Class Five Rapids on the CRB
Friends of Confluence West
Welcome to Three Drop Thursday, a snapshot of what we’ve been paying attention to this week.
Last week's Getches-Wilkinson Center's Colorado River Conference rolled out the good, bad, and the (really) ugly. It was clear that without this year's (unexpected) big snowpack, lawsuits would have been flying by now.
John Fleck, the CRB doyen, wrote his usual pithy summary – below, we list his top-line bullet points; you can read his complete piece here. An excellent reporter chimes in with a story on the Tribes’ CRB water rights.
Up this summer - the start of Reclamation’s 2026 Interim Guidelines process, Lower Basin state managers light candles that none of their contractors head to court, and the Basin’s critters and plants rest in this year’s blessed runoff.
Finally, remembering Charles Wilkinson - a remarkable man who inspired, and continues to inspire, all of us. Rest in peace.
For the West,
Kimery
Deadpool Diaries – John Fleck's CRB Snapshot
“I learned stuff at last week's Getches-Wilkinson Center Colorado River conference at the University of Colorado Law School. I learned:
The bodacious snowpack means the chance of Lake Mead dropping below elevation 1,000 is zero.
We still need to cut 1.5 million acre-feet of Colorado River water use, at least. We still have no plan to do that.
We remain at risk of river flows past Lee's Ferry dropping low enough by 2026 to trigger a legal argument about what the Upper Basin really owes the Lower Basin.
We have what was called a "historic accord" to reduce Lower Basin use in the short run, which muchly revolves around paying people to not use water.
The "historic accord" does not take any steps toward resolving longstanding tribal and environmental inequities.”
Photo: Ringside Seats at Mead
What About the 30 CRB Tribes?
Rachel Kuhn at KUNC did an excellent job highlighting the still unclear role the 30 CRB Tribes will have in the upcoming 2026 Interim Guidelines negotiations. (These federally recognized tribes hold rights to about a quarter of the water in the CRB.) And, as Daryl Vigil, a Jicarilla Apache water leader said at the GWC conference, "To think that there's an 'Indian solution' really dishonors that individuality and the uniqueness of each one of those tribes."
Remembering
A few days before the GWC conference last week, Charles Wilkinson died. A remarkable man, he was a force in natural resources law, a tribal advocate, and an inspiring figure for generations of Colorado law students and western environmental advocates.
One of my favorite Wilkinson quotes is from an interview he did years ago: “My water law course is a thinly disguised course in trout fishing. When you trout fish, you need to think in terms of the whole watershed, and that’s what you need to do with water law.”
You can read about his legacy - A Trailblazer for Justice, the Earth, and American Indian Law. Rest in peace, Sir.
We have an unknown distance yet to run, an unknown river to explore. - John Wesley Powell
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