Utah's chief negotiator over the Colorado River says progress has been made in coming up with a new agreement to manage the water supply for more than 40 million people in the West.
At a news conference on Wednesday, Gene Shawcroft told reporters they had a "conceptual agreement" by the Nov. 11 deadline set by the Trump administration. The current agreements between the seven states along the Colorado River expire in 2026.
"The Nov. 11 deadline, if you will, was more of a milestone for us to have conceptual agreement on a framework," Shawcroft said. "That was achieved yesterday. So what we will do is we will continue to meet on a regular basis until we get to the framework solution. The details, if you will, have to be accomplished by the about the middle of February. But we did not miss a deadline."
The devil is in the details, and it remains unclear what exactly the sticking points are to a final agreement between the Upper Basin and Lower Basin states.
Shawcroft confirmed that hydrology remains a factor. There is simply less water in the Colorado River.
That means cuts are a real possibility.
Read the rest of the story at fox13now.com.
Great Salt Lake is at its lowest water level on record and continues to shrink. Utah Public Radio has teamed up with more than a dozen Utah organizations for the Great Salt Lake Collaborative, a group that has come together to share multimedia stories and rigorous reports about the lake and ways to protect this critical body of water before it's too late.