LAS VEGAS — The 40 million people who rely on the Colorado River will continue to wait for a long-term plan for its management as negotiations between the seven states in the river basin remain stalled.
One illustration of that impasse: The seven negotiators did not meet during this week’s three-day Colorado River Water Users Association annual conference, despite representatives from each state spending that time in the same windowless Las Vegas hotel.
“All seven of us have been in this city, yet we were not able to meet,” Colorado’s negotiator, Becky Mitchell, said during a panel discussion. “That is a lost opportunity.”
Instead, negotiators from the Lower Basin — California, Arizona and Nevada — and those from the Upper Basin states of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico presented their proposed plans in separate panels. That is a break from years past when they sat on a panel together.
Policymakers, academics, irrigators and water attorneys gathered in the Nevada desert this week to discuss the future of the highly contentious river that makes modern life possible for so many people across a vast swath of the American Southwest. The current guidelines that dictate how water is shared among the seven Colorado River basin states are set to expire at the end of 2026, and government leaders must create a new plan before then.
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