It’s not difficult to imagine a Monopoly board based on the Colorado River. The board is the river system itself – fixed spaces, fixed geography, only so much to give. Two reservoirs sit at one-third full and likely to decline further; power generation is in jeopardy; evaporation drains water like a fee every time you pass “Go.” A large and growing Southern California population crowds one side of the board, and Indigenous tribes long left out are now stepping up for a rightful share. This is not a game, but a stark reality that demands our immediate attention.
The players are the Basin States – Upper (Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico) and Lower (California, Arizona, Nevada) – each taking their “turn,” all dependent on the same limited supply. The “money” is the water itself, and the hydrologic banker is running low. The properties are legal entitlements: priority dates, compact rights and historical allocations that states hold onto even when the river can no longer supply those amounts. And just as in Monopoly, trading properties becomes the equivalent of negotiating shortages to stay in the game.
A few squares in this imagined board would show conservation bonuses, while others – those with hotels – would bring penalties, not income. There is no get-out-of-jail-free card. The fortunes and lifestyles of roughly 40 million people (27 in the lower basin; 13 million in the upper) still depend on the dice – or, more realistically, the climate. Or on decisions by the Bureau of Reclamation or the courts rather than by the seven states.
The 1922 Compact, drafted in a wet year, split the river by quantity rather than percentage. Over time, those fixed amounts have proved adequate for slower-growing upper basin states and grossly inadequate for the booming populations of Southern California and Nevada. Both basins have adopted conservation and reuse, though both still fall short.
Tuesday, Nov. 11, was the deadline for the seven states and Indigenous leaders to present a shared framework for managing the river through continued drought. Nothing emerged.
In Monopoly, refusing to trade or adapt only hastens collapse. The same is true on the Colorado River. Survival depends not on holding tight to old allocations, but on negotiating a path that keeps the whole board functioning. If the states fail, the Bureau of Reclamation – or the courts – will do it for them. Far better to craft the rules than to live with imposed ones. States, keep at it.
