Friday, Dec. 12, 2003 | 11:17 a.m.
If the more than 4-year-old drought continues, Las Vegas should expect significant reductions in the amount of water it can take from Lake Mead, Assistant Interior Secretary Bennett Raley said today.
It's an ominous prospect because the lake is currently the source of 90 percent percent of the Las Vegas' drinking water.
Lake Mead is now at 1,140 feet above sea level. If it drops to 1,125 feet, the Interior Department, the controller of water allotments from the lake, would be forced to cut all surplus and potentially base allotments for delivery to southern Colorado River basin states, Raley said.
His warning was delivered to about 1,000 government officials from dozens of federal, state and local agencies throughout the West during their a second day of the annual meeting of the Colorado River Water Users Association at Caesars Palace. The meeting is focused on the thorny political, legal, environmental and engineering problems associated with delivering the river to slake the thirst of 25 million people in the region.
Over the ongoing -- and in many cases decades-long -- issues affecting the river, hung the issue of more than four years of persistent drought. The drought has led to new rules governing conservation in Southern Nevada and elsewhere, and threatens much of the system if it continues.
The drought is causing an unprecedented situation, Raley said.
"We may need to start talking about shortage criteria," Raley said. "We know what surplus means. We know what normal means. We don't know what shortage means."
A drought-forced loss of surplus water or even cuts to normal delivery could last for "an extended period of time," Raley warned.
"We know that will be a very, very complex and difficult task," Raley said. "We need to start sooner rather than later. The impacts of ... no surplus will be immediately felt by Southern Nevada."
Raley said cuts to water allotments for Southern Nevada would be difficult but not impossible to manage.
"I know we'll have a fair amount of tension and conflict," he said. "Life and the economy will go on in Southern Nevada but there will be greater uncertainty."
Nevada and California are the two states that under river law now take more than their base allotments of 300,000 and 4.4 million acre-feet of water annually. An acre-foot is equal to about 326,000 gallons, or about enough water for a typical family for one year.
Local water officials have said that if Nevada's base allotment is cut, they may need to bargain with other states to buy water from the river.
But Raley would not commit the Interior Department to supporting such an unprecedented effort.
Raley said that the Bush administration believes in markets, such as paying farmers to buy or rent water rights, but he could not discuss the specifics of any arrangement engineered by Southern Nevada because the structure of those arrangements is not yet known.
The drought is just one more reason why all of the agencies from seven states, the federal government and Indian tribal agencies have to cooperate, Henderson City Councilwoman and Southern Nevada Water Authority Board Chairwoman Amanda Cyphers told the conference attendees Thursday.
"Managing the Colorado River has always been a challenge, but never more so than now," she said. "Our greatest challenges are still ahead."
Cyphers told the crowd that Southern Nevada "has taken the drought very seriously."
Support from the six other states and the federal government could be important if Southern Nevada is forced to go out of state to buy water, a potentially expensive prospect that is becoming more likely as Lake Mead water levels drop because of the drought, the worst on record for the river.
Gerald Galloway, a civil engineer with extensive experience in mitigating water disputes within the United States and between nations, told the conference that the pains along the Colorado are only part of a "national water crisis."
Water has become the source of conflict nationwide, he said, as population growth, development patterns, climate change and scarcity collide.
"When we run out of it, people rapidly appreciate the value of it," Galloway said.
He noted that the United States has experienced at least a dozen droughts that have cost $1 billion or more in damages since 1980.
Ken Albright, Southern Nevada Water Authority resource director, said the value of the conference is learning how other agencies are dealing with the challenges they face in delivering river water to their customers.
"It's relationship-building and information-sharing," he said.
Interior Secretary Gale Norton, by law the river master, or final authority, on many river issues, was scheduled to speak Thursday night. Mechanical problems grounded her plane in Dallas, however, and her talk was scratched. Raley replaced her.
Also on tap today was a meteorologist from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. The weather expert was scheduled to speak on the drought and the long-term forecast for the Rocky Mountains, where winter snows provide the source of the river.
archive
