Anyone can see that something is deeply wrong at Blue Mesa Reservoir on the Western Slope. It’s historically been the biggest body of water in the state. But not anymore.
The deep, long-lasting drought has shrunk it so much it lost that title to Lake Granby up north. Now it looks like someone’s opened the drain on a gigantic, rocky bathtub, with only a bit of shiny blue water pooled at the bottom.
Amy Riser stood on the long boat ramp at Elk Creek Marina, which her family has run for more than 40 years. It was a sunny and hot August day, when this place should have been “jamming with people,” she said.
Instead, the water was empty. Blue Mesa stood at less than 20% full, lower than it had ever been.
“It is very, very heartbreaking right now,” Riser said, looking at water rings left on the dry, sandy soil and exposed anchors that usually hold docks. A lone lawn chair was stuck in the mud.
For 60 years, Blue Mesa Reservoir has stored water that flows to communities and generates electricity. It’s also a popular recreation spot, a 20-mile-long lake sandwiched between Montrose and Gunnison. Growing up on the edge of this vital water source, Riser has watched decades of visitors bobbing on their motorboats and jet skis, with their coolers and kids, dogs and music.
Regulars will dock their boats here the entire summer and spend pretty much every weekend on the water.
“Everybody says when they go out on the boat, they come back so much more at peace,” she said.
Blue Mesa usually draws people from all across Colorado and beyond from May through September. This year, however, the fun stopped on July 5. It was “surreal” to close that early, Riser explained. She held an employee party as everyone tried to wrap their heads around this unprecedented season.
“We all jumped in the water and had pizza and just really kind of sat on the edge of the docks looking around — just not really believing that this is what was happening,” she said.
Boating season was cut months short, and Riser’s family lost about half their income. For everyone who loves this reservoir, however, the deeper concern isn’t just this shocking summer.
They’re worried about the seasons to come.
A cascade of impacts
Giulio Del Piccolo is most concerned for a silvery fish that turns a sunset red during spawning season. Blue Mesa is famous for its kokanee salmon, which Colorado Parks and Wildlife raises and stocks here. Del Piccolo, an aquatic biologist with the agency, described Blue Mesa as a premier destination for anglers in the summer months and ice fishers in the winter.
“We’re certainly going to be seeing reductions in the abundance of fish in this lake in the future,” he said.
Salmon need cool water to thrive, and less water means warmer water. That stresses out the fish and causes toxic algae to bloom, floating on shallow sections of water and sucking away precious oxygen. Del Piccolo said he’s never seen algae “that blue and vibrant.”
The neon-blue algae is like a warning sign of just how bad things are at Blue Mesa. There are actual warning signs posted, too, saying the water is now dangerous to people and pets.
Sonja Chavez, executive director of the Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District, thinks it’s the worst Blue Mesa has ever looked.
“Yeah, no, never seen anything like this,” she said, standing in a dusty, dry riverbed. In a normal year, water would be far above her head in the same spot. But that day, this section of the reservoir was reduced to a small stream.
Chavez’s organization advocates for Blue Mesa’s health and distributing its water fairly.
People, economies and the environment “depend on this water supply,” she said, “and we need to be smarter about the way we use it.”
Blue Mesa is not a naturally occurring lake but instead is man-made, designed by the federal government to store water for downstream communities, farms and ranches. It also generates electricity and is federally mandated to release water that provides habitat for threatened and endangered fish, including the native razorback sucker and humpback chub. Federal officials take all of that into consideration when they determine how much water to discharge.
This year, they were faced with an abysmal snowpack — that accumulation of snow that builds up throughout the winter. Chavez believes the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which controls how much, and when, water flows out of Blue Mesa, needs to adjust more quickly to lean water years like this one.
“Mother nature does what it wants,” she said. “We don’t know what next year looks like. If we have another repeat or another drought year next year, we’re really going to be hurting.”
Chavez thinks the BoR was releasing too much water too early in the season, which drove Blue Mesa into crisis.
In an email statement, the agency said it does work from 24-month forecasts of how much water will melt into reservoirs, but that it also adjusts water releases as conditions change.
“Moving forward, Reclamation is already working with our forecasting partners and water users on ways to improve modeling for dry year water use, enhance forecasting … and review historic operations to identify opportunities for increased drought resiliency,” said Bart Deming, BoR Western Colorado Area office manager.
In a worst-case scenario, Deming said Blue Mesa could dip so low that it could briefly stop generating electricity by April 2027, but he estimated that it’s 90% likely that would not happen.
“We’ll have a better sense of conditions once we see how winter progresses,” he said.
That means the future of Blue Mesa depends on this winter’s snowpack, which will feed reservoirs like this one across the state and the West.
An uncertain future
That snowmelt will also flow into the “lifeblood” of the Uncompahgre Valley, to the west of Blue Mesa, said the general manager of the Uncompahgre Water User Association, Steve Pope.
Pope stood next to the Gunnison River, which runs green and slow for miles between the reservoir and the entrance of the historic Gunnison Tunnel. Running half a mile underground, the tunnel diverts some of the river to more than 80,000 customers across Montrose, Delta and Ouray counties.
The water goes to “Olathe sweet corn, the onion producers, the beans and even the large-scale hay producers,” said Pope.
The nonprofit had to cut water for all its users this season. Farmers had to leave some fields dry, and ranchers weren’t able to plant all the hay they needed. Still, Pope’s customers were mostly able to limp through this season.
“My main concern is next year. Everybody says the El Niño of all El Niños is coming,” he said.
That climate phenomenon could bring much-needed snow to the bone-dry West. But there’s no guarantee. So Pope is not banking on El Niño saving the day — at least not yet.
“Not until I’m shoveling snow,” he joked.
Scientists say it would take a lot of snow to sufficiently refill Blue Mesa Reservoir. For Riser, the marina owner, a blockbuster winter would be a huge help, ensuring a busy summer next year. She’s left waiting to see if those dearly needed snowflakes really do fall in the coming months.
Until then, “I don’t know what to tell staff. I don’t know what to tell customers. Our boaters, our seasonal boaters live for the summers,” she said, “and I don’t know what to tell anybody and that’s really a hard place to be in.”
Riser, her parents and siblings have called this place home since 1981. Now their livelihoods are in limbo.
“A lot of us have to look at: Do we need to move? Do we need to move on to something different?” Riser said. “And that’s very, very sad because this is a beautiful place.”
Many of her seasonal employees have already left — likely for good.
After a record-breaking season of low snowpack, Colorado is entering summer 2026 in a deep drought.
CPR News is covering this unfolding story and its impacts on communities, the Colorado River, farmers and ranchers, outdoor recreation and the environment through a new series, Water Pressure.
Read more from the series here.
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