Monday, Oct. 13, 2003 | 11:05 a.m.
The Interior Department, master of the Colorado River and Lake Mead, will conduct a formal signing ceremony Thursday for an agreement that preserves access to billions of gallons of Lake Mead water for Las Vegas.
Officials from California and Nevada water agencies, the federal government and the other five states along the Colorado River basin may attend the ceremony Thursday to mark the approval of the complex water deal called the Quantification Settlement Agreement. Pat Mulroy, Southern Nevada Water Authority general manager, said it is unclear who will represent the various agencies at the signing ceremony.
"Technically they were signed on Friday," she noted.
But the agreement is important enough for California, Nevada, the federal government and the other states along the Colorado River to bring together officials to trumpet their accomplishment -- which comes more than 10 months after Interior's original deadline to sign the agreement.
At risk were billions of gallons of water yearly for both California and Nevada, the two states that use the so-called interim surplus water, which is actually unused apportionment from states in the Colorado's upper basin.
The pact reached by four California water agencies after months of intense and occasionally rancorous negotiation means that the Interior Department can turn the spigot back on for the surplus water.
Officials from the San Diego County Water Authority, Imperial Irrigation District, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and Coachella Valley Water District met in Los Angeles to make the deal official. The boards of the four agencies had approved the pact over the past three weeks. The deal, years in the making, is designed to reduce California's long-standing over-reliance on the river so other Western states can claim their fair share. It also is intended to meet the needs of 18 million people in Southern California without having to look to the north for additional in the water future.
The pact will supply San Diego with about a third of its future water needs -- as much as 277,000 acre-feet of water each year. The county's water authority will pay an estimated $50 million a year for the water that frees the region from its near total reliance on the Los Angeles-based Metropolitan Water District.
Mulroy said the deal and the resulting access to surplus river water is critical for fast-growing Las Vegas.
"The significance is that it gives stability to Las Vegas' water situation over the next 15 years," she said. After that the region will have to cut back its draw from Lake Mead to its legal minimum of 300,000 acre-feet a year. Local water officials hope to have other water sources online by that time.
One acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons, or enough water for a family for one year.
Mulroy said four years of drought mean that conservation measures are still essential. Because of the drought and the falling water levels in the lake, any surplus taken next year will be half of what Southern Nevada needs.
If lake levels continue to fall, Interior could cut off all access to surplus water.
"I don't even want to think of that horrific set of circumstances, although we're planning for it," Mulroy said.
The difference for the water authority with the water agreement in place is that the agency and region had been dealing with two complex crises simultaneously.
"Now we are struggling with the drought alone," Mulroy said.
archive
