In this arid corner of La Plata County, the trite observation that every drop of water counts is more than a cliché. It’s gospel. It’s logical then that the dam under construction a mile or two south of here to hold back water against hard times is a popular project.

Electra Lake will be closed to recreation this summer to allow Xcel Energy to repair the 30-year-old dam. “The public will not have access to recreation from late May into the late fall,” company spokesman Mark Stutz said Monday.

As of Monday, Jackson Gulch Reservoir's content was low, real low. "This is the lowest I have seen it and I have been here 23 years," said Gary Kennedy, Superintendent Mancos Water Conservancy District. As of Monday, the content of Jackson Gulch was 2,350 acre feet or 23.5 percent, with an inflow at about 20 cubic feet per second.

After decades of dismay in Mexico over the state of the delta, there is reason for some optimism. An amendment to a seven-decades-old treaty between the United States and Mexico, called Minute 319, will send water down the river once again and support efforts to restore native habitat and attract local and migratory wildlife.

According to a recent Durango Herald article, Sen. Ellen Roberts (R-Durango) recently won unanimous support for Senate Bill 41 in the agriculture committee. Her bill counteracts a 2011 Supreme Court ruling on the Yampa River that said reservoir owners cannot get an absolute right to water in their reservoirs unless it is all put to beneficial use. Colorado law has a use it or lose it approach to water in order to prevent hoarding or speculation. But legislators and their allies in the water business think the court took that doctrine to an extreme. “The Supreme Court basically issued us an invitation to do something different than what their case came up with,” Roberts said. Denver Water CEO Jim Lochhead said that unless the bill passes and reverses the Supreme Court ruling, utilities would have to suck their reservoirs dry before they could get new water rights. “It’s hopefully stepping back to a time where it’s a much more practical reading of the law,” Lochhead said. The bill says storing water for firefighting and drought mitigation is a beneficial use, and that water rights can’t be considered to be abandoned when the water is in long-term storage.

With persistent drought conditions across Colorado and low reservoir levels in the southwest, water resource managers are looking at a potentially long and arid summer. Following a dry 2012, the warmest year on record, reservoir levels were already on the low side. Reservoir storage exactly one year ago sat at 104 percent of average, which helped the area get through late summer shortages.

Lake Powell won’t be looking its best for its 50th birthday this year. The key reservoir in the Colorado River Basin is almost 100 feet below full pool and recently dipped to below 50 percent capacity, according to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s operations update. Specifically, the reservoir level was 98.5 feet below full as of March 11, and at 49 percent of capacity.

Two dry winters in a row have left Colorado’s mountains bare and our reservoirs dangerously low. Dealing with unpredictable weather is part of our way of life in the West, but the long-term effects of this ongoing drought demand that we act now. The latest report from the U.S.

Some of the West’s biggest reservoirs could dry up completely as the region gets warmer and drier in coming decades, and major increases in storage capacity probably won’t help address regional water shortages, according to a new study authored by researchers with Colorado State University, Princeton and the U.S. Forest Service.