Vegas seeks to secure water future

Friday, June 25, 2004 | 5:35 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION

June 26 - 27, 2004

The elevation of Lake Mead was about 1,223 feet above sea level four years ago. Today it is below 1,128 feet -- a 95-foot drop.

If the lake level drops to 1,050 feet above sea level, Las Vegas will lose its ability to use its older, higher intake pipe to pull water out of the lake, and the massive generators on Hoover Dam will stop working.

Hoover Dam is relied upon to produce 2,000 megawatts of power, enough electricity to keep a million people cool in the desert's hot summer.

At 1,000 feet, Las Vegas' second intake pipe is rendered useless and the valley can no longer draw water.

At 895 feet, Lake Mead reaches its own dead pool, and there would be no reserves to send down river.

Five years ago water splashed over the spillways at Hoover Dam. Bountiful snow in the Rocky Mountains meant that the historic over-allocation of Colorado River water was an issue for dusty academic conferences discussing the "Law of the River."

Since then sustained drought has made water an issue for all Colorado River users, particularly Las Vegas.

Roughly a third more water is being taken out of the system than comes into it from snow and rain. Even huge storage reservoirs at Lake Mead and Lake Powell cannot sustain that imbalance for long.

The seven states along the vast Colorado River basin, the federal government and Mexico are now working to answer the questions: How do we keep the water supply from running dry, and what happens if it does?

Those are far from academic questions today.

In a worst-case scenario, Lake Mead and Lake Powell become "dead pools," unable to send water downstream, leaving downstream users, particularly Las Vegas, high and dry.

Southern Nevada water officials, though, believe the worst case will be prevented by negotiating for water and following an aggressive plan to develop new sources of water from within the state.

While Southern Nevada plans to lay pipes and drill new wells throughout the state over the next decade, officials plan to protect their allocation from the Colorado River.

"Nevada has to have a safety net in this drought," Pat Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, said.

If there's trouble getting water from the river, "We will go to court, and then a judge will take control of the waters on the Colorado River. And then the federal government and the states will totally lose control," Mulroy said.

She is confident that in a court battle over water, Southern Nevada would come out ahead.

"A judge will not shut off a city," Mulroy says. "Never, ever, has a judge or the federal government shut off a city."

The issue has become more pressing as officials have instituted water restrictions in Clark County and the water level at Lake Mead continues to drop as never before.

The elevation of Lake Mead was about 1,223 feet above sea level four years ago. Today it is below 1,128 feet -- a 95-foot drop. The drop represents a loss of more than 3 trillion gallons from Lake Mead.

Lake Powell is dropping even faster, and within two to four years -- experts disagree on when -- it could be down to its "dead pool," unable to send reserves down river.

At that point, the decline of Lake Mead, the source of 90 percent of Las Vegas' drinking water, would accelerate, and falling levels could leave Las Vegas with problems drawing water out of the lake.

Las Vegas uses less than 5 percent of the Colorado River's lower basin supply. California takes 59 percent, and the rest is divided between Arizona and, by international treaty, Mexico. As long as the demand downstream is satisfied, the lake levels will continue to fall.

Mulroy, who is in charge of both the water authority, which is the wholesaler of water throughout urban Clark County, and the Las Vegas Valley Water District, which provides service to the taps of Las Vegas and unincorporated Clark County, believes the federal government, which has dominion over the river, will have to step in.

"Before that happens, the federal government will start shutting off agriculture in the lower basin," Mulroy said. "They don't have a choice. That's the safety net."

The safety net is wide. Agriculture takes most of the 7.5 million acre-feet of water supplied to users in the lower basin. Las Vegas, which Mulroy points out is the only major city along the entire length of the river, takes just 300,000 acre-feet, and uses it to sustain a population of 1.7 million people.

The farmers using the water to grow cotton, alfalfa and vegetables such as broccoli and lettuce will not let go of their water without a fight. Colorado River water is used to irrigate three-quarters of the entire country's winter vegetable crop.

Farmers also point out that the 70-year history and law of the Colorado River are on their side; Hoover Dam was built principally as a water reservoir and flood-control device for the farms of Southern California's Imperial Valley.

River law puts the Imperial Irrigation District at the front of the line for the water flowing from Lake Mead, and Jesse Silva, district general manager, does not see why that should change.

"The reason that we have all of these laws is to operate the system under shortage conditions," Silva says. "It is our expectation that the laws will be in effect when we need them."

He points out that nobody wants to see a courtroom struggle for water.

"It doesn't mean that we can't do anything to help each other," Silva says. "If things get so bad there is a real emergency, there will be opportunities to help those in need."

Those opportunities are what Mulroy is seeking. She says any diversion of agricultural water would be temporary, to bridge the gap between the needs of the short-term future and in-state water resources her agency plans to bring to Las Vegas within the next decade.

The bridge is critical, she says.

Bennett Raley, assistant secretary of the Interior Department, says ongoing talks can produce a negotiated settlement without devolving to courtroom wars among the stakeholders. Raley, the White House point man on water issues affecting the West, has worked to herd the various players together to seek solutions.

But if the solutions can't be agreed upon, would the Interior Department support Las Vegas, the farmers, or others with claims to the river water?

"I have no comment on that," Raley said.

The talks with the other states and the federal government are designed to avoid a donnybrook of litigation, but it is not the only struggle over water that Mulroy's agency is dealing with.

By 2014, the water authority plans to nearly double the amount of water coming into Las Vegas by diverting the Muddy and Virgin rivers in northeast Clark County to urban use and by drilling dozens of wells throughout rural Clark, Lincoln, White Pine and Nye counties.

The in-state water would come to Las Vegas through hundreds of miles of pipeline. While the agricultural diversion may be key for the city if the drought persists, the wells and river water are as important to Las Vegas for long-term solutions to growing demand.

But environmentalists and guardians of such natural resources as the Desert National Wildlife Refuge worry that rare and endangered animal and plant species would be threatened by the use of groundwater from the ancient aquifers of central Nevada. Ranchers fear that the wells and springs that sustain their stock also would suffer.

Together, the ranchers, environmentalists and residents of the rural areas have forged a bloc that is contesting the water authority's efforts to secure the in-state water. Those groups, along with the governments of Nye and White Pine counties, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. National Park Service, are formally opposing the water authority's plans.

The venue for the fight over the in-state resources will be hearings before the Nevada State Engineer, by law the adjudicator of surface and groundwater rights. State Engineer Hugh Ricci has in the past been conservative in giving water rights to large users, but says he is aware of the stakes involved in the water authority's applications.

In March, Ricci conducted public hearings over a round of water authority applications for seven wells to produce 17,000 acre-feet, enough water for about 80,000 people, in northwest Clark and southwest Lincoln counties. In May, the water authority asked the state engineer for 16,000 acre-feet from another seven wells north of Indian Springs.

Eventually, the agency plans to bring water from White Pine County, 200 miles north of Las Vegas.

Mulroy is counting on the in-state resources to keep Clark County wet and growing by more than 70,000 people a year. The objections of the opposition must be overcome, she says.

She notes that the water authority has promised to cease pumping from its new wells if they affect existing wells or springs.

"The environmental community needs to get realistic," Mulroy says. "It is not our intention to devastate the environment. To simply beat the tom-tom on the hysteria side is not going to solve the problem."

The water from outlying areas of Clark County and from neighboring counties is a critical component of the water authority's plans to allow the region to continue growing through the next 25 years. Mulroy expects that the state engineer will approve the supply, or at least a sizable component, allowing the region to keep growing.

Jeff van Ee, a Las Vegas conservationist active with the Sierra Club Colorado River Task Force, a group looking at the management of the river and associated environmental issues, questions Mulroy's confidence.

"I think we need to slow our rate of growth," van Ee says. "I think it's unsustainable. If water is not a limiting factor, what will we say when we get to be 4 million (people)?"

Van Ee, however, says Mulroy may be right -- if the community is willing to pay, both in dollars and environmental damage, enough for the water.

"Economically speaking, she's probably right," van Ee says. "But I think this community needs to decide what the ecological cost will be and what this community is willing to spend."

Mulroy's agency has other options, but they may not come to fruition for decades. Among them is a long-term plan to build desalinization plants on the Pacific Ocean to convert sea water to drinking water for Southern California users. Although a popular misconception would be that the water authority would build pipelines from the Pacific, the agency actually would simply swap the water now used by Southern California that comes from Lake Mead.

To keep the economic engine of growth going, however, Mulroy is counting on the in-state resources at least through the next two decades.

The environmental objections, she believes, are to establish a bargaining position.

"The worst case scenario is that we cannot overcome this paranoia," she says. "What I think is going on here is that the enviros (environmentalists) are pushing as hard as they are in order to get as many restrictions on pumping as they can get."

Environmentalists such as John Hiatt, conservation chairman of the Red Rock Audubon Society, says the water authority could have come out with its own restrictions, but hasn't.

"The environmental community has really only seen from the Southern Nevada Water Authority the worst case scenario in terms of the volume that could be pumped," Hiatt says. "They are asking for the whole enchilada. ... That raises a red flag among folks who are looking at the history of water exploitation in the West."

The shadow of Southern California's exploitation of Owens Valley hangs over the conversation. The eastern California valley was turned into a dust bowl when its water supply was diverted hundreds of miles to Los Angeles.

"While Pat Mulroy would certainly say they are totally different than Los Angeles, the burden of proof is on her and the water authority rather than the other way round," Hiatt says. "We have to have a substantional dialogue and that needs to happen in a non-confrontational atmosphere."

The water authority is attempting to provide that atmosphere with a new advisory committee scheduled to meet next month that will look at virtually the entire portfolio of water supply and quality issues. Hiatt and representatives from the state's rural areas are to be members of the committee.

The objections of the governments of Nye and White Pine counties will evaporate if the water authority can hammer out deals to share water as the agency did last year with Lincoln County, Mulroy says. The objections and Nye County's counterclaims to water rights are a part of the bargaining process, she believes.

"I'm not worried about Nye County. We'll be able to work something out," she says. "You're going to see an agreement with Nye County that addresses their concerns and ultimately we'll have an agreement with White Pine County."

Mulroy says there is another reason why she's confident that Las Vegas can overcome the drought and the long-term resource questions. The nature of the city is that water used indoors doesn't count. Indoor water is treated and returned to Lake Mead, and the water authority receives credits for the returned water.

Those "return-flow credits" are the reason that the region can use a half-million acre-feet a year while technically consuming less than Southern Nevada's legal limit of 300,000 acre-feet.

"If you build 10 houses, and there's no landscaping around them, you have virtually no impact on the water supply," Mulroy says. "The impact of growth is a function of landscaping."

Already, water conservation measures limit the use of turf around houses and the types of landscaping around businesses. If the drought continues and the need for conservation intensifies, those limits would get tougher, she says.

"You might get to the point where you can't plant anything if you got to your extreme situation," Mulroy says.

Environmentalists and the water authority agree that conservation is critically important to Southern Nevada. There is a divide, though, on the ultimate goal of the conservation effort.

The water authority believes conservation is essential to get through the drought to the long-term resources that will allow Las Vegas to continue growing. Environmentalists say the region needs to live within the limit of existing resources.

The fear "is that there is no end game here," Hiatt says. "Las Vegas appears to be growing to be another Los Angeles."

If the current growth rate of about 70,000 people a year continues, Clark County will be home to about 2.5 million in a decade.

"If that's the case, there's no reason to think growth will stop there," Hiatt said. "The resource is finite but it seems the growth is infinite. That really worries a lot of people."

Hiatt, who has served on a number of community boards and is chairman of Clark County's Town Advisory Board for Enterprise, is known for his usually measured comments on issues affecting the community. On the water issue, he is clearly very concerned.

"If you look at the climate data that is coming in, we have based our calculations of Colorado River water supplies on some extraordinarily wet years," he says.

Hiatt noted that the Bureau of Reclamation, which is in charge of Lake Mead's releases downstream, estimates that it could take the better part of two decades for the reservoirs on the river to return to normal unless there is a series of extraordinarily rich snowfalls in the Rocky Mountains.

That isn't a good bet, he says. The last four years have only provided about 50 percent of the pre-2000 average runoff, and one of those years was just 25 percent of average.

"We'd better count on no more than we're getting now and probably less for the foreseeable future, Hiatt says.

If the long-term trend is for drier years, it won't only be the lower-basin users of the river that are hurt.

"The problems that we're facing now in Nevada will be faced by other people in the West in the years to come," Hiatt says. "We're leading the pack in terms of hitting the wall first."

For now, the states, agencies and consumers along the river are faced with some very important, but far from easy, questions about how to share the resource. Nobody will get through the drought without some sacrifice, Hiatt predicts, echoing similar comments from local and federal officials.

"For everybody along the Colorado River, there's going to be pain involved," Hiatt says.

archive