With stakes sky high, 3 takeaways from this week’s Colorado River conference

The stakes for the water supply of 40 million people couldn’t be higher, but it was business as usual inside Caesars Palace this week.

The single most important gathering of Colorado River Basin officials came and went — with no significant announcements regarding the often frustrating yet crucial seven-state negotiations for how to divvy up the river over the next 20 years.

In Las Vegas, about 90 percent of the region’s water supply comes from Lake Mead, a reservoir that it shares with California and Arizona in what’s known as the Lower Basin. The Colorado River fuels some of the fastest-growing cities in the West, as well as a multibillion-dollar agriculture economy in California and Arizona.

Experts said at the three-day Colorado River Water Users Association conference that if meaningful conservation doesn’t happen in states both upstream and downstream, leaders in the West could be headed for remarkably hard decisions about the future.

Governors and negotiators from the seven states have an open invitation to the nation’s capital, where Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has indicated he would like to have a joint meeting. Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo asked Burgum last week to schedule it for January.

Here are three takeaways as the states wrestle with basinwide overuse of water, declining river flows due to a warming world and how to meet the federal government’s Valentine’s Day deadline for a consensus-based deal.

States far from deal — with less than 60 days left

Unlike last year’s conference, the seven states agreed to sit on a panel that was added to the agenda for the last day. The ballroom was still packed for the early-morning session.

That’s because the stakes are high for states to meet Burgum’s Feb. 14 deadline for a seven-state agreement. Should they not deliver one, Burgum could intervene and states are likely to sue.

The Lower Basin states have agreed to shoulder the brunt of a massive deficit the system faces that totals 1.5 million acre-feet, or almost 489 billion gallons.

However, the Upper Basin states of Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming say they don’t have more water to give should cuts in their jurisdictions become necessary. Conflicts exist with state laws, too.

“We feel it. Our water users feel that pain. It’s real,” said Estevan López, New Mexico’s representative on the Upper Colorado River Commission.

Temporary deal could be on the table to avoid courtroom

Nevada’s governor-appointed negotiator, John Entsminger, spoke last on the panel and called out the other six states for failing to cede any ground on further conservation in their remarks.

Without some compromise from each state on these long-standing arguments, the negotiations are “going nowhere,” he said.

While the states have been expected up until this point to deliver a 20-year deal, Entsminger suggested on the panel that a temporary, five-year deal could be on the table to comply with the Feb. 14 deadline.

“With the hydrology that we’re facing, I think the best possible outcome at this juncture is probably a five-year operating plan to keep us out of court,” Entsminger said.

Entsminger’s predecessor, Pat Mulroy, made a similar prediction in her interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal ahead of the conference. She and Entsminger are the only Nevadans in history to lead the Southern Nevada Water Authority, which was formed in the ’90s.

“I don’t think you’re going to get a 20-year agreement,” Mulroy said. “I know there are parties that probably are digging their heels in and want that, but I think they need to be pragmatic, as well.”

Poor outlook sending shockwaves throughout basin

The underlying issues of the Colorado River are making this moment much more precarious. Several experts presented a dismal picture for the system at large.

Carly Jerla, senior water resource program manager at the Bureau of Reclamation, said the agency’s most recent projections place flows into Lake Powell anywhere between 44 percent to 73 percent of average this upcoming year.

And since 2006, that replenishment of the reservoir has declined about 15 percent because of poor snow years, evaporative losses and more.

“We’re monitoring the forecast, and it’s not a great start to water year 2026,” Jerla said. “It’s still early in the year, but the way things are setting up isn’t looking good.”

Jack Schmidt, who leads the Center for Colorado River Studies at Utah State University, has published several papers this year alongside a group of experts throughout the basin.

By his estimation, should snowpack in the Rocky Mountains fail to impress again this winter, water managers may be blowing through a crucial buffer that ensures water can be released from Lake Powell into Lake Mead — and that hydropower generation can continue.

“We’re not saying it’s the end of American civilization, but we should not fool ourselves,” Schmidt said. “There’s a whole bunch of activities, including environmental compliance in Grand Canyon, that get very difficult to meet, and we’re very close to that.”

“Let’s hope it snows,” Schmidt added. “But in the absence of that, we have to think seriously about quickly reducing our consumption.”