed potential federal intervention to help strike a deal.
“The administrations…have this important role in sometimes knocking heads together, sometimes encouraging consensus, and having diplomatic discussions between the states to be able to move conversations forward,” he said.
This story is part of ongoing coverage of the Colorado River, produced by KUNC in Colorado and supported by the Walton Family Foundation. KUNC is solely responsible for its editorial coverage.
