The head of a Southern California water agency called recent comments by the mayor of Las Vegas "ridiculous and inflammatory" and is vowing a fight to keep farmers' fields irrigated.
Mayor Oscar Goodman stirred controversy when he said Las Vegas will meet its needs with the water used by farmers in California.
"No one is going to allow us to dry up," Goodman said at a news conference Thursday, according to The Desert Sun newspaper. "The Imperial Valley farmers will have their fields go fallow before our spigots run dry."
Coachella Valley Water District general manager Steve Robbins shot back Friday.
"I would have to say to a comment as bold as that: We'll see you at the battlefront," Robbins said.
Goodman was responding to a question about a study from San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography predicting that Lake Mead, which provides Colorado River water to much of the Southwest, could go dry by 2021.
His comments fueled tensions in the debate over how much of the increasingly scarce Western water supply should go to cities and what portion should be reserved for crops.
The mayor's comments are "the latest in a series of salvos directed at the farms and fields of the Imperial Valley," said Kevin Kelley, spokesman for the Imperial Irrigation District.
A message left at Goodman's office Sunday night was not immediately returned.
