With less than three weeks to go before a crucial deadline in the negotiations over Colorado River water rights, a state official told the Colorado Springs Utilities Board of Directors on Wednesday to hope for a broad framework.

The states at the upper and lower ends of the Colorado River have spent years negotiating how to replace the 2007 operating guidelines for the river, which are set to expire in 2026. The immediate focus of the negotiations has been on setting rules for how lakes Mead and Powell will continue operating as reservoirs while they face declining water levels.

The states face a Nov. 11 deadline to reach new guidelines or potentially have the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation step in. Becky Mitchell, who represents Colorado on the interstate Upper Colorado River Commission, told the Utilities Board that having the federal government step in at that point could forever change the state’s role in negotiations about the river.

While Mitchell hoped that Colorado River states would be able to provide broad ideas to the government by that deadline, she said the state should be ready for hard decisions about water.

“It is something that we are very familiar with in Colorado. With or without a seven-state deal, Colorado will adopt to our hydrologic reality,” Mitchell said.

Colorado Springs Utilities receives about half of its water supply from the Colorado River basin by diversion across the mountains.

Utilities Board member Nancy Henjum said she appreciated how the city has adopted to water conservation. Colorado Springs has seen significant population growth over the last 40 years while largely maintaining the same level of water supply.

Mitchell appreciated the voluntary conservation steps that residents have made but asked people to “push themselves” to potentially go further.

“You cannot sit anywhere in the state and not recognize how important that is. You must also recognize that we face challenges now that the negotiators did not have” for the 2007 guidelines, Mitchell said.