The Silver State claims a key document failed to consider the economic impacts communities would face because of the water reductions.
By Alan Riquelmy, Courthouse News Service
It took three days for a Colorado River basin state to sue the federal government over its recently announced water-sharing plan.
Nevada filed suit Monday against the Interior Department, Bureau of Reclamation and its top officials, calling their operational plan for the river arbitrary. That plan could impose water reductions of over 210,000 acre-feet on the Silver State — about 71% of Nevada’s water entitlement.
“The magnitude of such shortages will cause acute environmental, socioeconomic, and health and human safety impacts to southern Nevada,” the state says in its suit. “Federal defendants failed to consider such impacts in any meaningful way in the final [environmental impact statement].”
Disputes between the seven Colorado River basin states, ever-present in the best of times, have grown sharply in recent years as a changing climate has pummeled water levels. Add to that a two-decade-long operating agreement that expires this year, which led the federal government to step in with its own plan when the states couldn’t reach consensus.
The federal government’s plan, released Friday, violates the Administrative Procedure Act, National Environmental Policy Act and the Law of the River, Nevada says. The state wants a judge to stop the plan’s implementation and vacate the operating plan and environmental impact statement.
According to Nevada, its share of river water is 300,000 acre-feet a year — or 3.3% of all water allocated to the three lower-basin states and Mexico. That water also equals 90% of all water used in the Las Vegas Valley.
“Nevada’s Colorado River water allocation is critical to the stability and viability of southern Nevada, including Nevada’s largest metropolitan area — the Las Vegas Valley,” the state says.
John Entsminger, Nevada’s lead negotiator on Colorado River issues, told Courthouse News that the lower-basin states reached a water-reduction agreement for the next two years. A large issue his state has with the Interior Department is the plan to force reductions for the next 10 years.
“That wasn’t the agreement that we shook hands on,” he added.
Noting his over 25-year involvement in the Colorado River, Entsminger said it’s always his goal to avoid litigation. However, the federal government is claiming authority that he doesn’t believe it has.
“Nevada’s been part of every successful negotiation on this river for 25 to 30 years,” he added. “We’re here to be a partner, but we’re not here to be pushed around.”
The lower-basin states of Nevada, California and Arizona offered an alternative plan to the Interior Department. Nevada says that alternative complied with the Law of the River and better met their purposes than a preferred alternative in the final environmental impact statement. However, the government eschewed the lower states’ plan, Nevada argues.
Interior’s plan comes after years of Nevada’s conservation measures. It reduced water use from 325,000 acre-feet in 2002 to under 200,000 acre-feet in 2025, though it saw 875,000 new residents in that time, the state says.
Additionally, Nevada stored more than 2.2 million acre-feet of water, including 900,000 acre-feet in Lake Mead. That’s 11 times the state’s Colorado River water use in 2025, it adds.
“Nevada emphasized that this investment in conservation must be fully credited as part of any final operating plan,” the state notes about a comment period for the operating plan. “Nevada also identified a number of ways in which Reclamation’s alternatives failed to meet the basic requirements of the Law of the River for deliveries to the lower basin state in times of shortage.”
The state also pointed to the significant omissions in the final environmental impact statement.
That statement had no information about the economic effects of water curtailment to millions of users. It stated some areas might need to find alternative water sources to support existing service, yet it offered no analysis of those costs, Nevada says.
“This disparate treatment allows the final EIS to obscure the full extent of economic and social costs to cities like Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, Boulder City, and Henderson, Nevada,” the state adds. “The area’s economy is roughly $180 billion annually, and water is needed to drive every dollar. Yet, there is no meaningful analysis of what happens to Las Vegas, its residents, the environment, or southern Nevada’s economy when 71% of its water supply disappears.”
The Interior Department said it doesn’t comment on litigation.
