Colorado River Brief — June 23, 2026
Daily Colorado River Brief — Tuesday, June 23, 2026
🚨 Breaking / Most important
The new June 24-Month Study now projects Lake Powell falling to minimum power pool (3,490 ft) by spring 2027 — ~3,498 ft by January and as low as ~3,488 ft by March — even with the Burgum emergency releases underway. Glen Canyon hydropower is now a within-the-year risk, not a tail scenario.
🏛️ Federal / Interior / Reclamation
Reclamation signed a memorandum of understanding (June 8) with six Lower Basin agencies — SDCWA, MWD, SNWA, Arizona DWR, Central Arizona Water Conservation District, and Salt River Project — to study interstate swaps of desalinated and recycled water. It's an assessment commitment, not a delivery, but signals federal appetite for augmentation alongside cuts.
Reclamation is still targeting a draft post-2026 plan by mid-July and final guidelines in August, with a preferred DEIS alternative to be identified this summer. The administration has reiterated it could impose up to 3 MAF/year of Lower Basin cuts if the states stay deadlocked.
Senate Energy & Natural Resources oversight hearing (June 10) on post-2026 operations largely devolved into procedural fights (Roadless Rule, firefighter benefits) before river witnesses were heard — little substantive progress.
💧 Reservoir ops & hydrology
Lake Powell ~3,523 ft (down from ~3,528 ft in late May); Lake Mead ~1,044 ft (down from ~1,055 ft). Mead projected to ~1,036 ft by Dec 2026.
Flaming Gorge releases began June 13 at a 1,600 cfs daily average, part of the 660K–1M AF Apr 2026–Apr 2027 plan.
Water-year inflow to Powell tracking ~40% of average (April study, 3.87 MAF). Upper Basin snowpack finished near a 40-year low.
⚖️ Policy, legal, post-2026 negotiations
Governor-level escalation: Colorado Gov. Polis declared a statewide drought emergency June 4 — the first governor-level drought action of this cycle, hardening the Upper Basin's "we're already cutting uncompensated" posture and its precondition that any released reservoir water be fully recovered.
Meeting posture: the June 10 forum was a federal legislative hearing in DC, not a basin-states caucus; no new in-person commissioner or governor summit surfaced this cycle. UCRC's May "insufficient / go to mediation" stance still stands against the LB 3.2 MAF bridge proposal.
Legal posture: no new lawsuit filings, counsel retentions, or SCOTUS/DOJ activity disclosed in the last 24–48h. Arizona's Sullivan & Cromwell retention and $3M defense fund remain the standing markers.
🌾 Lower Basin / Imperial Valley specific
IID continues to back the LB 3.2 MAF bridge plan and its offer of up to 200K AF additional 2026 system conservation, while insisting any post-2026 framework "comply with the Law of the River."
Five LB agencies (incl. MWD, SDCWA) are now signatories to the federal desal/recycled-water MOU — a sign of California urban agencies hunting for augmentation supply.
Local: Imperial County's Board of Supervisors paused all data-center projects for 45 days on June 16 amid community opposition — relevant to IID load growth and water/power planning.
📹 Latest Local Meetings (via munigraph.ai)
IID Board of Directors — June 16, 2026 (archive; IID meets 1st & 3rd Tuesdays, 1 p.m.)
Imperial County Board of Supervisors — June 16, 2026 (data-center moratorium adopted)
📈 Significance for Imperial Valley
Polis's drought emergency is the escalation signal of the week: it strengthens the Upper Basin's refusal to accept curtailment and pushes the whole burden toward the Lower Basin — exactly the asymmetry JB Hamby's March DEIS letter warned against. With Powell now projected to hit minimum power pool by spring 2027 and Reclamation's mid-July draft looming, IID's senior-rights, Law-of-the-River argument is about to be tested under maximum federal pressure. The desal MOU shows urban LB agencies diversifying supply — leaving IID's conservation-vs-Salton Sea tradeoff as the basin's hardest unsolved equity problem.
📰 Further Reading
The big picture
Cronkite News: Arizona faces 77% cut as states remain deadlocked — Clear snapshot of the worst-case federal cut scenario and the political stakes for the Lower Basin.
High Country News: Why Colorado River negotiations are so difficult — Good structural explainer on why seven-state talks keep collapsing.
Negotiations & policy
Circle of Blue: Reclamation signs desalinated-water trade MOU (June 8) — Primary reporting on the six-agency augmentation MOU.
Senate ENR: Post-2026 oversight hearing (June 10) — Primary source; witness list and testimony.
USBR: Post-2026 operations hub — Standing primary source for DEIS timeline and the mid-July draft.
Hydrology
Western Water: Lake Powell faces power loss by spring 2027 (June 17) — Best single read on the new 24-Month Study projections.
WaterVerge: Colorado declares statewide drought emergency — Context on Polis's June 4 declaration and the record-low snowpack.
Lake Powell live level · Lake Mead live level — Real-time elevation trackers.
Imperial Valley & IID
IID: Post-2026 must comply with the Law of the River — IID's standing legal framing.
inewsource: Imperial County data-center moratorium — Local load-growth pause with water/power implications.
🎲 One More Thing
Colorado River trivia: Glen Canyon Dam's "minimum power pool" of 3,490 ft isn't where the lake runs dry — it's the elevation below which water no longer reaches the penstocks to spin the turbines. Below that sit the "river outlet works," a set of bypass tubes never designed for sustained full-time use, which is why dropping under min power pool alarms engineers as much as it does power buyers.
Imperial Valley / IID trivia: Before the Salton Sea, the basin held ancient Lake Cahuilla — a freshwater lake roughly 26 times the Salton Sea's modern size that filled and dried repeatedly over centuries as the Colorado River wandered between its delta and the Salton Sink. Cahuilla and Kumeyaay peoples left fish traps and shoreline camps still visible as a faint "bathtub ring" etched onto the surrounding hillsides.
760Times is powered by MyRiver.us — Colorado River intelligence for the Lower Basin.
📅 Why does the calendar show "Jul 17"? Apple hardcoded that date into the emoji artwork when they launched iCal on July 17, 2002. It never changes. The date in the headline is correct.