Officials negotiating to protect and redefine use of the Colorado River face a major deadline approaching on Feb. 14.
And experts said an agreement is unlikely to come in time for the river, which is a major source of drinking water, irrigation and hydropower in seven western states.
The deadline on a new Colorado River water use deal was set for last November, but got pushed back after an initial agreement was not reached. As the second deadline looms, the U.S. government has retained the right to impose a contract on the states.
"Water fundamentally underscores all aspects of life in the American Southwest,” said John Berggren, regional policy manager at Western Resource Advocates, an environmental policy group.
“It's such a diverse and complicated system that it’s a challenge to manage or create new guidelines," Berggren told The Center Square.
The Colorado River provides drinking water for roughly 40 million people across seven states, over 30 Indigenous tribes and Mexico. The river has been consistently depleted for the last quarter of a century amid droughts and overuse by people, largely for agriculture. River usage has been negotiated for decades, with the current 2007 agreement set to expire this year.
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