PHOTO: Western state water commissioners fighting over declining reservoir levels in February 2026. No winner has been declared.
The clock is ticking to decide who conserves how much water from the Colorado River during low water years. With the final deadline now less than four months away, Utah and Wyoming are trying to get their neighbor states to renew negotiations…
— from ‘Utah, Wyoming plead for hydrological truce before Colorado River deadline’ by Eva Terry in Deseret News, June 12, 2026.
Fighting, fighting, fighting. Seems like everyone wants to be fighting, these days.
Fighting about water. Fighting about oil. Fighting about healthcare. Fighting about housing. Fighting about civil rights. Fighting about who’s going to wash the dishes…
(Actually, I wouldn’t mind having an argument about who washes the dishes, but I live alone with my cat. You can’t win an argument with a cat.)
And fighting on the White House lawn — for sport? — until they’re bruised and bleeding?
Where are the white flags when we really need them?
From a New York Times article by Scott Dance, reporting from Boulder, Colorado, June 15, 2026:
Negotiations are going nowhere despite more than six months of ongoing talks, plus cajoling by the Trump administration, which twice gathered governors in hopes of a breakthrough that never came. States are already sniping at aspects of a water-use plan the federal Bureau of Reclamation is set to unveil this summer and impose later this year, and they’re threatening to sue each other over water deliveries, raising the prospects of prolonged legal battles just as Western states face demands to sharply reduce water use…
I wanted to find a photo of the western states water commissioners, fighting about water deliveries — not because I like photos of people fighting (I don’t) — but because I was hoping (in vain) to find a shot where at least one of the commissioners was holding a white flag.
Unfortunately, all I found were commissioners surrounded by “state flags”. Not helpful.
Not that I have anything against the idea of “state flags”. In fact, I tremble at the thought of the federal government being in total control. The people on Washington DC seem unable to do anything except fight about stuff.
Apparently, two of the seven states that have been draining the Colorado River — Utah and Wyoming — are trying to get their neighbor states to renew negotiations concerning the falling water levels in Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the two largest water reservoirs in the U.S. I wish the two of them all the best, in that regard, even though their combined population for both states totals about 4.2 million, which is, like, less than the Phoenix metropolitan area. And about one-third the population of the Los Angeles metropolitan area.
It’s really tempting to wave a white flag when you’re completely outnumbered.
But it didn’t have to be like this.
Back in 1847, about 70,000 members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — often referred to as the ‘Mormon pioneers’ — escaped from Illinois and Missouri, and settled near the Great Salt Lake, in the northern region of what was then the Republic of Mexico. Not being familiar with the Spanish language, and belonging to a rather different religion, the leaders determined that things would go better for them if the vast Western wasteland in which they had settled were part of the United States. So they drew up a map of a proposed U.S. state to be called ‘The State of Deseret.’
A rather large state. 1 million square miles, give or take.
Like, bigger than Texas.
Of course, this didn’t ever happen. But if it had, we wouldn’t have all this fighting about the Colorado River, because the State of Deseret encompassed the entire drainage.
Some readers will naturally assume that the Mormon leadership suffered from poor spelling, and had meant to apply as the ‘State of Desert‘.
But in fact, the word “Deseret” is derived from the word for “honeybee” in the Book of Mormon…
…which helps explain the presence of a beehive on the Utah state flag.
It doesn’t explain, however, why the Mormons have never had a queen bee in charge. The Church leadership has been consistently male.
No doubt the Wyoming flag also has an interesting history behind its symbolism. But I have no idea what it might be.
A French bulldog?
At any rate, we’re talking here about two states — Utah and Wyoming — that have historically been sending a lot of water downstream to Phoenix and Los Angeles, without so much as a “Thanks for all the water” from the Lower Colorado River Basin states.
Reportedly, the U.S. and Iran have a verbal agreement to open the Strait of Hormuz… and allow the price of gas to become somewhat reasonable again.
“Ships of the World, start your engines,” said President Trump. “Let the oil flow!”
If two countries who dislike each other as much as Iran and the U.S. can agree to stop fighting, then the seven Colorado River states ought to be able to establish a truce around a few trillion gallons of water.
Utah and Wyoming seem to be waving a white flag, but I haven’t heard that any of the other states are respecting the truce.
Flags don’t seem to mean what they used to mean.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all. You can read more stories on his Substack account.