Reclamation Releases Colorado River FEIS
On July 31, 2026, the US Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) released the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) for the Post-2026 Operational Guidelines and Strategies for Lake Powell and Lake Mead. The FEIS describes the proposed new guidelines and coordinated management strategies that will take effect when the current agreements expire at the end of 2026. Extremely unfavorable hydrologic conditions over more than two decades, combined with continuing water demands, have led to historically low water levels in Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the river system’s two largest reservoirs. Despite efforts to develop consensus-based long-term operational guidelines, consensus had not been reached as of FEIS publication. The Preferred Alternative described in the FEIS is designed as an adaptive decision framework for developing specific operating guidelines capable of ensuring both reliable operations and responsiveness to changing conditions over a ten-year period. Further, it is intended to preserve the opportunity for Basin negotiations to continue and consensus agreements to have an impact on future operations.
The Preferred Alternative establishes operational principles, “sideboards,” and a process for producing operating guidelines over two-year intervals through 2036. It does not establish specific operating guidelines, and it allows for changes based on consensus agreements. The four listed operational principles are (1) to respond to hydrology, (2) to protect critical federal infrastructure, (3) to continue adhering to established long-range operating criteria while allowing for extraordinary circumstances, and (4) to prioritize consensus-based recommendations. Sideboards are key thresholds and ranges that define the boundaries for each set of operating guidelines.
The Arizona Department of Water Resources commented that the FEIS “includes an analysis that allows the adoption of many of the core elements of the Lower Basin proposal.” However, it also “contains a framework that includes sideboards that are unacceptable for the state of Arizona….” Among these are reductions of up to 3 million acre-feet of water per year for the Lower Basin to absorb.
For illustrative purposes, the FEIS includes a Representative Preferred Alternative that adopts a set of modeling assumptions to approximate the range of operating guidelines that may be developed for each (two-year) interval during the framework’s ten-year period.
More details will be provided in the forthcoming Record of Decision and operating guidelines.