Colorado River nears limits that could constrain releases at major dams

Posted by Donovan Quintero | Dec 18, 2025 | News |

By Donovan Quintero
Special to the Times

PAGE – The Colorado River system is running out of buffer, and researchers warn the next year or two could push Lake Powell and Lake Mead toward operating conditions where moving water downstream becomes limited by both hydrology and engineering.

That warning matters for the Navajo Nation, which continues to pursue long-term water security for communities across three states as the basin struggles to divide a shrinking supply. The report also arrives as tribal governments and the seven basin states – Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming – remain deadlocked over new operating rules set to replace current guidelines after 2026.

“Conditions on the Colorado River are, to put it bluntly, dire,” the Colorado River Research Group wrote in its new report, “Colorado River Insights, 2025 Dancing With Deadpool.”

Researchers say another dry winter could drain the remaining cushion that has helped the river’s biggest reservoirs absorb drought. If winter 2025 to 2026 is relatively dry and inflows resemble last year, the group wrote, less than 4 million acre-feet in Lake Powell and Lake Mead would be “realistically available” during the nine months between late summer 2026 and the start of snowmelt runoff in 2027.

That is not a shortage forecast. It is a warning about how close the system is to a supply crisis before new post-2026 rules are in place.

To read the full article, please see the Dec. 18, 2025, edition of the Navajo Times.

Get instant access to this story by purchasing one of our many e-edition subscriptions HERE at our Navajo Times Store.