By Quentin Young | editor
“Being in this area all my life, this has been the worst that I’ve seen.”
– Philip Rossi, Routt County rancher
Water levels in the Wolford Mountain Reservoir in Grand County, which dams a tributary of the Colorado River, have dropped by more than 30 feet during extreme drought conditions in 2026. (Photo by Chase Woodruff/Colorado Newsline)
As litigation looms and drought takes its toll, state officials defiant over Colorado River’s future
By Chase Woodruff
Just as experts and decision-makers from across the water policy landscape gathered in Steamboat Springs this week for the annual summer conference of the Colorado Water Congress, grim news arrived from about 600 river miles downstream: Water levels in Lake Powell, on the Colorado River along the Arizona-Utah border, had officially fallen to a record low. Further downstream, Lake Mead, which together with Lake Powell forms the backbone of a Colorado River Basin system that serves an area home to 40 million people, hit its own record low a week earlier. Years of negotiations between Colorado and six other Colorado River Basin states have failed to produce a new long-term agreement on water allocations, and a set of federal operating guidelines for Lakes Powell and Mead that had been in place since 2007 will expire at the end of this year.
A view of the Alfred A. Arraj U.S. Courthouse in downtown Denver on May 30, 2023. (Quentin Young/Colorado Newsline)
By Sara Wilson
A federal judge Thursday blocked part of a new Colorado law that deals with inspections at immigration detention centers, at least until a contract between private prison operator The GEO Group and U.S. Immigration and Enforcement expires in October. U.S. District Court Judge Daniel Domenico granted a partial preliminary injunction against House Bill 26-1276 after GEO, which operates the state’s only immigration detention center, sued over its constitutionality. Domenico’s order voids a section of the law that allows health departments to conduct unannounced inspections at least four times per year and imposes hefty fines for refusal.
President Donald Trump looks on during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on May 27, 2026, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images/Illustration by Colorado Newsline)
COMMENTARY
By Quentin Young
It was always shocking to think that an American president could so subvert democracy as to use taxpayer money to extort a whole state, but direct evidence, as has emerged in Colorado, demands the victim move beyond disbelief to action. The founders of the United States based a war for independence in part on their complaint that George III imposed taxation without representation. The Trump administration has one-upped the king. It imposes taxation with retaliation. Like the colonies, Colorado doesn’t have to take tyrannical abuse sitting down.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Thanks for reading Newsliner. Did you know our weekend digest is also free? Sign up here. And if you enjoyed today’s edition, please forward to a friend. Increasing our readership helps us cover more news.