Flaming Gorge loses water as drought felt higher up Colorado River
As a 20-year drought creeps ever farther up the Colorado River Basin and seven Western states vie for their fair share of water under the century-old Colorado River Compact, [Flaming Gorge Reservoir] on the Wyoming-Utah line is a new flashpoint. Nobody disputes the root of the problem: The agreement dates to a cooler, wetter time and is based on assumptions about precipitation that simply no longer apply, in part due to climate change. But as business owners like [Tony] Valdez are finding out firsthand, recreation is just one of many competing priorities while growing demand in the basin’s more populous downstream states — California, Nevada and Arizona — conflicts with dwindling supply from the more rural states upstream — Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming.