LETTER: Nevada and the Colorado River negotiations

In your recent editorial on the Colorado River talks, the Review-Journal is right that Nevada deserves fairness in these negotiations. Nevada uses the least water, leads in conservation and re-uses about 85 percent of what it draws.

So why is Nevada being positioned to give more? The Review-Journal makes the case against it, but stops short of addressing how years of prior negotiations have already set a precedent for Nevada to surrender portions of its legal entitlement. Southern Nevada Water Authority General Manager John Entsminger has advanced a plan that reportedly includes surrendering up to 50,000 acre-feet, nearly 17 percent of Nevada’s allocation, while upper basin states face no comparable requirement to improve recycling or reduce structural losses.

There is already plenty of “unfairness” to go around, particularly in how Southern Nevada residents have been expected to shoulder the burden (both financially and environmentally) in the name of “conservation.”

For years, water use reductions tied to Lake Mead levels have been driven in part by hydropower thresholds, while the public narrative has centered on the lake’s visible “bathtub ring” to justify restrictions. It is also worth noting that California benefits significantly from higher reservoir levels. Under the compact, water use within the system, not energy production, is the priority.

Now we are told the state will “fight like hell.” The question is: Why not fight for every drop of Nevada’s legal entitlement?

The editorial also does not address a critical fact: Colorado diverts a significant portion of its Colorado River water across the Continental Divide, sending much of it out of the system entirely. Nevada, meanwhile, returns most of what it uses.

Nevada has the smallest allocation, the highest efficiency, significant amounts of stored water and the infrastructure to access it. Yet its leadership appears to be negotiating as a mediator rather than defending those advantages. “Fighting like hell” for fairness means demanding accountability, not giving more away or allowing more to be taken.