Wyoming seeks role in Upper Basin conservation framework; agencies aim to meet 11/11/2025 deadline

State Engineer Brandon Gebhardt and an attorney from the Attorney General’s Office briefed the Agriculture, State & Public Lands & Water Resources Committee on efforts to shape post‑2026 operations of the Colorado River and the role a Wyoming pilot conservation program could play in a basin‑wide consensus. Reclamation has given the basin states a deadline of Nov. 11, 2025, to submit a framework for a consensus agreement on post‑2026 operations, they said.

Gebhardt described the working concept under discussion among the seven basin states: calculate Lake Powell releases as a percentage of a short‑term average of natural flow at Lee Ferry (the parties are tentatively discussing a three‑year averaging period), adopt upper and lower release bounds, and identify actions the Upper Basin would take to meet the agreed percentage. Those actions would include coordinated releases from Flaming Gorge, Aspinall and Navajo reservoirs and a voluntary, compensated conservation program in the Upper Basin designed to conserve consumptive use that could be banked or delivered to meet release obligations in dry years.

Wyoming staff held public meetings and advisory‑committee sessions in July (Green River, Pinedale, Lyman and Baggs) to solicit local input on a potential pilot. Major topics raised included notice to potentially affected water users, methods for quantifying conserved consumptive use (remote sensing was discussed as a likely tool), whether “shepherding” (physically managing flows in a river reach) would be required, how to avoid injurious effects to other water rights, and Fontenelle Reservoir as a potential place to store conserved water because of its size, uncommitted storage and strategic location.

Advisory‑committee members formally recommended exploring a pilot and authorized staff to pursue the ability to store conserved water in Fontenelle, provided stored releases would be used for Wyoming beneficial uses, to mitigate curtailments, or to help meet Wyoming’s interstate obligations and would not injure other appropriators. State staff said they are working with Reclamation and the Upper Colorado River Commission on storage contracting and are coordinating with other states about how an Upper Basin program would integrate with a larger framework.

Committee members were told that funding will be necessary to implement compensation and monitoring; staff said federal partners and potential existing funds being considered in Washington, D.C., may be sources if a basin consensus is reached. Officials said the pilot is intended to be voluntary, temporary and compensated, and to be designed so Wyoming’s rules and local conditions can be accommodated while creating a model that could be folded into a multi‑state solution.

Officials said their next steps are to draft proposed statutory language for a pilot, circulate the draft to advisory groups and interested stakeholders for comment, and return to the committee with a proposed draft in advance of the committee’s November meeting.