GREEN RIVER — Four groups of students in Shawna Mattson’s environmental science class at Green River High School presented proposals last week for reforming the 1922 Colorado River Compact.

Mattson, a science teacher at GRHS, invited members of the local water board and a representative from Trout Unlimited to hear the presentations and offer feedback.

The students’ plans each addressed the same core problem: the original compact promised more water than the river has ever reliably delivered, and climate change is making the gap worse.

“Wyoming has been in a drought for 26 years,” said Kylie Gardner during one presentation. “If we keep using water like we do, we are going to run into serious problems.”

An Outdated Agreement

The 1922 compact allocated water based on an estimated annual flow of 17 to 17.5 million acre-feet, a figure scientists now know was inflated. Modern measurements show the river averages closer to 12 to 14.6 million acre-feet per year. During one presentation, students argued the realistic planning baseline should be dropped even further, to 10 million acre-feet, to account for continued warming and evaporation.

“Scientists expect the basin to become hotter and drier due to climate change,” said Draiven Houchin. “Even when snowfall seems normal, more water evaporates, less snow reaches the river, and droughts are becoming more extreme and common.”

During another presentation, students proposed reducing allocations to 5.5 million acre-feet per basin, bringing total annual allocations to 11 million acre-feet, below current average flows.

“Right now they’re both sitting at about 7.5 million acre-feet,” said RJ Kovick. “We should lower the water rights now.”

Upper Basin Fairness

A recurring theme across all four presentations was fairness to upper basin states like Wyoming, which contribute the river’s snowpack-fed flows but operate under rules written when the region was sparsely populated.

“It doesn’t make sense that the people that live in the upper basin don’t get priority access to it,” Gardner said.

Bryan Seppie, general manager of the Joint Powers Water Board, pressed students on the point, noting it sits at the heart of current negotiations between basin states.

“One of the real benefits for the upper basin states was to allow a future use for the upper basin states to grow into their demand,” Seppie said. “An allocation that not only provides the benefits to the southern states, but allows the upper basin states some flexibility.”

He cautioned that water cuts falling hardest on municipal and industrial users, whose water rights tend to be more recent, would suppress population growth in the upper basin.

Protecting Water for Nature

Each group set aside water specifically for environmental flows, a departure from the original compact’s near-exclusive focus on cities and agriculture.

During one presentation, students proposed legally protecting 500,000 acre-feet per year as in-stream environmental flow that cannot be diverted for human use. The proposal cited the health of the Colorado River Delta, Grand Canyon ecosystems and cold-water fisheries like those at Flaming Gorge Reservoir, which students visited on a field trip earlier this year.

“We saw a fishery firsthand, and they depended on that water,” Houchin said.

During another presentation, students proposed reserving 3 million acre-feet annually for nature, with restrictions barring diversion for agriculture or urban use.

Nick Walrath of Trout Unlimited affirmed the students’ instinct.

“When I think of water, it’s just, especially out in the desert, it’s life,” Walrath said.

Lessons From the Field

Students drew on a series of field trips taken this school year, including visits to Flaming Gorge, a local fish hatchery, a farm along Ashley Creek in Manila, Utah, and Bonneville Dam. The experiences grounded their policy proposals in firsthand observation.

During one presentation, a student recalled watching a cove near Green River drop roughly three feet in a single week.

“Me and my friend went fishing like a week ago,” the student said. “We went there Sunday and half the cove already dried up. In a week span, it dropped maybe like three feet already.”

Students also referenced raising rainbow trout in their classroom, noting a two-week struggle with nitrite and nitrate levels that illustrated how sensitive aquatic ecosystems are to water quality changes.

Lower Basin and Desalination

Several groups targeted California specifically, arguing the state’s ocean access creates an alternative water source unavailable to landlocked upper basin states.

“California can use the ocean,” Gardner said. “They can invest money in desalination plants and use it mostly for outdoor use.”

Seppie acknowledged the logic but pushed back on the economics, noting desalination costs significantly more than river water and that those costs would ultimately reach consumers through higher grocery prices, since much of the nation’s winter produce comes from lower basin farms.

“It is a delicate balance,” Seppie said. “A reduction in water, or an increase in cost of that water, is going to impact food prices.”

One student was undeterred.

“I think it’d be worth it to pay more for our crops and have more water than to save money but watch our lake go low,” the student replied.

A Deadline Looming

Students also addressed the 2026 federal deadline for a new Colorado River operating agreement, noting upper and lower basin states remain deadlocked. The lower basin has proposed a 1.5 million acre-feet reduction while the upper basin disputes how evaporation losses should be counted. If no agreement is reached, students warned, the lower basin could trigger a legal crisis by suing the upper basin for failing to deliver water required under the original compact.

Seppie closed the session by commending the students.

“You guys aren’t glossing this over,” Seppie said. “You’re recognizing how valuable and how important it is to get this under control, and to manage it so that we all are sustained in life.”