By David Boyer
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation), in conjunction with the Secretary of the Interior (Secretary), released a Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) analyzing various decision-making frameworks and their impacts on the management of Lake Powell and Lake Mead and the greater Colorado River Basin (collectively referred to as the Basin). The Final EIS outlines Reclamation’s preferred alternative that will guide the management of the Basin beginning October 1, 2026, along with several other decision-making frameworks that were considered but not adopted. On August 21, 2026, the Department of the Interior issued a Record of Decision adopting the preferred alternative’s Decision Framework and, pursuant to that framework, issued the first set of operating guidelines, which govern operating years 2027 and 2028.
Factual Background
The Basin supplies water for roughly 40 million people and approximately 5.5 million acres of agricultural land across seven states in the western United States, 30 Tribal Nations, and Mexico. For the past 26 years, the Basin has experienced severe drought conditions resulting in low runoff and reservoir levels. Notably, the combined contents of Lake Powell and Lake Mead have reached lows unseen since Lake Powell began filling in 1963. Consequently, Reclamation has taken unprecedented measures to combat the drought that included the release of up to an additional one million acre-feet of water from Flaming Gorge Reservoir and a reduction in releases from Lake Powell to the Lower Basin. However, these novel actions have been insufficient to halt the Basin’s declining hydrologic conditions.
In 2022, the Department of the Interior (Department), along with Reclamation, began engaging the public in an effort to develop new operating guidelines, working extensively with the Basin States, Basin Tribes, and other interested parties affected by the Basin’s management. Despite the engagement, the Department and Reclamation were unable to develop consensus-based, long-term operational guidelines for the Basin.
The Department published a draft EIS in January 2026 because new management operations and guidelines must be in place by October 1, 2026. The draft EIS did not identify a preferred alternative; the preferred alternative later analyzed in the Final EIS fell within the range of alternatives the draft EIS had considered. During this time, the Department and Reclamation continued to engage in negotiations with entities operating in the Basin in hopes of reaching a consensus. Ultimately, consensus was not reached, and the Department was required to complete the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process to have new management solutions ready for the October 1 deadline.
Reclamation’s Preferred Alternative
Broadly, the Secretary and Reclamation analyzed a range of management strategies and the tradeoffs associated with selecting a particular approach. Reclamation and the Secretary identified as their preferred alternative an adaptive decision framework that will allow the Department to develop and maintain consensus-based guidelines for operating years 2027 through 2036.
The Final EIS analyzed several management strategies: the No Action Alternative, the Basic Coordination Alternative, the Enhanced Coordination Alternative, the Maximum Operational Flexibility Alternative, the Supply Driven Alternative, and the Preferred Alternative. The Department selected its preferred alternative as the decision-making framework to guide the management of the Basin for the next decade. The decision-making framework of the preferred alternative establishes operational principles, key thresholds and ranges for operational elements, and a process that would govern the development and issuance of operating guidelines that would be implemented in two-year intervals unless a consensus-based agreement provides for a longer duration. The preferred alternative did not establish specific operating guidelines for managing the Basin; rather, it provides a structure within which operating guidelines can be developed, reviewed, and implemented through 2036.
Operating principles for the Department’s preferred alternative center on several management priorities, including the following: operations should be responsive to hydrology, critical federal infrastructure must be protected through practical and deliberate operations, operating guidelines should implement the Long Range Operating Criteria while also providing direction to address extraordinary circumstances, and operating guidelines should prioritize consensus-based recommendations.
The Department concluded that no singular decision-making framework could maximize the protection of critical water level elevations, minimize reduction in water deliveries, and maximize hydropower generation all at once. However, the Department found that its preferred alternative appropriately balances tradeoffs across key metrics and provides protection under hydrologic conditions drier than those of the current drought. Additionally, the Department concluded that the preferred alternative protects critical infrastructure and maintains a moderate balance of performance among reservoir elevations, shortages, and Glen Canyon Dam releases, even in the driest hydrologic conditions.
Overall, the Department’s position is that the preferred alternative appropriately balances inherent system tradeoffs and constitutes a practical approach to “robust protection of critical infrastructure while considering adverse impacts to water users and avoiding unnecessary impacts to other resources.”
Conclusion and Implications
The Department and Reclamation’s selection of the preferred alternative signals a continued emphasis on the creation and implementation of consensus-based management strategies to combat the drought in the Basin. While the framework does not itself prescribe long-term operating guidelines, the preferred alternative makes clear that the Department and Reclamation are focused on creating a flexible decision-making framework that may accommodate any future consensus-based agreements.
The flexibility afforded by this framework may allow management decisions to better balance the differing needs of those who use and rely on the Basin. However, the lack of consensus highlights the difficulty surrounding the Basin’s management over the past several decades. Despite a concerted effort from all parties, a long-term consensus on Basin-wide water management strategies has yet to be reached, meaning the solutions discussed in the Final EIS are meant to function in the interim. Without a long-term agreement, management of the Basin may remain unsettled, potentially affecting those who rely on finalized guidelines and key metrics in the Basin’s management. For more information, see:https://www.usbr.gov/ColoradoRiverBasin/post2026/final-eis/index.html. The Record of Decision and the 2027–2028 Operating Guidelines are available at: https://www.usbr.gov/ColoradoRiverBasin/post2026/decision-doc/index.html.
