None of the seven Colorado River states is happy with the Trump administration’s plans to divvy up the river as it faces its driest conditions in decades, but Nevada may have its own solution.
Breaking from its longstanding pact with its Lower Basin neighbors, Nevada has proposed its own short-term plan to stabilize Lake Powell and Lake Mead levels that are expected to plunge over the next two years.
John Entsminger, the state’s governor-appointed negotiator and general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, said in an interview Wednesday that he sees it as the only viable path forward absent a seven-state consensus.
“Nevada is willing to step out on our own and propose a pragmatic, two-year operating plan that we hope all six other states will adopt,” Entsminger said. “But this is a Nevada proposal. This isn’t something we vetted through anybody else.”
The proposal was an attachment to Nevada’s official comments to the Interior Department’s draft environmental impact statement — a series of four options for a 20-year deal that not one state appears to be satisfied with.
Last month, the seven states in the Colorado River Basin missed the federal government’s firm deadline for a consensus-based deal. Monday was the cutoff for states to plead their case with regard to the remaining options.
In Nevada’s proposal, officials say that beyond 2028, hydrological conditions are bad enough that states must re-evaluate how to operate the Colorado River system every six months, at the beginning and middle of the water year that runs from October through September. That’s a clear attempt to avoid a yearslong, expensive battle at the U.S. Supreme Court.
“The Colorado has become a very unpredictable river,” Entsminger said. “I would still hold out hope for a longer-term, multi-decadal deal. But if we don’t have that, then establishing what the process will be to agree to operations and keep us out of court seems to be a prudent, adult conversation to be had.”
Concessions — but lines in the sand, too
Nevada appears ready to abandon the contested idea of mandatory cuts to the river shares of the Upper Basin states of Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming. That has been the major sticking point between north and south for years.
Instead, Nevada posits that the so-called “upper initial units,” or upstream reservoirs such as Flaming Gorge, Navajo and Aspinall, should be the first line of defense to keep water flowing through Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell.
Below 3,490 feet in elevation at Lake Powell, the Bureau of Reclamation has acknowledged that the “river outlet works” may be damaged enough that releases to Lake Mead could be called into question. To protect against low levels this year, the federal agency has planned to move water in from Flaming Gorge, which straddles Utah and Wyoming.
“Protecting the Glen Canyon Dam river outlet works by reducing releases from Lake Powell — rather than making infrastructure repairs and improvements — is shortsighted and harms Nevada and the Lower Basin States by slashing the water available to our farmers, communities, and economies,” Nevada’s letter reads.
The Lower Basin, which includes Arizona and California, would agree to 1.25 million acre-feet of mandatory reductions in both 2027 and 2028 under Nevada’s proposal. For reference, Nevada’s tiny share of the river totals 300,000 acre-feet — and last year, after the credits it received for returning water through recycling, the state’s Colorado River water use came in at 198,000 acre-feet.
Kyle Roerink, executive director of the nonprofit Great Basin Water Network, said his organization and others have been pushing basin state and federal officials for years to take infrastructure issues at Glen Canyon Dam seriously.
“At least a few of the most influential decision-makers on the river know that low-flow scenarios are going to upend the 20th century notions of stability and certainty on the river’s infrastructure — and everything else,” Roerink said. “We’re lucky that folks in Nevada understand the big picture.”
Could Nevada have struck a chord?
It remains to be seen whether the other states along the Colorado River will approve of the ideas Nevada officials have laid out for consideration.
Asked Wednesday whether he thought the Upper Basin states would agree with his plan for upstream reservoirs, Entsminger wasn’t too sure.
“There’s things for all other six states to love in there, and there’s things for all other six states to hate in there,” he said. “But if you’re going to step out on the limb all by yourself and propose a middle-ground solution, you’re going to have to see where different folks fall on it.”
At least one state seems to be on board so far. JB Hamby, California’s lead negotiator and chair of the Colorado River Board of California, said in a Wednesday email that his state agrees with what Nevada has proposed.
“With California’s support, Nevada can now count to two, and we hope to continue building momentum and expanding that common-sense coalition,” Hamby said. “Continuing to cling to chimeras of expanding current use won’t get us there. I believe every state that is willing to do what’s right for the river will ultimately sign on. We hope we can count to seven.”
A spokeswoman for Arizona’s Department of Water Resources, the director of which leads the state’s negotiating strategy, declined to comment. The Bureau of Reclamation did not return a request for comment Thursday.
Arizona has been on the offensive since states missed the federal government’s deadline, releasing advertisements that claim reductions being considered by the federal government would cripple cities like Phoenix and Tucson.
Why more meetings could be good
Elizabeth Koebele, a professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, who studies water governance, said she found herself excited by Nevada’s comments.
While a twice-yearly meeting structure could require states to use more taxpayer dollars, releasing the pressure valve on what have been last-minute, intense discussions could spur progress, in her opinion.
Still, Koebele said the states could and should return to a longer-term deal when conditions allow.
“Structured decision-making processes help people better understand one another’s needs outside of the crisis context,” she said. “What we’ve seen is that sometimes there are hard things that seem really hard, and then we experiment with them and find out they’re actually easier than we thought they would be.”
One example she points to is when the basin states were considering piloting programs that would pay farmers to fallow their fields in exchange for compensation. When the states tried it, there were more interested farmers than funds in most years, Koebele said.
The success of Nevada’s short-term plan hinges on whether the Upper Basin states will object to the mandate to use upstream reservoirs for Lake Powell, Koebele said.
But Nevada stepping up with this proposal is just another example of the state’s reputation as a forward-thinking leader in the basin despite having claim to the least amount of water of any state.
“We’ve done a lot while our population has grown, and we are regularly staying inside our allocation,” Koebele said. “That comes back to the ability for Nevada and Entsminger to be able to propose paths forward in a way that maybe other states don’t quite have the political capital to do.”
Contact Alan Halaly at ahalaly@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlanHalaly on X.
