As the Lee Fire tears through more than 137,000 drought-parched acres in northwest Colorado — now the fifth largest wildfire in state history — hundreds of water experts and policymakers gathered just miles away in Steamboat Springs for the 2025 Summer Colorado Water Congress Conference

“It’s a great turnout this year,” said the Water Congress’s membership director, AnnaLee Taylor. “We have a record attendance with over 500 attendees joining us for it this year.” 

The Colorado Water Congress provides an avenue for experts to meet and share, as the state confronts water issues.

Kicking off the conference was “Pathways to a Pool: How to Make Voluntary Conservation Add Up,” which, moderated by former Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter, included hydrologists, tribal consultants, western agriculture representatives and conservationists on the panel.

The workshop highlighted voluntary conservation practices being implemented that experts said are achieving measurable results in the Colorado River Basin, including seasonal fallowing, split-season irrigation and crop switching. 

“People often ask me when I was in office what things I could have done a better job at, and one of them is water,” said Ritter. He added that with 80% of the basin’s consumptive use going to agriculture, “it’s important to have a plan on conservation where agriculture is concerned.”

Taking the podium first was Dan Waldvogle, program officer for Conscience Bay Research and Western States Ranches, who explained that the state’s water problem stems from the fact that “we never had the water we thought we had at the beginning,” referring to the 1922 Colorado River Compact, which divided the river’s water between the Upper and Lower Basin states and which grossly overestimated the river’s water supply.

This led to allocating more water than was available.

“With the Upper Basin states using 4.5 million acre-feet per year and the Lower Basin states 8.5 million, the math doesn’t add up. We’re one bad or even average year away from disaster,” he said.  

Waldvogle added that there is a statistical chance that Lake Powell could hit its minimum power pool threshold as soon as December 2026. The solution, he said, and one currently being touted by water policy makers, is the move toward a supply-driven model. But constituents need to agree on the modeling and how to estimate that flow, including what percentage of water to shepherd past Lee’s Ferry at the Glen Canyon Dam and what happens if that amount falls short, he said.

Waldvogle displayed a quote from Scott Cameron, senior advisor to the Secretary of the Interior: “Having senior water rights does not give you a free pass for what’s happening in the greater community.”

All the Upper Basin states need to get involved, he added, with New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming all farther ahead in the process than Colorado is in some of these decisions. 

Water conservation programs

The first day’s discussions also tackled the biological, economic and social factors to consider when designing such conservation programs, as well as how to sustain the viability of farms, ranches, and rural communities — all while balancing increased water demands.

Saying the state needs to conserve between 2 and 4 million acre-feet of water per year, Seth Mason, principal hydrologist for Lotic Hydrological, presented his case analyzing strategies to measure the effectiveness of various conservation programs and assessing the likelihood of people to participate in them willingly.

One technique is analyzing geographic predictors of conserved consumptive use (CCU), with “most of the state’s agriculture occurring in mid-elevation ranges of between 6,000 and 8,000 feet,” he said.

The higher the elevation, his team found, the less likely ranchers are to conserve water. One of the keys, he said, is changing users’ hearts and minds and shifting attitudes about conservation.

“Attitudes toward conservation are a critical constraint,” he said, adding they create “significant uncertainty in the scaling up of conservation efforts.”

He added that having a unified voice is also essential.

“Until we have a cohesive, collective vision, it’s going to be hard to move the CCU needle,” he said. 

Dan Mooney, an assistant professor of agricultural and resource economics at Colorado State University, explained the importance of voluntary irrigation curtailments and how they positively affect CCU.

“They’re potentially a major contributor to a pool, in particular for livestock operations,” he said, adding his team analyzes how shut-off dates affect everything from grazing periods to forage production.

Depending on the type of business, earlier shut-off dates are less profitable for farmers, even factoring in payments, with cut-offs around July 1 more favorable and profitable. 

Following a panel of agricultural providers, who echoed that a one-size solution won’t work and that it’s essential to consider the ecological, wildlife and wetland benefits irrigation provides, Ritter, the former governor, added, “There are barriers to conservation that are embedded deeply into agricultural providers.” 

Other presentations included “Forging a Path Forward for Urban/Ag Water Sharing in the Arkansas River Basin,” which was moderated by Agricultural Water Planning Specialist Nora Flynn. On the panel are Colorado Water Conservation Board members.

Moderated by Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, the panel featured public interest attorneys representing Colorado in interstate water law.

Meanwhile, Denver Water CEO Alan Salazar moderated a panel discussion on “Conserving Water on the Domestic Side,” sharing how Colorado communities large and small are working to conserve water, make it available for economic development and keep rates affordable.