Tipping Point: Colorado River Reckoning is a live town hall on the challenges facing the Colorado River — a prime source of water in the arid West that 40 million people depend on for hydropower, to slake growing cities and irrigate some of the most productive agricultural land in the country. Seven states, more than two dozen Native American tribes and Mexico all have an interest in the fate of the river.
The Upper Basin states (Utah, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico) and the Lower Basin states (California, Nevada and Arizona) are currently negotiating, slowly, a new agreement to manage the dwindling river. The current rules expire in 2026 and decades of megadrought conditions, and drained reservoirs, have only increased the pressure to cut back on demand.
The webcast, scheduled 7 p.m. EDT / 5 p.m. MDT, will be hosted by PBS News science correspondent Miles O’Brien and will include conversations with these guests:
- Bruce Babbitt, former Arizona governor and former U.S. Secretary of the Interior
- John Fleck, Director, Water Resources Program at the University of New Mexico & author of several books on the Colorado River Basin
- JB Hamby, Chairman, Colorado River Board of California & Colorado River Commissioner for the state of California
- Mark Kelly, United States Senator from Arizona
- Karen Kwon, Associate Project Director, Colorado River Sustainability Campaign
- Pat Mulroy, President and CEO of Sustainable Strategies Consulting and former CEO of the Southern Nevada Water Authority
- Jim Lochhead, Former CEO, Denver Water
- Jack Schmidt, Professor at Utah State University’s Quinney College of Natural Resource
- Heather Tanana, Visiting Professor, UC Irvine school of Law & member of the Navajo nation
