Alternatives Development

Overview

The goal of the alternatives development phase of this National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process is to provide a reasonable and broad range of alternatives for managing the Colorado River system and its resources post-2026.

The objectives associated with analyzing a sufficiently broad range of alternatives are two-fold:

  1. Ensuring that decision-makers and the public are informed of all potential impacts and tradeoffs of different operational approaches
  2. Providing analysis for the components that may eventually make up the Preferred Alternative in the Final EIS

    The process of developing the range of alternatives started in 2022 and has been informed by solicitation of input and extensive collaborative engagement with stakeholders throughout the Basin. It is anticipated that the alternatives will continue to be refined through additional input from stakeholders, and public review and comment on the draft environmental impact statement (EIS).

    Alternative Development Process

    Reclamation kicked off alternative development by soliciting input on considerations for alternatives during the pre-scoping and scoping periods in 2022 and 2023. Comments during this time included specific alternatives, different operational proposals, and resource considerations. This input was captured in the Scoping Report for Post-2026 Colorado River Operations (8 MB, PDF)(October 2023).

    Since scoping, Reclamation continued to solicit input, resulting in considerable information from the Basin States (Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming ), many Basin Tribes, conservation organizations, other federal agencies, other stakeholders, and members of the public (submittals are posted below). Input ranged from detailed proposed alternatives to operational concepts and principles.

    Reclamation conducted an extensive engagement process, including conducting over 100 meetings with states, tribes, and other partners to review and discuss their input. For those proposals containing sufficient detail to be considered as a full alternative or a major component of an alternative, Reclamation worked extensively with these entities to not only understand and gather additional information, but also to model and perform preliminary analyses of their proposals to facilitate refinements.

    Reclamation continued to inform the public on the status of alternatives development by conducting a public webinar in October 2024, released preliminary alternative concepts (200 KB, PDF) on November 20, 2024, and published an Alternative Development Report.

    Alternatives Development Report

    On January 17, 2025, Reclamation published the Alternatives Report (3 MB, PDF) to document the preliminary alternatives that were publicly released on November 20, 2024. The five alternatives identified in the report provided a reasonable and broad range of Colorado River operations that would capture an appropriate range of potential environmental impacts from implementing new operational guidelines post-2026. The report also described, in general terms, the process undertaken by Reclamation to develop the alternatives, provided a detailed description of the operational elements for each alternative, and compared the operational elements across each alternative.

    Reclamation released the report to enhance transparency and inform the public, partners, and stakeholders of the alternative operations being considered at the time. The report also served to help foster additional collaboration in the refinement of the alternatives that were eventually included in the Draft EIS.

    Post-2026 Operations Exploration Web Tool

    To facilitate public understanding and input on the alternatives, Reclamation developed and released in December 2023, the Post-2026 Operations Exploration Web Tool, an online platform that allows stakeholders, interested parties and the public to independently or collaboratively design, model and explore a wide range of creative operational strategies. Use of the platform is not considered formal input to the Post-2026 Process, but insights from the 500-plus operational strategies entered into the platform were used to inform alternatives.

    Draft EIS Alternatives

    Through the alternatives development process described above, the following five alternatives (No Action and four action alternatives) were selected to be analyzed in detail in the Draft EIS. The alternatives are described in detail in Chapter 2 of the Draft EIS.

    • No Action Alternative
    • Basic Coordination Alternative (formerly the Federal Authorities Alternative)
    • Enhanced Coordination Alternative (formerly the Federal Authorities Hybrid Alternative)
    • Maximum Operational Flexibility Alternative (formerly the Cooperative Conservation Alternative)
    • Supply Driven Alternative

    Received Alternatives Input

    Beginning in early 2024, Reclamation received input from Basin partners and stakeholders with proposals and considerations for alternatives. Submissions received through November 20, 2024, are included below by date received and submitter.

Last Updated: 1/9/26