“At the end of the day, we have to protect our legal interests,” Kate Reynolds and Piper Heath quoted John Entsminger, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, as saying during an annual water conservation summit hosted by Rep. Susie Lee (D-NV) in Las Vegas on Wednesday, Aug. 12th.
“We’re not just going to lose if negotiations fail. We will protect the people of Nevada,” Reynolds and Heath reported Entsminger saying
Entsminger’s position followed the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) July 2026 release of their “temporary” final environmental impact statement (EIS) for Lake Powell and Lake Mead, covering 10 years after states failed to agree on a replacement for the 2007 guidelines, which expire this year.
Under BOR’s adaptive management framework, preventing collapse of Lake Powell and Lake Mead requires :
- Cuts up to 3 million acre‑feet/year in Lower Basin states (Arizona, California, Nevada) during dry years — nearly double the 1.6 Maf/year proposed by those states in May 2026 while,
- Requiring no mandatory cuts for Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Wyoming and,
- Adjusting Lake Powell releases ranging from – 12 million acre-feet (Maf) adjusted every two years based on hydrology while,
- Proposing flexibility to adapt to changing conditions while keeping room for future state agreements and admitting that,
- The approach could raise water prices, increase groundwater use, reduce agriculture, and trigger conservation mandates.
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