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All the players (stakeholders) recognize that if we want to control our own future and not have an operating regime imposed on us by people with maybe less knowledge of how the system works—it’s on us to make those painful compromises that are required to both meet the hydrological moment and forge an agreement that provides equity.
Anne Castle, U.S. Commissioner and Chair of the Upper Colorado River Commission, 2022 to 2025
One of the problems is we have a group of people working on these guidelines for Colorado River management post-2026… who are all acting right now as advocates for their own communities’ self-interest and not perhaps, as we would hope, looking out more broadly for the Basin’s interest.
John Fleck, professor in practice of water policy and governance, University of New Mexico
Given a looming negotiation deadline and recent changes in federal operations, this is an apt time for us to check back in on how things are going with Colorado River management. Frequent listeners and 10X Summit attendees alike will be well acquainted with how clearly this topic illustrates our collective responsibility to be proactive in the face of the “knowable future.”
A 100-year-old miscalculation of water availability and the recent multi-decade drought have put our use of the Colorado River on an unsustainable path. This became apparent in 2021, as critical reservoirs at Lakes Mead and Powell approached a deadpool low-water scenario that would endanger hydropower generation at major dams and water deliveries to users further south. The risk level triggered immediate federal intervention and the renegotiation of a basin-wide agreement for sharing and conserving this vital resource.
Stakeholders now have less than a month to submit a joint management proposal to the Bureau of Reclamation in time to be vetted for a new interstate compact. If this September, 2026 deadline is missed, the cooperative systems and oversight that have protected the Colorado River since 1944 may expire without an immediate replacement.
Meanwhile, major layoffs are planned or underway at the Bureau and the Department of the Interior, and federal funding for river conservation has been frozen. Anne Castle, former U.S. commissioner and chair of the Upper Colorado River Commission is among those employees to have lost their positions in this transition.
Three years after their first Ten Across Conversations appearance together, today Anne and fellow renowned Western water policy expert John Fleck revisit the key themes and offer their thoughts on progress toward a positive policy future in the Colorado Basin.
Related articles and resources:
Listen to our first episode with Anne and John from 2022
Learn more about the 1994 U.S.-Mexico water treaty in this Ten Across Conversations podcast
“Trump admin rejects Colorado River water request from Mexico in first since 1944” (The Hill, March 2025)
“Green Light for Adaptive Policies on the Colorado River” (Anne Castle and John Fleck, 2021)
“The Risk of Curtailment under the Colorado River Compact” (Anne Castle and John Fleck, 2019)
“Closing the Water Access Gap in the United States: A National Action Plan” (US Water Alliance, 2019)
“Essay: Lessons for the End of the World” (Hanif Abdurraqib, The New Yorker, Feb. 2025)
Credits:
Host: Duke Reiter
Producer and editor: Taylor Griffith
Music by: Lupus Nocte, Tellsonic, and Pearce Roswel
Research and support provided by: Kate Carefoot, Rae Ulrich, and Sabine Butler
Guest Speakers
Anne Castle is a senior fellow at the Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy, and the Environment at the University of Colorado Law School. She is a founding member of the Water Policy Group and co-founder of the initiative on Universal Access to Clean Water for Tribal Communities. From 2022 to 2025, she served as U.S. Commissioner and Chair of the Upper Colorado River Commission and was Assistant Secretary for Water and Science at the U.S. Department of the Interior from 2009 to 2014.
John Fleck is a writer in residence for the Utton Transboundary Resources Center and professor of practice in water policy and governance at the University of Mexico’s Department of Economics. He is also the co-author of Science Be Dammed: How Ignoring Inconvenient Science Drained the Colorado River and author of Water is for Fighting Over and Other Myths about Water in the West. John is the former director of the University of New Mexico Water Resources Program, where he continues to teach and advise graduate students.
