San Diego — long among the cities most dependent on the Colorado River — has reversed course so sharply that it may now have water to sell to other states whose Colorado River allocations are being cut.
NPR reported the development Tuesday, June 3, 2026. The Colorado River has been shrinking for years, and states that rely on it are facing tightening supplies. San Diego’s turnaround stands out: the city spent decades drawing heavily from the river, then built out alternative sources aggressive enough that it now sits in a position most river-dependent communities don’t.
The specifics of any potential sale — which states might buy, at what price, or under what legal framework — weren’t detailed in NPR’s report. Water rights on the Colorado River operate under a complex priority system, and any transfer would almost certainly face regulatory scrutiny before water moved anywhere.
The river’s decline has been grinding for more than two decades. Reservoirs Lake Mead and Lake Powell — the two largest on the system — dropped to historic lows in recent years, forcing the federal government to negotiate mandatory cuts among the seven states that share the river’s flow. Those negotiations have been contentious, with upper-basin and lower-basin states clashing over who absorbs the deepest reductions.
San Diego’s shift didn’t happen overnight. The city moved aggressively after a 1991 drought exposed how exposed it was — at the time drawing roughly 95 percent of its water from outside sources, much of it Colorado River water brokered through the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. Subsequent deals, desalination investment, and conservation programs chipped away at that dependence over the following three decades.
Whether San Diego can actually execute a sale, and to whom, hasn’t been confirmed.
Reported by NPR. Read the original report.
