Make ‘immediate cuts’ in water use or face crisis, Colorado River experts warn

The Colorado River system that Las Vegas relies on for life in the Mojave Desert is nearer to collapse than ever, a group of six researchers from across the basin warned in a new report.

Using a conservative approach that assumes 2026 could bring another dry winter, the authors posit a rocky future for the 40 million people whose water is the subject of intense negotiations between seven states. It’s no longer a distant concern that Nevada, California and Arizona could suffer from water delivery issues due to constraints of dam infrastructure, they argue.

That is, unless more water conservation happens quickly, said Jack Schmidt, the lead author of the report and director of the Center for Colorado River Studies at Utah State University.

“We are not predicting that Western civilization will be crippled to its knees a year from now, and we’re not saying that the taps of Las Vegas and Phoenix will go dry,” Schmidt said. “We’re saying, below these levels that we speak about, the Bureau of Reclamation is on record saying it’s going to get really complicated.”

Lake Mead is 31 percent full and projected by water managers to drop below its 2022 historic low — a concerning outlook for the primary source of Southern Nevada’s drinking water.

The Bureau of Reclamation previously has indicated that Lake Powell dipping under 3,490 feet could hinder the ability of water to flow downstream into Lake Mead. With meager projections, that is no longer out of the question.

Running through ‘savings’ account

The less-than-fruitful, closed-door negotiations to update the 2007 operating guidelines of the Colorado River have dominated headlines about the river for a few years now.

As of late, state policy appointees have been discussing a proposal that would base releases from Lake Powell on a three-year average flow at Lees Ferry in Arizona. Some have called it a “divorce” between the Upper and Lower Basins that can’t agree on cuts, though what little is known points to guidelines more rooted in hydrological reality.

Anne Castle, a fellow at the University of Colorado, Boulder, who previously served as assistant secretary for water and science at the Interior Department, said the general principle makes a lot of sense.

“You can exceed your income on a monthly basis, as long as you have savings,” Castle said. “Our savings are reservoirs, and they’re getting depleted. So, we have to learn to live within the means of the river on a more current basis.”

The report’s authors call for the Interior Department, which oversees the Bureau of Reclamation, to step in and take “immediate action” to reduce water use, but they don’t offer any specific solutions.

Schmidt said that was intentional.

“We can’t give you a perfect number about what those cuts are because it is all a Las Vegas game of how much risk you want to take,” Schmidt said. “Everybody ought to be talking right now and saying, ‘OK, what’s a realistic risk that we want to absorb, given the fact that a simple repeat of last year is going to leave us in a dire situation?’”

Limits to interior secretary authority

A similar legal petition from the Natural Resources Defense Council called for the same in May, but emphasized the department’s legal authority to dictate cuts in the Lower Basin.

At the time, experts told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that any action the feds may take would be open to legal challenges.

Much of the funds for conservation — such as a program to pay California farmers to reduce use — come from federal grants that are in short supply under the Trump administration. Many were tied to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act, laws that Republicans have largely clawed back since taking control of Congress in 2024.

Agriculture uses the biggest share of water from the river, with growing alfalfa and hay accounting for 46 percent of water use, according to a 2024 study. More than half of the river’s water is used for agriculture, while cities use 18 percent.

In California, the Imperial Valley’s irrigation district is the highest user of the river in the basin, and a ProPublica investigation found in one year that a farming family had used more water than all of Southern Nevada.

It has a purpose, though: The Imperial Valley produces as much as 90 percent of the country’s winter vegetables.

Castle, who knows the inner workings of the Interior Department firsthand, said it can be tricky for the federal government to force states to take cuts that affect the livelihoods of everyday people.

“Nobody likes to be the bad guy,” Castle said. “There are limits to the authority that the Department of the Interior has, and those limits are particularly acute in the Upper Basin. They would want it to be fair to the entire basin, and figuring that out is not easy.”

The Nevada picture

On the state level, Nevada continues to set the tone for conservation across the basin.

The Southern Nevada Water Authority’s wastewater infrastructure allows almost every drop of water used indoors to be captured for return to Lake Mead. That water turns into return-flow credits, or the ability to draw more water from the reservoir than is allowed under the Colorado River Compact of 1922.

Sometimes drawing the ire of longtime residents, the agency has worked on initiatives such as banning new golf courses and water-intensive cooling systems, installing artificial turf on Clark County school fields and offering rebates for homeowners to take out their grass.

A controversial law set to take effect in 2027 will make it illegal to water “nonfunctional turf,” or grass that a panel of experts determined is decorative, such as grass on medians.

There are contingency plans, as well: The agency has access to almost 1.3 million acre-feet of water stored across the Lower Basin, in addition to water banked in Lake Mead, water authority spokesman Bronson Mack said.

Last year, the water authority reported a yearly consumptive use of 212,171 acre-feet for the region, representing water that wasn’t returned to Lake Mead.

In a statement, Mack agreed with the report’s findings, saying that “everyone throughout the Colorado River Basin needs to use less water.”

Kathryn Sorensen, report author and research director at Arizona State University’s Kyl Center for Water Policy, said the report is a sign that water managers could be in for some tough choices.

While she agreed with her colleagues that striking a balance for immediate cuts to water use is a difficult task, Sorensen said agricultural users must be a part of the solution to see any significant progress.

“We need to find ways that all sectors, states and stakeholders can make meaningful cuts to bring the river back into some kind of balance,” she said.

Contact Alan Halaly at ahalaly@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlanHalaly on X.