Federal official: Nevada, Lower Basin states meet key Colorado River water goals ahead of schedule

A plan from water officials in Arizona, Nevada and California to cut back on the amount of water those states use from the Colorado River in exchange for money with hopes of saving 3 million acre-feet of water over three years is meeting conservation goals, a top water official said Wednesday.

The 2023 agreement has already seen 1.7 million acres of improvement less than one year into the effort, Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Touton said. She says she believes the states are on pace to reach their original goal.

“There is proof here that we can take on these hard moments, but we have to do it together,” said Touton, who spoke during a summit hosted by U.S. Rep. Susie Lee, D-Nev., at Springs Preserve. “We’ve been able to stabilize the system in the short term, and now we are focused on what this river looks like for the future.”

A multidecade drought in the West intensified by climate change has increased the demand from the dwindling Colorado River supply that has been taxed by overuse.

The 1,450-mile river provides water to 40 million people in seven U.S. states, parts of Mexico and two dozen Native American tribes. The Colorado River Basin is divided into two regions: Lower Basin states are Nevada, Arizona and California; Upper Basin states are Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.

The $1.2 billion plan in 2023 called for half of the cuts to be made by the end of 2024 — a benchmark that has already been hit.

The agreement runs through 2026, when the 100-year legal document about how Colorado River water is shared will expire, and negotiations could bring deeper cuts in water usage based on climate modeling and future warming in the West. 

“We really were on the brink of catastrophe in this basin if we got another dry year,” said Colby Pellegrino, Southern Nevada Water Authority’s deputy general manager of resources, of the Colorado River prior to the agreement. “Mother Nature was kind to us, and Congress was very kind to us. And those two things together are what enabled us to get there voluntarily.”

Pellegrino wants to avoid states going to court to settle fights over how the Colorado River is used after current guidelines are void. The federal government is expected to issue draft regulations by the end of the year, The Associated Press reported Wednesday.

“It goes directly to the Supreme Court. That is not a place that we want to be deciding how 40 million people in the West get to use their water,” Pellegrino said. “The important message is that communities need to get together and do this, and that climate change is such a Herculean task for us to take on that there’s no possible way it can be borne by one community.”

Lee, vice chair of the bipartisan congressional Colorado River Caucus, said she was proud of the more than $120 million she helped deliver for local water projects, including $20 million for erosion control measures in the Las Vegas Wash. She also lauded the Inflation Reduction Act, calling it the “most significant legislation passed to take on (the) climate crisis,” and its $4 billion investment in water conservation along the Colorado River.

John Entsminger, the water authority’s general manager, praised Lee for championing federal money to upgrade the water infrastructure across Nevada. That includes millions to enhance the “critical storage infrastructure” for Laughlin, and another $400 million from last year’s Large-Scale Water Recycling Project Investment Act.

“Southern Nevada has no bigger champion in the federal government than Susie Lee when it comes to water resource issues,” Entsminger said.

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