SALT LAKE CITY — It's been said that in the West, whiskey's for drinking and water's for fighting.
It appears the Utah State Legislature has had a snoot full of whiskey and is ready for a fight over the Colorado River.
On Thursday, Sen. David Hinkins, the chair of the legislature's powerful Natural Resources Appropriations Committee, filed a request for $1 million for potential litigation over the mighty river.
"We just gotta pray for the best and prepare for the worst," Sen. Hinkins, R-Ferron, told FOX 13 News afterward.
The allocation is a signal things are ratcheting up between the states negotiating new agreements to manage the river that provides water to more than 40 million people in the western United States. Arizona's legislature is considering a similar $1 million funding request for lawsuits.
Sen. Hinkins said he hopes the states can reach a deal and it doesn't wind up in court, but "We need to be able to protect our water rights in the state so we don’t get shut off."
The seven states along the Colorado River — Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California — have been in discussions for a new agreement. But FOX 13 News is told the negotiations are going "slowly." Upper Basin and Lower Basin states are trading jabs and demands that each side make deeper cuts on who gets what out of the river.
Last week, U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum summoned the governors of the states to a summit in Washington DC in hopes of reaching a deal. Governor Spencer Cox left the meeting optimistic. A deadline set by the Trump administration for a framework agreement is Feb. 14. They have warned that if no deal can be reached, they may start making decisions the states won't like.
Meanwhile, people who live along the river are nervous.
"There’s a lot of anxiety, if you will, in the farm community," Wade Garrett, the vice-president of the Utah Farm Bureau, told FOX 13 News. "They feel like sometimes people don’t realize that food might be the most important thing we grow off the Colorado. They get even left out of some of this and then the thought of litigation really scares them."
Garrett said he was supportive of the funding request in the Utah State Legislature.
"I don’t love it because I don’t love the thought of going into litigation," he said. "But I think it’s extremely important. So if you can hate and love something at the same time, I feel like that’s where I am with this."
Steve Erickson with the Great Basin Water Network said it signals negotiations may not be going so well for the states.
"It certainly doesn’t send a very good message to our partners in the Colorado River compact," he said. "It could also wind up closing out any public input in the process and these are the people’s waters across the states."
This article is published through the Colorado River Collaborative, a solutions journalism initiative supported by the Janet Quinney Lawson Institute for Land, Water, and Air at Utah State University. See all of our stories about how Utahns are impacted by the Colorado River at greatsaltlakenews.org/coloradoriver
