Editor’s Note: The Front Range sits at the center of one of the American West’s most complex and consequential water challenges. This series examines the interconnected systems that determine how the region secures, stores, and conserves its water while navigating the competing demands of fast‑growing urban communities and the increasingly unpredictable mountain snowpack that underpins the entire system.

Record-breaking drought conditions led Utah Governor Spencer Cox to recently declare a state emergency because of severe conditions driven by the lowest snowpack levels in nearly 100 years.

Will Colorado follow suit?

It remains to be seen.

In March, Gov. Jared Polis activated the state’s Drought Task Force and implemented Phase 2 of Colorado’s Drought Response Plan.

The task force meets Monday, when it is expected discuss the drought’s impact on recreation and fisheries and the possibility of recommending Phase 3, in which the governor would declare an emergency.

“The governor is actively considering and preparing a drought emergency declaration for if and when the conditions are met,” Eric Maruyama, a Polis spokesperson, said in an email.

Phase 3 anticipates major crop losses and widespread water shortages.

Colorado is in Phase 2, which anticipates imposing water restrictions that have been announced this year across the Front Range.

“Colorado is susceptible to droughts that can have significant long-term impact to the state’s environment, economy and population and drought impacts will vary depending on where the drought occurs and how long it persists,” the response plan states. “Drought can move very slowly, with impacts compounding and worsening with time. So, an early drought response is vital.”

The task force was convened to provide the governor with recommended actions. The state last activated Phase 3 of its response plan in 2020, when drought conditions gripped much of the state.

The task force was last mobilized in 2020.

Broadly speaking, a drought is defined as a water shortage associated with a lack of precipitation.

Recent rain storms, while welcomed, have done little to pull the state out of a prolonged drought.

James Eklund, a water rights attorney with Taft/Sherman & Howard, said the drought is worse than in 2002, a benchmark dry year that reshaped water planning across the West.

“The reservoir storage is still incredibly anemic,” Eklund said.

Eklund has previously served on the Colorado Water Conservation Board and as Colorado’s commissioner on the Upper Colorado River Commission. He also helped write the state’s drought response plan.

The effects are evident in Lakes Powell and Mead, the two largest reservoirs in the United States.

Years of drought and heavy use have left these reservoirs so depleted that a single average runoff year would not be enough to refill them.

The system is so stressed that managers are moving water around just to keep its reservoirs functioning. Earlier this month, Denver Water began draining the Antero Reservoir to save the roughly 5,000-acre feet of water that would be lost to evaporation.

“Given the severe drought conditions, we really need every single drop,” Nathan Elder, manager of water supply with Denver Water, has said.

All the handwringing is because of this year’s snowpack.

‘The lowest we’ve ever seen’

In Colorado, mountain snowpack serves as a natural reservoir, slowly releasing water into rivers and streams as it melts. This year, snowpack peaked at about half of normal.

Take Antero, which receives about 13,700 acre-feet of water annually from snowpack.

This year Elder expects just 500 acre-feet.

“It would be the lowest we’ve ever seen,” Elder has said.

An acre foot of water is enough to cover an acre of land with one foot of water, or 325,853.3 gallons. To put that number into perspective, the typical four-person household in Denver annually uses about 70,000 gallons.

Last week, Cox issued an executive order anticipating drought conditions to persist in Utah.

Utah’s declaration was made based on snowpack and reservoir levels, precipitation and temperature outlooks, Kim Wells, spokesperson for the Utah Department of Natural Resources, said in an email. The designation opens the possibility of accessing state emergency funds.

While Colorado draws water from multiple river basins, the Colorado River system remains the state’s largest source of surface water and supplies communities, farms and industries throughout the West.

The Colorado River is critical to both states.

About 40% of Colorado’s water originates in the Colorado River Basin, while roughly 80% of Utah’s water supply comes from the basin.

The Colorado River is managed by a seven-state compact signed in 1922.

No other state in the compact has declared such an emergency — yet.

But other states are responding.

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham issued a formal statewide drought declaration that recognizes severe drought conditions, mobilizes state agencies and encourages local conservation measures. But it leaves most water-use restrictions to local governments.

Wyoming does not require water users to reduce their use unless required to satisfy interstate obligations, but municipalities are implementing water restrictions.

“We are also curtailing water use to satisfy our interstate Compact or Decree obligations in three separate basins,” Amy Edmonds, spokesperson for Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon, said in an email. “If conditions do not improve, more water users may be curtailed to satisfy senior rights.”

Despite years of a stubborn and widespread drought, shrinking Colorado River supplies and record-low snowpack this year, the Utah declaration still relies heavily on voluntary conservation messaging, rather than mandatory statewide reductions.

“We can’t control the weather, but we can control the tap,” Cox said in a statement last week. “Utahns have always stepped up in difficult seasons, and I’m confident we will again.”

About three-fourths of residents in Colorado and Utah are living in drought conditions, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

Roughly 2.7 million people in Utah live in drought conditions. That number in Colorado is 4.6 million.