Drought-induced wate cuts would affect Nevada, Arizona

Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2006 | 9:07 a.m.

Nevada and Arizona will likely bear cuts in water that states can take from the Colorado River should there be a drought-induced reduction, a state water official said Tuesday.

Jim Davenport, counsel to the Colorado River Commission of Nevada, told commissioners that the fundamental law of the river has put Arizona and Nevada on the chopping block should there be a shortage.

"The extent to which Nevada would participate in a shortage has not been set," Davenport said.

Arizona, Nevada, California and the four states of the upper Colorado River are meeting this week to recommend rules for handling shortages along the river. Interior Secretary Gale Norton, by law the "rivermaster" managing the reservoirs on the river, wants those recommendations next month.

Pat Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, the commission's sister agency and wholesale distributor of water throughout the urban area, said the fact that Nevada and Arizona are first on the list to take the cuts is written into the law of the river.

The 1968 federal legislation that provided $2 billion for construction of the Central Arizona Project, which brings Colorado River water to Arizona's urban centers, specifies that any water-delivery system built after the legislation gets in line behind California. Nevada's system bringing water to the Las Vegas Valley from Lake Mead was built in 1971. The Central Arizona Project was completed in 1993.

Mulroy said an agreement signed in December 2004 would mean that cuts to Nevada would not be likely. Under the deal, Southern Nevada would buy 1.25 million acre-feet of water over the next three decades for $330 million. Mulroy said those deliveries would provide a buffer against future cuts.

The deal also said that if shortages cut Colorado River deliveries to Tucson and Phoenix, the amount delivered to Nevada -- all of which would go to the Las Vegas metropolitan area -- would also be cut.

Before that would happen, Arizona would have to eliminate agricultural use of the water, a potential buffer of 600,000 acre-feet. An acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons, or typically enough for one or two families for a year.

Jeff Kightlinger, general counsel for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, said if a drought on the river was deep and long enough, California could join Arizona and Nevada among those states taking a cut, Kightlinger said. When that would happen is not clear.

"That's the rub. That's the discussion point," he said. "We all agree on an initial cut to be borne primarily by Arizona and then by Nevada. Then what we'll probably propose to do is at that point, the secretary (of Interior) convenes the states and we go back to legal discussions."

Launce Rake can be reached at 259-4127 or at lrake@lasvegassun.com.