# Why we need a new story for the Colorado River *Published:* 2026-07-23 *Author:* Noa Bruhis As the seven Colorado River Basin states struggle to reach consensus on new operating guidelines, I have been participating in an eye-opening [Colorado River leadership program, ](https://www.watereducation.org/post/colorado-river-water-leaders)expecting to learn about infrastructure, engineering and water law. Instead, I’ve been surprised by subtler narratives about ownership and extraction that bubbled up several times and struck me as a major barrier to a new plan for managing this critical yet shrinking waterway. The Colorado River Water Leaders Program was created by the [Water Education Foundation](https://www.watereducation.org/) to foster networking and education in the face of increased water scarcity. It features a tour of the Colorado River, plus regular cohort meetings afterward to continue the dialogue. Our cohort of 12 people includes staff and leaders from state and federal agencies, irrigation districts, the agricultural sector, and two staff members from environmental nonprofits — a colleague from Trout Unlimited and me. During our six months together, we are charged with collaborating on a policy recommendation for conserving the Colorado River. Our work feels particularly timely as the Bureau of Reclamation is preparing to release its preferred alternative for managing the river with a final environmental impact report as early as next week, shortly after Colorado River Day on July 25. **“It’s not a river, it’s a spreadsheet.”** -------------------------------------------- As a river guide since 2007 with degrees in mechanical engineering, water resources engineering, and human and social dimensions of science and technology, I figured I already understood the Colorado River. I was wrong. It wasn’t until I was confronted with deep-rooted narratives of ownership and extraction that I realized just how important the words we use are. The way we think and talk about the Colorado River shapes negotiations just as much as hydrology does. Early in the tour, I realized I brought a different perspective on the Colorado River than many of the people around me. I have an intimate relationship with several rivers in the West from visiting their banks year after year and feeling the raw power of their currents. So it surprised me when one participant on our Colorado River tour muttered under her breath, “It’s not a river, it’s a spreadsheet.” Such a sterile view of an alive and dynamic waterway was so alien to me. As our tour continued, it became clear that this reductive line of thinking can gridlock our discussions. When the river is nothing more than a series of inputs and outputs, not only do we forget about the ecological and cultural benefits of a river, but groups get excluded from the spreadsheet. They never get a voice in the conversation. This realization came during lunch at the Imperial Valley Irrigation District, when our guest speaker gestured at the land spread out before us. He said that the state of California was allocated 4.4 million acre-feet of the Colorado River annually, and then he said something that shocked me to my core. “Nobody was using it,” he claimed, so they started using up to 5.2 million acre-feet instead. It would have been easy to dismiss the speaker’s comment as casual shorthand. But the statement revealed deeper flaws — that water users are incentivized to consume as much water as possible instead of conserving it. The statement was also just untrue: It ignored the native Tribes that rely on the river but [aren’t being factored into the accounting](https://www.naturalresourcespolicy.org/publications/policy-brief-4-final-4.9.21-.pdf), and the entire country of Mexico, still downstream. The statement only further underscored how decades-old ideas about how we value water and who “owns” it have become woefully out of date. **Manifesting a new destiny** ------------------------------ In 1922, the year Colorado River water was legally [divided up](https://www.audubon.org/news/the-colorado-river-compact-100), the United States government viewed rivers as engines to fuel growth. The water coursing through canyons existed to be [tamed](https://www.usbr.gov/lc/hooverdam/history/storymain.html), to serve humans and growing economies. Dams would be built and celebrated as great engineering achievements, and “unused” water represented wasted opportunity. These national ideals of manifest destiny, settlement and homesteading no longer serve us a century later, with populations that are exponentially larger and a climate that is becoming drier and hotter. We need a new story for the Colorado River. ![](https://blogs.edf.org/waterfront/wp-content/blogs.dir/110/files//Hoover-Dam-Cropped-1024x935.jpeg)The Water Education Foundation’s 2026 Colorado River Water Leaders Cohort at Hoover Dam, one of the stops on our Colorado River tour. The Dam has been championed as an engineering marvel since it was completed in 1936. *Photo credit: Water Education Foundation* **What’s the new story?** -------------------------- What I learned while rowing down various stretches of river in the Colorado River Basin shapes the way I think about today’s negotiations. I am not a professional facilitator, but as a river guide, my job is to help foster a love and appreciation for the river. I would be guiding a LGBTQ+ bachelor trip one week and a conservative church group the next. With six whole days on a boat together, you tend to run out of small talk pretty quickly. I had to learn how to talk with anyone — sometimes about touchy subjects we fundamentally disagreed about. The key to cutting through the discomfort was to listen to one another with authentic curiosity and then find things we could agree on. Working at EDF, I also often navigate difficult conversations around water use. I’ve come to realize the importance of looking for common ground, focusing on the fact that we all want everyone to have enough water to live — instead of the ways we differ. Based on these experiences, I was stunned to learn that the negotiators involved in developing new Colorado River guidelines did not have a facilitator or mediator and only recently [requested ](https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-environment/2026/06/06/colorado-river-states-say-mediator-could-resolve-water-standoff/90423462007/)one. I can’t help but wonder if someone in that role could have helped start the process on a completely different foot by focusing on shared values rather than how much water each state wants. Perhaps having *shared* values could cause a shift to a new, much-needed mindset recognizing the need to *share* water. One leader from my cohort gave a powerful example of what this looks like on a very small scale. She talked about visiting her grandma in Israel as a child and taking a bath. After she was done, her cousin got in the bath with the same water, and then another cousin followed. And after they were done, her grandma used the water for her houseplants. That experience showed a different respect for water — and recognition of water scarcity. To use the Colorado River more sustainably, I’m not suggesting the only way forward is for everyone to start sharing bathwater. But I do wish people emulated this thinking more, showing up to spaces asking, “how can I help?” instead of “how much can I extract?” Only then will we make meaningful progress towards a sustainable Colorado River. *This blog was co-written by EDF intern Allie Skalnik.*