Wyoming’s Water Rights in the Colorado River Basin Face Challenges Without Enhanced Data
Wyoming’s State Engineer, Brandon Gebhart, has issued a call for emergency funding to bolster water flow measurements in the state’s portion of the Colorado River Basin, Wyo File reports.
The move is a critical step to safeguard Wyoming’s water rights amid increasing downstream demands and decreasing river flows caused by climate change and prolonged drought.
Gebhart has asked for $167,210 in supplemental budget funds to hire three full-time hydrographers and launch critical data collection efforts this spring. These hydrographers would focus on measuring flows in the Green and Little Snake River drainages, areas central to Wyoming’s stake in the Colorado River Compact.
The relatively small funding request comes as Wyoming seeks to defend its irrigation and water use rights under the 1922 compact, which allocates water among seven states in the Colorado River Basin. Under this agreement, upper basin states like Wyoming must ensure that 75 million acre-feet of water flow past Lees Ferry, a gauging station below Lake Powell, over a 10-year period. Wyoming’s share of this obligation is approximately 14%.
Prolonged drought has severely reduced basin flows, with the last two decades marking the driest period in over 1,000 years, according to Gebhart. This reality has heightened tensions between upper basin states (Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico) and lower basin states (Arizona, California, and Nevada) over how to manage dwindling resources.
Lower basin states have called for equal cuts between the regions, a proposal upper basin states, including Wyoming, have rejected.
“Mandatory reductions are pretty much a hard ‘no’ for me,” Gebhart said.
He emphasized Wyoming’s commitment to fulfilling its compact obligations without ceding additional water.
To maximize its share of the Colorado River’s water, Wyoming is pursuing three storage projects:
- New Fork Lake expansion
- Fontenelle Reservoir improvements
- West Fork Reservoir on Battle Creek
These projects aim to increase late-season irrigation and bolster Wyoming’s ability to meet compact obligations. However, Gebhart has cautioned that Wyoming lacks the large reservoirs that lower basin states rely on, making it heavily dependent on annual runoff.
Conservation efforts, including voluntary, paid programs, are also under consideration. Such initiatives could allow Wyoming to document water savings and “stash it away in a federal facility” for future use, Gebhart explained.
Accurate measurements are vital for Wyoming to defend its water rights. Hydrologists can document how much water diverted from rivers reaches agricultural fields, leaks from canals, or returns to the system as runoff. Such data is essential to counter downstream claims that Wyoming uses more water than its fair share.
For example, traditional estimates assume that 50% of water applied to fields returns to rivers. However, these rules of thumb may not hold up in legal challenges, making updated and precise data critical.
Despite the tensions between upper and lower basin states, Gebhart remains optimistic that a consensus can be reached without federal intervention. However, he acknowledged the need for quiet diplomacy, noting that such negotiations “are not going to be done in public.”
