Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2005 | 8:16 a.m.
Comments on potential drought-induced cuts to allocations of Colorado River water can be mailed before the close of business Wednesday:
Regional Director, Bureau of Reclamation Lower Colorado Region Attention: BCOO-1000 P.O. Box 61470, Boulder City, NV 89006-1470 Fax: (702) 293-8156 E-mail: [email protected]
The shadow of growing demand and years of drought hangs over the Colorado River's 1,450 miles. That shadow may mean cuts to some or all of the river's users, including Nevada.
The Bureau of Reclamation, which plays a key role in managing the river, is looking at the possibility that water allocations to the seven states along the Colorado will have to be reduced in three years. The second round of public comment on how to institute cuts will formally end Wednesday.
Las Vegas and surrounding communities receive nearly all of their water for homes and businesses from the river. While other states and cities are not as dependent on the Colorado River as a single source, they still depend on the river water to support communities and agriculture.
California alone has an annual allocation of 4.4 million acre-feet, more than 14 times what Nevada receives. The Silver State's take is just 300,000 acre-feet, all of which goes to Southern Nevada. One acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons, or typically enough for almost two Las Vegas families for a year.
Cumulatively, the seven states that share the river take 16.5 million acre-feet.
The problem is that the river doesn't supply that much even under "normal" conditions -- which scientists now believe average about 15.1 million acre-feet annually -- and for five consecutive years, drought cut annual flows to as much as half the average.
While all users welcomed a heavy water year last year, there is significant concern among scientists and state and federal officials that the 2005 water year could have been a brief respite from a long-term drought.
During two rounds of comment on ways to deal with feared shortages, about 175 people, organizations and government agencies provided the Bureau of Reclamation with feedback.
One agency that avoided formal comment at public meetings in the Bureau of Reclamation process, which is mandated by the National Environmental Policy Act, is the Southern Nevada Water Authority, which supplies the area with water.
Pat Mulroy, the authority's general manager, said her agency and the other basin states commented to the federal authorities in an August letter.
The letter, addressed to Interior Secretary Gale Norton, who will make the administrative decision on how to impose cuts on river use, staked out the states' priorities.
Nevada outlined priorities that include Southern Nevada get credit for water taken from rural areas, used, treated and sent as wastewater to Lake Mead; that the region be allowed to use surface water from the Virgin and Muddy rivers without subtracting the total from the annual Colorado River allocation; and that river management include cuts to both lakes Powell and Mead, the upper and lower basin reservoirs.
"We view this whole thing" -- the multiple issues affecting Nevada's water relationships with the other states -- "as one package," Mulroy said.
Upper and lower basin states have protested elements of Nevada's program, particularly those that involve taking surface water and getting credits from ground water put into Lake Mead.
But for the time being, that will stand as the states try to reach an agreement on how to share the pain of cuts, Mulroy said.
"These are very fragile times among the basin states," she said Monday. "What the secretary has asked us to do is excruciatingly difficult. A solution will be one that binds the seven basin states together more closely than they have been in the past."
Mulroy said the effort to reach a consensus on how to share cuts would continue at the annual meeting of the Colorado River Water Users Association in Las Vegas next month.
"I think we're making some significant progress on the technical level," she said.
Terry Fulp, area manager for the Bureau of Reclamation's Boulder Canyon operations office, is focused on gathering comment on the shortage rules.
Some of those have come from environmentalists. One set of environmentalists has suggested removing the upper basin reservoir at Lake Powell, while another has suggested that cuts would not be necessary at all if river water users conserved more.
Others have urged the Bureau of Reclamation to protect endangered species, or to consider the effects of cutting water allotments on the hydroelectric power produced by Hoover and Glen Canyon dams.
Fulp said that most of the comments that his agency has received have been fairly technical. He noted that a recent public hearing in Henderson produced just two speakers.
"Clearly, we have had a fairly limited audience," he said. "It's early in the process ... Finally, it's a little hard for the general public to say, here's an alternative because it's so darned complicated."
There will be more opportunities to comment, Fulp said. The cuts, however they are structured and if drought makes them necessary, could come in 2008.
Mulroy said Nevada is likely to face cuts before other states. Under the terms of a 1968 congressional act, Arizona and then Nevada would face cuts before California. She said that is why it is important to develop surface water sources, despite opposition from other states, and rural ground water sources, despite opposition from inside Nevada.
Cuts to Nevada's allocation are "a very real possibility," she said. "That is one of the frailties of it. At the same time, we're working to develop new sources of supply ... I'm more interested in finding a solution that protects Nevada's water users."
Launce Rake can be reached at 259-4127 or at [email protected].
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