What is the most likely outcome of these negotiations?

Here to weigh in are David Kreamer, Professor Emeritus of Hydrology at UNLV; Alan Halaly, Water Reporter for the Las Vegas Review-Journal; and Tom Romero, Professor of Law at UNLV.

Thank you all for joining Nevada Week.

And for that first question of what is the most likely outcome, I want to start with you, Tom, and then Alan.

Where do you think this is going to end up?

(Tom Romero) I think there's really two kind of motivators.

One is, all the states want to avoid litigation.

That's the reason we had the Colorado River Compact in the first place, was to keep this out of the courts.

The second motivator is, none of the states want federal control of what had been an agreement among the states of how to allocate the water.

So I think we've seen this before in the past, maybe not with this sense of urgency with where the snowpack is at and, obviously, some of these deadlines.

I would say I see an outcome of another kind of a short-term agreement, maybe a five-year agreement that-- -That the states will come up with or the federal government?

-The states will come up with, yeah.

-They don't have much time to do it.

-They don't have much time, but they do have some time.

-Alan, what do you think?

(Alan Halaly) I would agree.

They do have time to still come to a consensus, but I think we've been hearing over and over again these same talking points being regurgitated.

I think if you speak to-- Many experts throughout the basin, they are expecting this to go to the Supreme Court at some point.

There has been some public posturing.

The word they like to throw around is "saber-rattling."

As to how each state is preparing for a potential lawsuit, Arizona has set aside millions of dollars for their defense already, and other states have joined suit as well.

So I think that's becoming more of a possibility with each passing day.

And, you know, you heard John Entsminger say that this deadline was one that the Federal Government had just come up with.

But it does indicate that we could be seeing the Federal Government, you know, intervene at some point.

And I think without, without question, that would be challenged by one of those states.

-Okay.

What do you think about this, David Kreamer, in terms of the snowpack that was mentioned, the severity of the situation, the urgency?

(David Kreamer) Well, the lakes now are about maybe a third full, of Lake Mead and Lake Powell.

And estimates are that it would take 5 to 15 years of above-average snowpack in the Rocky Mountains to replenish the lakes.

That's probably unlikely with rising temperatures.

We have earlier snowmelt and more precipitation, that would-be snow comes down as rain.

And so it's probably going to be very difficult to refill in any future time the lakes that are at a low level.

-You have a familiar relationship with the Colorado River in that you have kayaked down it how many times?

-I've either rowed a boat or kayaked about 40 times through the Grand Canyon, yes.

-Okay.

And we are looking at pictures right now of you in that kayak from 1983.

Where was that, and what were the circumstances of the water being so violent like that?

-The pictures are from Crystal Rapid and from Lava Falls Rapid, and the river was about maybe 10 times more than its normal flow.

It's a very humbling experience.

If you ever feel self-important, go down a big river in a small boat.

The rapids were rather sporting, and the whirlpools were pretty deep and interesting, too-- a lot of hydraulics.

But I do research in the Grand Canyon, and a lot of-- a lot of it's from trails on spring sustainability.

-Is it accurate or fair to say that it has been humbling as well to see the changes in the river over the years?

-Yeah.

I guess the river flow is controlled, of course, by Glen Canyon Dam.

And right now, for example, the flow is about half.

Normally it runs 8- to 12,000-cubic feet per second, discharge.

And right now they're actually going down to 4,000 at times.

The inflow to the Colorado River system is about 70% of normal this February as to other average Februaries.

So the changes are pretty remarkable.

-And, Alan, what have you found to be the case-- Or you have been reporting on what is being projected for 2027.

What is being projected?

-Yeah.

I think the hydrology is really heating up these negotiations right now.

We're staring down the barrel of some really poor projections for both Lake Mead and Lake Powell, and there are concerns with that.

With Glen Canyon Dam, there are infrastructure problems where below a certain elevation, there are questions whether we could even send water downstream to Lake Mead.

So there's been some concerted effort to try to conserve, obviously, as we see here in Southern Nevada.

But there's just open questions about, you know, where these reservoirs are heading.

And I think if you ask anyone in the basin, they're not looking at these with rose-colored glasses.

It's a pretty dire situation.

-At the same time, the Upper Basin states do not want to commit to mandatory cuts.

Tom, you were born and raised in Denver, worked in Colorado.

What is the perspective there on the Colorado River?

-Yeah.

I think what I would say is that Colorado, in particular, but if you look at the Upper Basin, they see themselves as the headwaters of many states, right?

The headwater's made of the great rivers that go through the American Southwest.

And I think in that sense, there's a sense that there has been a real attempt to conserve water, to create a system of access and distribution that is efficient and make sense for the needs of the state, as well as meeting all the obligations that were set up under the Colorado River Compact back in 1922.

-Okay.

So that has been on the minds of people in the Upper Basin.

When you moved down here, did you notice a difference?

-Well, coming down here, I think it's easy to see when you have Lake Mead right down the street, really.

Certainly, what I've seen is all the measures that have been taken here to reuse and recycle the water.

Certainly, I think Nevada is leading among all the states in its ability to do that.

-Alan, what do you hear from the Upper Basin states about why they do not want to make more cuts?

Why?

How do they justify that?

-Yeah.

Well, there's a couple things, I think.

What they would tell you is that their hydrology is very dependent on snowpack.

And because there are these long-standing legal agreements to send water downstream, they don't get to enjoy their full allocation of what they were given in 1922.

So in their view, they have to shut off their senior water rights users every year, and that's a problem.

And that's not something that we've seen quite so prominently here in the Lower Basin.

But when we're talking about these negotiations, I think there is a general feeling that the Upper Basin is kind of, you know, refusing to take their share of the pain.

But that has been the main sticking point throughout these negotiations, because they don't have the same level of reservoir storage and they do have that obligation to send water downstream.

There's just been maybe a refusal to kind of compromise on that, and they want to do voluntary conservation rather than mandatory conservation.

-I'm glad you brought the reservoir aspect up, because one argument the Upper Basin states have made is that they lack the infrastructure to store water during dry periods.

And I asked Nevada Senator Catherine Cortez Masto what she thought about that at a recent press conference that was at the Hoover Dam with Nevada Representative Susie Lee.

It was about new funding for Hoover Dam maintenance.

Cortez Masto said that's why she and Representative Lee fought to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, which designated $4 billion for states along the Colorado River Basin to implement projects that conserve water, like water recycling.

(Catherine Cortez Masto) If we're going to do large-scale water recycling, like Susie and I fought for those dollars that California is doing now to recycle their gray water to conserve more water, that's great.

Upper Basin states should be doing the same thing.

Las Vegas and Nevada in general has been a model, as you've heard.

And now we're asking the other states to take a look at what we accomplished with the least amount of water on the Colorado River and do the same thing.

The money's there.

The ability to do these projects is there.

We fought for those dollars.

-David, what do you think?

-Well, one of the sticking points in negotiation is the small dams and reservoirs that are in the Upper Basin, not including Lake Powell.

And right now, the Lower Basin states would like those to be included in the inventory.

They hold about, maybe altogether, about 10 million acre-feet of water.

Right now, with the low levels in Lake Powell and Lake Mead combined, it's about 20 million acre-feet of water.

So there's a significant amount of water in those small reservoirs.

Not all of them are in the Colorado River Basin.

Some of them are outside.

But that's-- Actually, the Lower Basin states would like that to be included in the inventory.

And so that's one negotiating situation that we have as far as a potential negotiating point in the future.

-Okay.

So the Lower Basin states might say, No, you do have reservoirs.

You're just not counting them as part of these negotiations.

And what would the Upper Basin's argument be for not including them?

-Yeah.

So one of the things is the state doesn't actually own many of those reservoirs.

Those are private reservoirs.

They're held by cities.

It might be held by a collection of ranchers and farmers.

And so to be able to even count that as part of the inventory, right, it's sort of different than these massive federal reservoirs, right, that exist with both Lake Mead and Lake Powell.

-And then, Alan, when we heard from Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, she's talking about infrastructure in a different way, more as in programs versus an actual construction of a dam, for example.

What has that implementation been like from those funds of water recycling programs?

-Well, it's funny.

I mean, $4 billion sounds like a lot of money, but it's really not when we talk about these very large-scale projects.

There's a study that came out in 2025 from UCLA that kind of looked at each state in the basin and how much water they do recycle.

And, you know, some states like Utah and Wyoming, dead last in that list, they only recycle about 1 to 3% of their water each year.

So there is kind of-- There are roadblocks to these implementations, whether that's permitting processes, funding, but I think there is just a general frustration maybe among folks that have been watching these conditions mount for a while, that we haven't been investing in these projects.

We, you know, have seen some here and there, like Southern Nevada Water Authority committed $400 million to the Pure Water Southern California project that's going to recycle water in exchange for some water in Lake Mead upstream.

But I interviewed Pat Mulroy, for instance, the former general manager of the Water Authority before John Entsminger, and she really has this-- She's one of the biggest proponents of water augmentation projects.

And, you know, in her view, we're going to see this heat up continuing throughout the century.

I mean, we're not really-- We don't know the worth of water until it's gone.

And I think we have these tools in the toolkit to add water to the system, and we're fighting over what's there.

So I think we're going to see a lot more of that as these negotiations heat up.

-You had told me this story off camera, too.

And she suggested that it may be that the casinos that are going to step up with some money to make things happen?

-Can be the private sector.

I think it can be government-to-government collaboration, like we saw with the Pure Water project.

And, you know, there, of course, federal dollars are in question right now under the Trump administration, but there are ways to get these projects done.

And I think there's just a general frustration that we're not seeing that as part of these conversations right now.

You bring up President Trump.

And there was a headline recently in The Colorado Sun that questioned whether the President could get involved, issue an executive order, and could he potentially favor states that he likes over states that he doesn't, doesn't like?

I did ask John Entsminger about that.

He said litigation for that would take well over a decade.

By then, you'll have a new President.

Is that what you think as well?

What would you add, if anything?

-Yeah.

I'd say to some extent that's absolutely true.

I think this would end up in the courts, and it would take a long time to get sorted out.

But also the fact, too, is we're talking about the Upper Basin versus-- and the Lower Basin.

And to politically kind of peel them apart by states that you like and you don't like is also really hard in terms of some of the allocations, obviously.

And I would say, too, one of the things that gives me some hope--and this goes to the people that live in the Colorado River Basin--is there seems to be a consensus around water.

Everybody talks water a little differently and has a little different dialect, but they do want to figure this out for themselves.

And so, so that still kind of remains my hope, right, is that understanding, right, the need to keep the federal government out of this, to keep this out of litigation, will provide at least some sort of short-term solution.

-Alan, what had you mentioned about a timeline, how long these cases can actually take?

-Right.

I spoke with Sarah Porter at Arizona State University, the Kyle Water Center, and she said she had looked at, you know, litigation that involves the Colorado River Compact over time.

And it is rare when it happens, but it can take an average of eight years to see these cases come to a resolution.

I think you were saying that, you know, Arizona, California, and it arguably hasn't come to a resolution in some ways of speaking, so-- -And that's the precedent, in this case, the only precedent, right?

-It's the biggest precedent.

Yeah, exactly.

-David, that Colorado River Compact, can you explain to our viewers how accurate it was when it was created?

-Well, there was a lot of problems at the time, both in population and in water estimates.

Herbert Hoover, who was head of the Colorado River Commission at that time before he was President, estimated that the basin would quadruple in population.

It was 450,000 at the time, so quadrupling would be under 2 million.

And now we're about 40 million.

That was one problem.

The other was the river had been flowing higher than usual, and the estimates were that the average flow would be 16.4 million acre-feet.

They measure in acre-feet, which is a foot of water over an acre.

It's a farming term.

And the actual average flow is about 15 million acre-feet.

And lately it's been 12.4 over the drought years.

They gave 7.5 million acre-feet to both the Upper Basin and Lower Basin--that's about 15 million acre-feet-- 1.5 million to Mexico, and the Native American water rights are about 3.2 million acre-feet, which comes to over 19 million acre-feet allocated.

So there were some basic problems from the get-go as far as the river basin being overallocated as far as being given to states.

-And I'm glad you bring up the Native American water rights.

There are 30 federally-recognized tribes in the Colorado River Basin.

What stands to happen to them if the federal government gets involved?

-Well, the Federal Government has to act on their behalf.

There's a special trust relationship between the tribes and the federal government.

That said as well, the tribes have probably some of the strongest and best rights on the Colorado River.

And of those 30 tribes, only about half of them have actually settled their rights.

So I think it's an open question how much additional water will be needed, given this deficit, in order to satisfy the demands and the needs of the tribes in this.

-Gentlemen, we have run out of time.

We would love to have you back on.

Thank you for joining Nevada Week.

-Thank you.