Feb. 14 was no Valentine for the seven states of the Colorado River, which failed to come up with an agreement by that deadline on how to manage the dwindling water resource beginning Oct. 1.

The U.S. Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Reclamation on Saturday announced it would move forward with a set of alternatives, compiled into a draft Environmental Impact Statement released last month.

It also released a 24-month study this week on the projected water levels, which showed that the level at Glen Canyon Dam on Lake Powell is just 8 feet above triggering a response to low water levels that could shut down hydropower operations.

And that could happen as soon as the end of the year.

Lake Powell is the water bank for the four states of the Upper Colorado River basin, including Colorado.

Acknowledging the collapse of the negotiations, which became public Friday, the Department of the Interior said in a Saturday statement, “While the seven Basin States have not reached full consensus on an operating framework, the Department (of the Interior) cannot delay action. Meeting this deadline is essential to ensure certainty and stability for the Colorado River system beyond 2026.”

The federal government had set two deadlines for the seven states, split into upper (Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico and Utah) and lower states (California, Nevada and Arizona). The first deadline was Nov. 11. When the states couldn’t come up an agreement, a second deadline of Feb. 14 was set.

The negotiations have largely centered on just how much each basin is willing, or able, to reduce their allocations of Colorado River water.

Both the upper and lower basin states, under the law of the river, have a right to about 75 million acre-feet of water over a 10-year period, or about 7.5 million per year on average. The lower basin states have taken more, by about one million acre-feet, because for years they did not account for evaporative or leaky infrastructure losses.

That’s no longer the case; the lower basin states agreed to take that into consideration, although it’s come at a time when allocations to the three lower basin states have been reduced over the last three years, mostly hitting Arizona’s allottment.

The upper basin states have maintained that they take far less than what they’re entitled to and aren’t willing to agree to any reductions, claiming they’ve already done their fair share.

Department of the Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, in the Saturday statement, acknowledged the seven states have been negotiating and that the federal government has “narrowed the discussion by identifying key elements and issues necessary for an agreement. We believe that a fair compromise with shared responsibility remains within reach,” Burgum said.

The federal bureau is holding fast to its Oct. 1, 2026 deadline — the beginning of the 2027 water year — to have an agreement in place.

Some hold out hope for a multi-state agreement, including Colorado Sen. John Hickenlooper, who urged the states to keep working.

That’s in hopes of avoiding litigation, a possibility that many observers and the negotiators have raised and which is growing louder.

In a Feb. 14 statement, Hickenlooper said the “best path forward is the one we take together. Litigation won’t solve the problem of this long-term aridification. No one knows for sure how the courts could decide and the math will only get worse.”

That’s a reference to this year’s todate record low snowpack, coupled with dwindling water levels at both

Lake Powell and Lake Mead.

Powell is almost 32 feet lower than at this time last year. As of Feb. 13, the nation’s second largest reservoir stood at 3,533 feet above sea level. That’s about 160 feet above what’s traditionally been viewed as dead pool or the level that would cause the cessation of hydropower operations at the reservoir’s Glen Canyon Dam.

Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the country and home to Hoover Dam, hasn’t dropped as much from a year ago. Its current level, at 1,065 feet, is 170 feet above dead pool.

But the two reservoirs don’t have to get all the way to dead pool for hydropower operations to be affected.

That was part of a statement Friday