Senators to tour Colorado River as water negotiations reach critical juncture

A bipartisan delegation of Western senators and federal officials will tour key points along the Colorado River next week to see the nation’s depleted reservoirs and the basin’s vast water infrastructure.

The trip, which is being organized by Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democrat, comes amid tense state negotiations and looming federal action to address the fast-moving water crisis on the Colorado River. Water levels in the nation’s largest reservoirs Lakes Mead and Powell have dropped precipitously in recent years due to decades of overuse and hotter, drier weather driven by climate change.