‘Not a sign of the apocalypse’: Colorado River czars to skip out on key public meeting

The future of Southern Nevada’s primary water source rests on the shoulders of two groups of sharply divided negotiators from seven Western states — ones who are skipping out on a chance to engage with the public and the media.

Breaking with precedent, they have declined to speak on a public panel at a conference next month in Colorado — one of the two normally guaranteed chances for the public to hear from each state’s appointed Colorado River policy head each year. This lack of a panel was first reported by KUNC, an NPR-affiliate in Colorado.

“The message they’re giving the rest of us is not that they’re too busy but that this isn’t a priority, or they think that they’ve got the winning hand, and they’re not willing to find compromise,” said Gage Zobell, a water lawyer based in Salt Lake City at the firm Dorsey & Whitney. “If nothing else, make the time to meet to put everyone else at ease.”

The Getches-Wilkinson Center’s conference at the University of Colorado, Boulder, is generally a smaller crowd than the splashy annual meeting held in Las Vegas, where negotiators failed to discuss ongoing talks on the same panel. Unlike the upcoming conference, they were in attendance, but instead opted for two separate panels.

Conference organizers declined to comment on their conversations with state heads but said they will moderate a panel with two lower-ranking officials from the Southern Nevada Water Authority and the Upper Colorado River Commission. More panelists could be added to the lineup later, organizers said.

Meeting in front of the public in Colorado could have been a chance to remedy the lack of a holistic discussion at December’s conference. Generally, interstate meetings aren’t open to the public or the media, making these limited appearances all the more valuable in understanding where talks stand.

Only California’s negotiator, JB Hamby, could confirm he would be at the conference at all. Representatives from Arizona, Utah and Nevada confirmed they would not be there, while others from Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico did not respond to media requests.

“At least in our case, California was open and eager to engage the public and press and so on and share what’s appropriate without getting into the nitty-gritty of negotiations,” Hamby said in a brief interview Monday. “But to each their own.”

What are they arguing about?

How the Colorado River is currently divided and distributed will only stand until the end of 2026, meaning time is of the essence to come to a consensus. Lake Mead, fed by the river, makes up roughly 90 percent of Southern Nevada’s water supply.

The Upper Basin states of Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico have been at a standstill for months in discussions with the Lower Basin states of California, Nevada and Arizona. They disagree on whether the Upper Basin should have to “share the pain” of cuts to its water use when drought becomes even more pronounced.

John Entsminger, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority and the Silver State representative in the interstate talks, said he doesn’t see how the negotiators declining to meet could be construed as a lack of transparency.

Entsminger pointed to the fact that post-2026 Colorado River negotiations are taking place in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act, known as NEPA, the bedrock environmental law that mandates public participation at multiple stages of the process.

“We’re at the table,” he said. “We’re working hard, and missing one conference is not a sign of the apocalypse.”

NEPA in question

That law underpinning the process will be put to the test under the Trump administration, with officials proposing that environmental reviews could be much speedier, taking timelines from multiple years to as fast as 14 days. Several attorneys general, though not Nevada’s, have filed a legal challenge to the emergency declaration making that possible.

“I think we’re going to see that their NEPA evaluations are open to large amounts of judicial challenge,” said Zobell, the water lawyer. “We could see that 2026 deadline get pushed even further back.”

Zobell’s client list, which includes companies from industries such as mining, renewable energy and development, is tuned in to the state of the river. Even more so after tensions flared out in the open in Las Vegas, he said.

“What I keep hearing is everyone’s concerned about their future water supply for the projects,” Zobell said. “The inability of the states to at least put up a good front to show they’re trying to find a compromise is making everybody else imminently aware of the exposure and the risk, and they’re expending legal dollars trying to find ways to get ahead of it.”

Contact Alan Halaly at [email protected]. Follow @AlanHalaly on X.