Colorado River Basin

After years of stalled negotiations, the Department of the Interior releases final Environmental Impact Statement, covering 10 years of future management for seven states

A deal to bring Colorado River water to Native American communities in Arizona, where a third of homes lack running water, is being blocked by neighboring states, caught up in a broader battle over how to divide the water.

Tribes have negotiated a settlement to resolve the largest outstanding claim to the Colorado River, while providing billions of dollars for water infrastructure. Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — the Upper Basin states — are resisting the deal because it allows the Navajo and Hopi to lease water outside their reservations.

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.

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.

On the eve of the high-stakes summit, negotiators from both the upper and lower river basins are not sounding confident they can reach an agreement with less than three weeks to go before a Feb. 14 deadline.

A group of nonprofits is calling for reductions to water demand, changes at Glen Canyon Dam and more transparent negotiations.

New data from the Bureau of Reclamation puts the river and its reservoirs in formal shortage conditions. Policymakers are stuck on ways to fix that in the years to come.

States that use Colorado River water need to agree on new rules for sharing it by 2026. If they don't, they will likely end up in messy court battles.

Top water negotiators declined to speak at an upcoming conference amid closed-door meetings about the future of the water supply for 40 million people.