Nevada vows to 'fight like hell' if Colorado River share is unfairly cut

LAS VEGAS — Instead of agreeing on a traditional, 20-year deal for the Colorado River, the states that share the water source are focused on a short-term plan as they stare down the basin’s worst snow season in two decades.

But that doesn’t mean officials are ready to agree any time soon, despite mounting federal pressure to do so.

“We are thoroughly prepared to fight like hell if it comes to that,” said John Entsminger, Nevada’s governor-appointed negotiator and general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority. “We’re trying to avoid that, but we have a number of long-term relationships and contracts with outside counsel. If it comes to fighting to protect the water interests of Southern Nevada, we’re ready.”

A new deal must be in place before the start of the next water year in October, whether the states come to an agreement or the Trump administration imposes one upon them.

The Interior Department previously has said it could reduce Nevada’s allocation of the river to 140,000 acre-feet — less than half of its 300,000 acre-foot share, which is the tiniest of any state. That is not currently on the table.

Under consideration now is a cut of about 6%, though if Lake Mead falls below 1,000 feet, the Interior secretary will explore ways to increase that significantly, according to the water authority. The reservoir has hovered around 1,060 feet of elevation this month.

Last year, after factoring in the state’s robust water recycling efforts, Southern Nevada consumed 198,000 acre-feet of water from Lake Mead. Any legal fight between the states would be elevated to the U.S. Supreme Court, something that could use up millions in taxpayer dollars and take nearly a decade to resolve.

Entsminger notes, however, that federal projections indicate that hydropower production could be thwarted as soon as this summer at Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell. At Entsminger’s request, state officials have resumed talks, using Nevada’s proposed emergency stopgap measure as a starting point.

“The hydrology is bad enough that operational decisions are going to need to start being made in April and May,” Entsminger said.

An Upper Basin counterproposal?

During a Monday special meeting of the Upper Colorado River Commission, New Mexico Commissioner Estevan López said the Upper Basin states had submitted a counterproposal raising issues with what Nevada initially had floated.

Nevada is part of the Lower Basin, along with California and Arizona.

“We had problems with some of the elements that were embedded in Nevada’s proposal, and we offered a counterproposal,” López said. “To date, we have yet to have meaningful engagement on that discussion.”

None of the four state officials who spoke — representing Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — divulged any further information about what those issues were. Those states and the commission declined to comment about the Upper Basin’s objections when the Las Vegas Review-Journal followed up after the meeting.

Nevada officials’ plan zeroes in on what are known as “upper initial units,” or reservoirs upstream of Lake Powell. Those would be the first line of defense to stabilize Lake Powell levels — something that’s even under consideration this year.

Instead of speaking more about their opinion on a stopgap deal, each state revealed emergency steps their states are taking in the face of this record-low year for inflows into Lake Powell, snowpack and overall reservoir storage. Colorado Commissioner Becky Mitchell said the Colorado state engineer will cut off users whose water rights predate the 1922 Colorado River Compact that divvied up the river between the states.

To date, the Upper Basin has vehemently rejected the Lower Basin’s plea that they share in mandatory reductions in the face of drought. That’s something Nevada’s proposal appears to forgo, instead accepting that mandatory conservation is the Lower Basin’s responsibility up to a certain point in the immediate future.

“This is how we manage low flows when there is less,” Mitchell said, adding that her state’s farmers are just trying to make it through the year. “We use less. This is not voluntary, and no one gets paid.”

Arizona could be going rogue

Asked about what response he’s seen in the negotiating room to Nevada’s two-year plan, Entsminger said it’s not just the Upper Basin that has raised issues. For years, the Lower Basin states have been a united front on Colorado River matters.

But earlier this month, while California’s lead negotiator, JB Hamby, immediately gave his approval after reviewing the proposal, Arizona Department of Water Resources director Tom Buschatzke had declined to comment.

The agreement the Trump administration feels it has the legal authority to impose on the states without a consensus could more than halve Arizona’s share of the river. Arizona officials have since retained a global law firm, released public-facing ads about that possibility and dedicated millions of dollars to a potential Supreme Court case.

“If you boil it down, there’s only two things under the laws of physics that can be done to protect power generation at Glen Canyon Dam: that’s the operation of the upper initial units and the amount of water you release downstream,” Entsminger said. “Our focus has been to try to encourage people to set aside some of the non-math problems and focus only on the two math problems.”

At least one top federal official has called Nevada’s proposal a decent attempt to bridge the basin divide given the circumstances, Entsminger said. The federal government remains focused, though, on a 20-year deal — and Entsminger doesn’t think that’s completely out of the question yet.

In terms of Nevada’s preparation for a legal defense, Gov. Joe Lombardo and Attorney General Aaron Ford have not responded to multiple requests for comment on the issue the past few months. But Entsminger wants Nevadans to know the water authority will go the distance.

“If push comes to shove, we’re going to protect this community, period,” Entsminger said.