LV to exceed allotment from Colorado River for first time

Thursday, Jan. 20, 2000 | 11:12 a.m.

For the first time, the Las Vegas Valley is expected to use its full share of water from the Colorado River -- and then some.

Southern Nevada is demanding 313,000 acre-feet from Lake Mead this year, which is 13,000 acre feet more than the state's share of the river.

That does not mean Las Vegas will run out of water.

The river is running full, and there will be plenty for the Las Vegas Valley, even if demand is that high, said Kay Brothers, director of resources for the regional Southern Nevada Water Authority.

An acre-foot of water can serve a family of four or five for a year.

Water officials say that the taps will flow because Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt has already declared a surplus in the Colorado River system this year.

Any unused water in the river can be slurped up by California and Nevada once a surplus is declared, Bureau of Reclamation spokesman Bob Walsh said Thursday. Surpluses have been declared in recent years.

While California's slice of the river amounts to 4.4 million acre-feet, the Golden State has typically taken more than 5 million acre-feet each year that a surplus has been declared. This year's prediction is for 5.2 million acre-feet to be used by California.

Retired UNLV biologist Larry Paulson said the river system has plenty of water with 54 million acre-feet of water stored in lakes such as Mead and Powell.

Paulson said the declared surplus will draw down those reserves, and it will help shrink losses from evaporation -- 100,000 acre-feet from Mead alone at its current level. The less surface area exposed to the Southwest's dry, desert air, the less evaporation.

States such as Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico have never used their full river shares, Paulson said. On an average year from 1980 to 1998, the Colorado pours 3.3 million acre-feet into Mexico, even though that nation is allotted 1.5 million acre-feet a year under the Law of the River.

The federal government operates the Colorado River, dammed since 1935 when Hoover Dam was completed, on demand, supply and what's on hand, Paulson said. And there is plenty of water on hand.

What does worry Paulson and some environmental groups is what growing populations in Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Phoenix are discharging into the river, changing the water's quality.

Norine Noonan, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency assistant administrator for research and development, said the EPA is trying to help states and water agencies by offering scientific tools to solve the chemical puzzle swirling in water supplies from urban runoff.

The EPA has worked in eastern states for the past decade, side by side with state and local water officials to monitor known sources of pollution, such as factory wastes or farm refuse.

Those typical pollution sources seem easy to clean up compared to what EPA has to investigate in the coming years, Noonan said.

The EPA's research and quality assurance laboratory in Las Vegas is beginning to look at prescription drugs, sun screens, even fragrances as possible sources of environmental disruption, she said.

Environmental chemist Christian Daughton in the Las Vegas lab published a paper in December on what is known about effects from human medicines and hormones such as estrogen and Viagra, fragrances such as musk and medicines from Prozac to aspirin.

The answer to how much is known about these chemicals mixing in water supplies is not much, Noonan said.

One thing is certain. These compounds have never been put into the environment in such large quantities before, and they stay in the environment, she said. England, Germany and Sweden have been tracing them for the past five years.

Exposing fish, birds and people to the mix of these new substances in the water may be so subtle that scientists will not be able to measure effects until it is too late, Noonan said.

So the EPA will concentrate its efforts to gather information from water supplies and runoff in 12 Western states, including Nevada, Hawaii and Alaska.

The EPA also is assessing human exposures to pesticides, dioxin and other chemicals by following real people, families with children and pregnant women to see how they are exposed.