Ten young Utahns argue that the Division of Oil, Gas, and Mining is violating their right to “life, health, and safety.”

Ten young people from Utah are suing the state over the harms caused by fossil fuel development.

The youth plaintiffs — ages 13 to 22 — filed a lawsuit against the Utah Board of Oil, Gas, and Mining, the Division of Oil, Gas, and Mining and the division’s director on Monday.

They argue that new permits for fossil fuel development, including coal, oil and gas, “violate their constitutional rights to life, health, and safety,” according to a news release from Our Children’s Trust, a nonprofit law firm. The plaintiffs want the court to declare the permits unconstitutional, use its authority to review or revoke existing permits and make sure future permits account for public health risks.

“I worry every day about my health, my future, and what kind of world I’ll live in if the state keeps approving these fossil fuel permits,” said Natalie Roberts, one of the youth plaintiffs, in a statement. “We’re fighting for our lives and asking the court to protect us before it’s too late.”

The lawsuit builds on a previous case which many of the same youth brought forward in 2022. A district court dismissed the case later that year, but the Utah Supreme Court agreed to hear the young plaintiff’s appeal in 2023. Earlier this year, the Utah Supreme Court upheld the previous decision to dismiss the lawsuit but ordered the lower court to change its ruling to dismissal without prejudice, opening a door for the young people to sue again.

State officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the lawsuit.

That previous case targeted Utah’s broader energy policy, while this new lawsuit narrows in on fossil fuel permitting, according to the news release.

“The state cannot continue issuing fossil fuel permits that put children’s lives and health in jeopardy,” said Andrew Welle, lead attorney to the plaintiffs. “This case is about holding Utah accountable to its constitutional obligations to protect youth from serious harm caused by air pollution, climate impacts, and unsafe fossil fuel development.”

Poor air quality and “climate-related harms,” such as wildfires and extreme heat, have caused respiratory issues and mental health challenges for the young plaintiffs, according to the news release.

“Some days I can’t even go outside because the air is so polluted,” Roberts said. “I get headaches, feel dizzy when it’s too hot, and sometimes I can’t even see down my own street because of smoke from wildfires.”

Similar cases have been filed in other states. A Montana judge in 2023 sided with a group of teens who argued their state violated its constitutional commitment “to maintain and improve a clean and healthful environment” by prioritizing fossil fuel development.

The decision directed Montana state agencies and regulators to consider climate impacts when issuing permits for development. The Montana Supreme Court upheld that ruling late last year.

MOUNT PLEASANT, Utah — The tragic loss of two teenagers killed in a wrong-way crash over the holiday weekend is being felt across Utah, especially in the tight-knit community of Mount Pleasant.

Eighteen-year-old Leo Shepherd, who graduated earlier this year from Pleasant Creek School in the North Sanpete School District, was one of two young victims in Saturday’s fiery collision on I-15. His girlfriend, 17-year-old Anneka Wilson of Springville, was also killed.

Pleasant Creek School Principal Steven Solen said the news has devastated students and staff.

“It just crushed us. It’s been really hard for people who know him, especially in a small community like Sanpete. It affects everybody,” Solen said.

The principal said Shepherd graduated early in March after months of focused effort.

“He came in and just worked his butt off,” Solen said. “He adhered to the policies, worked hard, and graduated early in March instead of in May.”

Solen described a group of boys who motivated one another daily. Shepherd’s close friend drove him to school, and together the group worked side by side at the same table, pushing each other to finish strong.

Counselors were available to students at the school Monday to support students and staff grieving the sudden loss.

According to the Utah Highway Patrol, the wrong-way crash happened around 2 a.m. Saturday on I-15 near 1900 South. Troopers say a southbound vehicle was traveling in the northbound lanes when it collided with the teens’ car, causing a fire and killing both Shepherd and Wilson.

“We’ve been on several very bad scenes, but this one was horrific — one of the worst I’ve personally seen,” said UHP Lt. Brian Peterson.

The teens were reportedly driving to Idaho to spend the rest of the holiday weekend with family.

At Springville High School, students dressed up Monday in honor of Wilson.

Solen said the heartbreak is made worse by the fact that the crash appears to have been preventable.

“If someone else could have taken [the suspect’s] keys, or said, ‘No, don’t go.’ Unfortunately, because of his bad decisions, he affected other people for it. He didn’t put their safety into consideration and it’s frustrating,” he said.

He added that he has spent 17 years teaching driver’s education and consistently stresses the dangers of impaired driving.

UHP identified the wrong-way driver as 21-year-old Jose Angel Torres Jimenez, who suffered only minor injuries. He is under investigation for driving under the influence.

“One day you see them alive, and then the next day, they’re gone,” Solen said. “We love his family and hope the best for them.”

Water from the Colorado River and its tributaries irrigates farms, sprinkles lawns and quenches the thirst of millions across Utah and the greater Southwest.

While only 27% of the state’s water comes from it, some 60% of Utahns rely on the Colorado River for drinking water, agriculture and industries such as energy and mining.

The future of that water supply is increasingly tenuous, though. The river is overallocated, meaning farmers, cities and companies have rights to more water than actually runs through the basin. That gap is only growing as climate change makes the region hotter and drier, slowing the river’s flow.

For years, representatives from the seven U.S. states that share the river have been in tense negotiations over how to manage the waterway during dry years. States were supposed to reach a basic agreement on Nov. 11, but they had nothing to show.

These complex negotiations have been happening behind closed doors with little opportunity for public input. But the result of these talks affects the lives of not only most Utahns, but 40 million people across the U.S. Southwest, northern Mexico and 30 federally recognized tribes.

The stakes are high. The river has sustained tribes for time immemorial and has allowed desert cities, such as Salt Lake City and Phoenix, to boom. It waters fields of fruit, vegetables and alfalfa, from melon farms in Utah’s Green River to agriculture giants in California’s Imperial Valley. It creates habitat for endangered fish and carves sandstone layers in beloved national parks, such as Canyonlands and the Grand Canyon.

“[The Colorado River] matters to the economic integrity of the United States,” said Jack Schmidt, director of the Center for Colorado River Studies at Utah State University. “It matters to the well being of a significant amount of people.”

With less water flowing through the river system, though, states will have to cut back their consumption. But negotiators can’t agree on who carries that burden. If that plan includes mandatory cuts to Utah’s water use, that may affect cities, tribes and farmers across the state.

Utah’s major cities are “potentially vulnerable to cuts”

Utah’s bustling cities along the Wasatch Front are outside of the Colorado River Basin and get much of their water from the creeks and rivers that eventually end up in the Great Salt Lake. But residents still rely in part on the Colorado River thanks to a series of reservoirs and pipelines that deliver water from eastern Utah to cities such as Salt Lake.

Snow flakes falling in the Uinta Mountains this winter will eventually melt into rivers and creeks that feed the Green River, the Colorado River’s largest tributary. But some of that water will be diverted to Strawberry Reservoir then travel through pipelines across the Wasatch Mountain to Utah and Salt Lake Counties.

That web of dams and tunnels is called the Central Utah Project, the Bureau of Reclamation’s largest and most complex water project in Utah, according to the agency. That project is “potentially vulnerable to cuts,” though, because its water rights are newer, said Michael Drake, deputy state engineer with the Utah Division of Water Rights.

Utah, like most Western states, follows prior appropriation, or “first in time, first in right.” Those who began using water first, such as multigenerational farming families, hold senior rights and see cuts last.

“There’s no doubt the Central Utah Project is a junior user on the river,” Gene Shawcroft, Utah’s Colorado River commissioner, said during a press conference on Nov. 12. “We have capacity in reservoirs to help us through drought cycles. We will have to be very judicious about how we use the water during these periods of time when we have low water.”

One option, he added, was purchasing a farmers’ “third crop of hay,” to supplant the water available to cities and towns.

Farmers may take a “significant hit”

Some Utah farmers have been paid to temporarily fallow their fields as part of a new pilot program under the Colorado River Authority of Utah to reduce water use.

Kevin Cotner, a third generation farmer in Carbon County and the president of the Carbon Canal Company, let some of his fields rest for the past three years. He hopes his and his fellow farmers’ voluntary actions will prevent forced cuts.

“We’ve been aware of this potential downstream call on us at some point in the future,” he told reporters with the Colorado River Collaborative last month. “Our thoughts were … if there’s ever a negotiation, we’d be able to raise our hand and say, ‘Hey, we’ve been proactive on this from the get go.”

Agriculture accounts for roughly 62% of Utah’s use of Colorado River water, according to the Colorado River Authority of Utah. Utah’s state engineer already cuts farmers’ water use based on daily river flows and priority of water rights, Drake said.

Farmers may see deeper cuts, though, if Utah is required to use less water under a new Colorado River agreement. “Certainly our ag producers will take a pretty significant hit if we, the state engineer’s office, are called upon to curtail water rights,” Drake said.

During dry years, that may mean farmers have very little water. A few years ago, the Carbon Canal was only able to deliver direct flow water to the area’s farmers for three days out of the year, Kotner said. They relied on water from the Scofield Reservoir for the rest of the season.

But those reservoirs may not be able to get farmers through dry stretches to the same extent if the state has to cut water use at a basin-wide scale. “Many of the storage reservoirs are operating on relatively junior water rights, so you might see those cut first,” Drake said. If those rights are cut back, the water will flow down stream rather than getting stored in reservoirs.

“A lot of these places are going to be operating as kind of run of the river, however much water is available in the river at any given time in the year,” Drake said. “So that’s going to be a hard challenge for farmers.”

Tribes have substantial water rights, but not all are settled or developed

The Ute Mountain Ute’s tribal owned farm enterprise couldn’t grow wheat this year for Cortez Milling Co., which makes the popular Blue Bird Flour, said Letisha Yazzie, water resources director for the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe.

The tribe only received 35% of its water allocation in Colorado this year. It bumped up its supply to 50% by purchasing water from the local irrigation company, but the tribe still had to fallow nearly half of its fields, Yazzie said.

Tribes typically have some of the most senior water rights in the Colorado River Basin, often dating back to the year the tribe’s reservation was established or in some cases time immemorial, according to the Congressional Research Service. But some tribes have accepted more junior water rights when resolving claims. As part of its settlement with Colorado, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe agreed to take more junior water rights in exchange for drinking and agricultural water infrastructure.

The tribe still hasn’t resolved its rights in Utah. The Ute Indian Tribe, San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe and Kaibab Paiute Band also have unresolved water rights in Utah, according to a report by the Water & Tribes Initiative, an organization that builds tribal capacity in water policy and management. The federal government has an obligation to protect tribes’ federally reserved water rights, but tribes have to go through a lengthy and expensive legal process to quantify and secure their water.

Across the Colorado River Basin, eleven tribes still have unresolved claims as of 2023, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Colorado River Basin tribes that have settled their claims currently hold substantial water rights, roughly a quarter of all water in the basin, according to the Water & Tribes Initiative. Not all have the infrastructure to use that water, though.

“Certainly there’s been increased recognition that tribes don’t just have senior water rights, substantial water rights, but also that they haven’t been able to fully develop their rights and access that for the benefit of their communities,” said Heather Tanana, a citizen of the Navajo Nation and law professor at the University of Denver.

As the basin states discuss cuts, she added, “it’s not quite fair or equitable” to ask tribes to cut back their use since they haven’t been able to develop over the past century to the same extent as others.

“What we have at stake is our future,” Yazzie said.

The seven basin states — Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — have until mid-February to develop a more hashed out plan for the river’s future, according to the Interior Department. Whatever they decide will shape the future for tribes, farmers and millions of people across the Colorado River Basin.

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.