Alternatives Development

The Post-2026 process is a multi-year NEPA process to determine long-term operations for Lake Powell and Lake Mead after the expiration of existing operating agreements in 2026. The alternatives development phase of the process began in fall 2023 and will continue through fall 2024. The goal of this phase is to develop a broad range of reasonable alternatives for analysis in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS). Beginning in March 2024, proposed concepts for alternatives were submitted by Basin partners and stakeholders (submittals are posted below). Since that time, Reclamation has been working extensively with those entities to understand, gather additional information, refine, model, and perform preliminary analyses of their proposals as part of efforts to develop a reasonable and broad range of alternatives and to make progress towards building consensus-based, long-term, and sustainable river operations. The range of alternatives will be released in December 2024.

Central to Reclamation’s collaboration with entities on proposed alternative concepts is the development of a web-based Post-2026 Operations Exploration Web Tool. The tool is a result of decades of collaborative research and development and is designed to enable users with different levels of technical skill to explore, create, and compare potential operating strategies using a common platform to enhance the development of alternatives.

In early 2024, Reclamation received input from Basin partners and stakeholders with proposals and considerations for alternatives. Letters received are included below by date received and submitter.

Last Updated: 10/10/24