Discord muddies hopes for water deal

Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2003 | 8:53 a.m.

Two weeks ago negotiations among California water agencies on a deal that could free up water for Nevada seemed to be going well.

Some authorities with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which supplies 18 million urban customers with water, and the Imperial Irrigation District, which supplies farmers with water to irrigate 430,000 acres in the California desert, predicted that a deal was perhaps a few weeks away.

Although negotiations continue, few are as upbeat as they were earlier this month. Metropolitan came out against Imperial's unresolved legal effort to recover water stripped from it by the Interior Department in December. That has caused at least a chill, if not a freeze, in the talks.

And it has ushered in what officials throughout the Southwest and in Washington feared: The debate on the future of the river has moved into the courts, where it could rest for years.

All parties say they would like the negotiations to settle the larger issues of who gets water, when and how much.

But until the California agencies settle their differences, Nevada's share of so-called surplus water -- enough for more than 100,000 people -- is up in the air. Southern Nevada Water Authority General Manager Pat Mulroy said it may be time to push harder to separate the water futures of the Silver State and the Golden State.

"As spring begins, if there is no break in California, we are going to get increasingly aggressive in pursuing Nevada's needs," she said. "I think we are going to have to revisit a lot of different agreements." The "surplus" water -- unused apportionment from state along the Upper Colorado River Basin -- is needed to stave off drought and to buy time for Nevada water agencies to build infrastructure to serve the growing population.

Mulroy said Metropolitan's intervention in Imperial's lawsuit against the federal government is a bad sign for all the users along the Colorado River.

"All lawsuits do is harden behavior," Mulroy said of Metropolitan's intervention in Imperial's injunction. She called the intervention "a sheer waste of time."

"I'm disappointed in Metropolitan's behavior," she said. "We have been patient beyond all measure. We have stayed out of California's business. But the way they are acting right now seems more brinkmanship than seriously rolling up your sleeves and getting down to business."

U.S. District Judge Thomas Whelan on Friday granted a request by Metropolitan to intervene in a case against the Imperial Irrigation District, the nation's largest irrigation project.

Representatives of Imperial, Metropolitan and two other water agencies are meeting this week to try to salvage a deal aimed at ultimately reducing California's dependence on the Colorado River. California and Nevada are the only states which now consume the surplus.

When the deal to cut California's use of the river water fell apart last December, Interior Secretary Gayle Norton said she had no choice but to sever any use of the surplus -- for both states.

Mulroy said she still hopes that the California water agencies can come to an agreement. But if they fail to come to an agreement, she warned that Nevada could soon take a separate and independent line.

Discussion of separating Nevada and California is not new. Interior officials have said they understand the frustration of Nevada's water users, but their hands are tied by the law of the river.