Nevada’s decision to take the federal government to court over the Colorado River’s new operating rules could stall the Navajo Nation’s push to get its Arizona water rights settlement through Congress before the year ends, a Navajo Nation water rights attorney said this week. “We’re on an extremely limited window of time,” said Dwight Witherspoon, an attorney with the Water Rights Unit of the Navajo Nation Department of Justice. … The state of Nevada, the Colorado River Commission of Nevada and the Southern Nevada Water Authority filed a complaint Monday, Aug. 24, in U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada against Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, the Department of the Interior, the Bureau of Reclamation and Aubrey Bettencourt, the bureau’s principal deputy commissioner. 

Other Colorado River management news:

• RE:Public: ‘We are not a monolith’: What new rules for a shrinking Colorado River mean for tribal nations
• KSJD (Flagstaff, Ariz.): Navajo Nation Council passes measure to protect river confluence near Grand Canyon
• Arizona Republic (Phoenix): Adelita Grijalva says feds should help Arizona pay for water cutbacks
• WyoFile: History: Elwood Mead’s hard lessons for a shrinking river
• Bloomberg Law: Nevada’s Colorado River suit previews future water-scarcity wars
• Arizona Capitol Times (Phoenix): Opinion: Butler Valley: A water transfer basin ready for use
• Arizona Daily Star (Tucson): Opinion: The sadness of a river running dry
• Complete Colorado: Opinion: ‘Final’ federal decision on Colorado River hardly the last word
• Marketplace: Podcast: The Gila River Indian Community “walks the walk” on water conservation
• Circle of Blue: Blog: Situation: Colorado River water crisis