Two of the seven Colorado River negotiators weighed in Friday on the 10‑year management framework unveiled a day earlier by Scott Cameron of the Bureau of Reclamation.

With the seven states along the Colorado River failing to reach an agreement, the federal government is planning to step in with a 10-year framework that would require negotiations every two years.

Their reactions — one from the lower basin and one from the upper basin — diverged sharply, underscoring the long‑standing divide that has kept the states from agreeing on a post‑2026 operating plan before the current guidelines expire around Oct. 1.

Cameron delivered his remarks on Thursday at the Getches‑Wilkinson annual Colorado River conference, hosted by the University of Colorado Boulder law school.

Becky Mitchell is Colorado’s commissioner to the Upper Colorado River Commission. John Entsminger is the general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority and Nevada’s lead negotiator on the Colorado River.

Mitchell said she “has no idea what that process would look like, constantly negotiating every two years. That would be incredibly difficult,” she said.

She was supportive that the framework is tied to actual conditions, what the river is producing as well as what’s in the reservoirs, which she called a definite positive.

She also questioned how to fund projects if the negotiators are constantly renegotiating, and how to create certainty for the 40 million people who rely on the Colorado River.

Last month, the lower basin states, including California, Arizona, and Nevada, put forward their own proposal, one that Mitchell and others believe could form the basis for the Reclamation plan.

That proposal is intended for 2027 and 2028, with “an estimated contribution of at least 700,000 acre-feet and a target of up to a million acre-feet. In total, the plan identifies more than 3.2 million acre-feet of water contributions to the system through 2028.”

Where do the upper basin states of Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico and Utah fit in? The lower basin proposal states they “recognize the Upper Basin’s call for mediation and are open to that process.” Current conditions, however, require immediate and measurable water reductions from every state.

The upper basin states have maintained that they receive only about half the allocation under the current seven-state agreement and would not agree to any further reductions.

Mitchell called the lower basin proposal a good start but one that will need “refinement…[the upper basin states] stand ready to put a contribution program on the table. We stand ready to figure out what that looks like,” she said.

Mitchell added, “We’ve kicked the can down the road long enough. There’s a lot of cans. There’s a lot of lobbyists,” and there’s lots of lawyers, raising the specter of litigation should a deal fail to materialize in time.

Entsminger agreed that renegotiating every two years as part of the 10-year framework was not a good idea. He said Nevada had put out a plan with an analysis of the process, not of actual numbers and elevations.

“You don’t have to go back and redo the whole thing every year,” he said.

But Entsminger called the Bureau plan reasonable and rational, adding “we should take that,” along with a record of decision that would reflect analysis of a process to determine future operations.

Entsminger said he believed that would be the best way to operate the river and avoid court, at least until 2029.

Entsminger was among the drafters of the lower basin proposal.

Will this lead to “federalizing” the river? That’s a situation in which the government is making unilateral decisions in the absence of a seven-state agreement, with concerns that the 10-year framework is the first step.

Entsminger said that if the seven states can’t even agree on what the law of the river requires, then the decisions will ultimately be made by someone else — whether that ends up being the federal courts or Congress — because “a different set of humans is going to make the decisions other than the seven governors’ representatives.”

The risk for the upper basin states under a federalized river is that the Secretary of the Department of the Interior becomes the water master for the upper basin states, an authority he currently doesn’t have.

“As hydrology worsens, consensus is harder to come by,” Entsminger said.

The strength of the entire basin has been when the seven states have worked together, Mitchell said. “That’s where the durable solutions are,” she added.

She said the question is not whether the river will be federalized; it’s how the basin can govern itself well enough that federalization is a backstop, not primary management. But federalization is inevitable without an agreement.

How will water conservation play into making the river sustainable?

Entsminger drew laughs from the audience when he mentioned walking around the Boulder campus, pointing out there’s a metric ****-ton of non-functional turf that doesn’t need to be there. Neither does it belong at Park Meadows Mall. “The Front Range can do more” to conserve, he said.

He pointed out that Nevada has reduced its water use by over 40%, much of it in Las Vegas, through turf reductions and other landscaping initiatives.

Mitchell, while complimenting Nevada’s efforts, said: “Every state will have to work within our budgets and figure out how to make things work within our own states.”

Is litigation unavoidable? “We still believe consensus is the best path forward,” Mitchell responded. She also pointed out that litigation creates neither certainty nor more water.

It’s possible that the seven states will bring in a mediator, or perhaps multiple mediators, to help work out the solution.

Entsminger indicated he’s hopeful the two-year plan can move forward without litigation, then turn to a mediator.