Tuesday April 21, 2026
Idaho Capital Sun —
Tapping Snake River water to solve the crisis facing the Colorado River Basin would be a stretch, Wyoming Senior Assistant Attorney General Chris Brown told water aficionados Friday at a Jackson symposium.
In fact, the Snake River system is already straining under the same pressures — rising demand and falling supply — as the Colorado River system. The outlook for the Colorado River is so concerning that it’s prompting the federal government to release huge amounts of water from Flaming Gorge Reservoir on the Wyoming-Utah border to prevent Lake Powell from dropping to the point that it could no longer produce power.
After hearing concerns about the potential for transferring water from one basin to the other to augment dwindling supply now threatening Northern Arizona’s Glen Canyon Dam, Brown said he spoke with the state engineer. Wyoming’s constitution gives the state engineer general supervision over all waters in the state, Brown said.