A monthly members-only column by Alan Dulaney
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation), which is responsible for managing the Colorado River system as a whole, published its long-awaited draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) in early January 2026. The comment period ended on March 2. The document, some 1600 pages long when the appendices and modeling runs are included, did not make anyone jump for joy, especially in the Lower Basin states.
Five alternatives were described in the draft EIS, and will be very briefly summarized in this column. For in-depth descriptions of the alternatives, go to Chapter 2 of the draft EIS here. Chapter 2 offers much better descriptions of the five alternatives than is possible here. None of them were marked as the preferred alternative, which is not the normal course of events in drafting an EIS. A preferred alternative would have suggested that the seven Colorado Basin states had reached a consensus on how to manage the declining flows in the river, starting with the new water year in October 2026. That did not happen.
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