By Kennedy Maize
Nevada has sued the Trump administration’s Department of the Interior in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada over the agency’s new Colorado River water allocation regime.
The state, the Colorado River Commission of Nevada, and the Southern Nevada Water Authority (“SNWA”) sued Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and the leadership of Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation, which governs the 1922 Colorado River Compact. The compact sets the rules of the river for the four “Upper Basin” states that provide most of the water (Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and New Mexico) and the three “Lower Basin” states (Nevada, Arizona, and California) that are by far the largest consumers.
Nevada challenges BuRec’s July environmental impact statement and its Aug. 21 record of decision implementing DOI’s favored EIS option for the long drought-stricken watershed. Nevada charges that the BuRec plan would devastate the Silver State with water supply reductions, while leaving the Upper Basin states untouched. The impact on Nevada would be particularly draconian for the state’s principal city, Las Vegas.
In a news release, Democratic Gov. Joe Lombardo said, “Under the proposed plan issued by the Department of the Interior, southern Nevada could lose more than 70 percent of its already meager Colorado River allocation while the Upper Basin states of Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Wyoming are not required to contribute a drop. This isn’t about political posturing; this is a matter of survival for a community that represents about two-thirds of our state’s citizens and the lion’s share of its economy.”
According to its court filing, Nevada now has an annual Colorado River water allocation of 300,000 acre-feet. The state charges that under the BuRec rules, the allocation would be cut by 213,556 acre-feet, leaving the Las Vegas region with less than 86,500 acre-feet per year, compared to 2024 consumption of about 212,500 acre-feet.
John Entsminger, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, said the level of additional reduction proposed by Interior is entirely unrealistic and conservation couldn’t make up the difference. He said, “Over the past 25 years, southern Nevada has become a global leader in water efficiency, reducing our Colorado River consumption by about 40 percent even as the community added 800,000-plus residents, so we have clearly demonstrated our ability to adapt and do more with less.”
Entsminger added that “conservation has its limits, and there is just no way to meet even the basic needs of this community with the volume of water Interior has proposed.”
The Nevada filing says that Interior’s main objective in its new water allocations is to prevent harm to the river’s two mainstem dams, the upstream1966 Glen Canyon Dam and, downstream, the 1936 Hoover Dam. The Nevada filing observes that the strategies in the BuRec allocations “primarily focus on the operation of Glen Canyon and Hoover Dams.” An analysis by the GreenbergTraurig law firm says that Interior’s “operating guidelines” for 2027 and 2028 in its new river plan “are designed to respond to the shortage conditions and protect infrastructure at Glen Canyon Dam and Hoover Dam.” The two dams are crucial to the river system. The upstream Glen Canyon Dam creates Lake Powell, an enormous reservoir that can provide up to 24,322,000 acre-feet of water when full (which is rare). That powers the dam’s 1,320-MW capacity hydroelectric plant. That and flood control are the most important functions of the dam.
Downstream Hoover Dam is the key workhorse of the system, creating Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the U.S. with 26,134,000 acre⋅feet of capacity. It provides flood control, major irrigation for the Lower Basin states, drinking water for major cities in the basin, and 2,078-MW of hydro capacity. 
BuRec’s aim is to keep enough water in the two dams to continue operating the hydro turbines, avoiding “minimum pool level,” and potential damage to the dams themselves. Beyond keeping enough water to turn the turbines efficiently, BuRec wants to avoid “deal pool level,” where water flow stops entirely.
Operating the hydro system also generates significant revenue for BuRec, running around $350-400 million annually. The agency uses the money for operations and maintenance of the dam system.
Is there an alternative to the BuRec plan, something the seven states were unable to discern among themselves after years of wrangling?
Ryan Cooper, senior editor at The American Prospect, offers what initially appears to be a radical solution, but one that makes worthwhile points: “Drain Lake Powell.” He argues, “That would start what is the only sane water policy for the American West….“Get rid of Lake Powell. Drill some holes in the bottom of that thing and drain ’er dry.”
The lake, he notes, supplies no irrigation water, and only a bit of municipal water, sits in a porous sandstone canyon in a hot, desert climate, and “loses a tremendous amount of water to evaporation and seepage,” around 800,000 acre-feet per year. “In short,” Cooper writes, “water is the most important resource in the Southwest, and Lake Powell is losing literally hundreds of billions of gallons of it per year.”
What about the lost hydropower capacity? “The Glen Canyon Dam site is one of the sunniest places in the world. The immense grid connection infrastructure currently being used by Powell’s generators, which have a maximum output of 1,320 megawatts, could be adapted to a huge solar-battery farm.”
The Quad Report, covering energy policy and politics