John J. Entsminger, right, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, speaks during a Southern Nevada Water Summit hosted by Congresswoman Susie Lee, D-Nev., at the Springs Preserve Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2023.
Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023 | 2 a.m.
There’s a saying used in Washington to describe the woes of conserving large sums of Colorado River water amid one of the worst droughts in the history of the Western United States.
It was supposedly coined by the man who oversees Nevada’s largest water agency.
“Here’s the fundamental problem: We have a 19th-century law and 20th-century infrastructure in a 21st-century climate,” says John Entsminger, the general manager at the Southern Nevada Water Authority.
It’s a phrase he and others began to use throughout negotiations between the seven states dependent on the Colorado River for its water before they reached a tentative deal in May to conserve roughly 3 million acre-feet of water through 2026.
Tommy Beaudreau, a deputy secretary with the Department of the Interior, said he has used the phrase to describe the West’s water issues in talking with Biden administration officials as local, state, regional and federal officials seek to find a long-term conservation plan to placate fights over Colorado River water use once the deal expires.
“But I always attribute it,” Beaudreau said Tuesday, speaking to roughly 50 attendees at the Southern Nevada Water Summit — an inaugural event at the Las Vegas Springs Preserve hosted by U.S. Rep. Susie Lee, D-Nev.
Lee credited Beaudreau as a key negotiator in delivering the May compact between the three Lower Basin states, Arizona, California and Nevada.
Under the agreement, which Beaudreau said Tuesday still needed “some details” finalized before it was formally approved by Interior, water districts, farm operators, cities and Native American tribes in the three states will take less water from the Colorado to qualify for roughly $1.2 billion in grant subsidies offered under the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which Lee helped pass last year.
Officials said Nevada would take the least amount of water cuts from its annual allocation of 300,000 acre-feet, volunteering to reduce usage by 6% through 2026, while California will reduce use by about 30% and Arizona 55%.
Nevada, however, has long been a leader in water conservation already, Beaudreau said. He credited the leadership of the SNWA and other local stakeholders for providing leadership as talks with Colorado River Basin states continue to take shape.
“It’s the Lower Basin (states) with the smaller share,” Beaudreau said. “But, maybe ironically, some of the biggest leadership in putting concrete proposals and giving the entire basin, not just the lower basin, a framework to work with.”
Had an agreement not been made, federal officials had mulled the possibility of intervening to force allocation cuts. Colorado River states could face that situation again if a consensus to reduce water use isn’t reached by 2026, Lee said.
States were reluctant to give up their water allocations, with heavy-use states like California arguing they have the oldest claims to their allocations, while less populous states like Arizona maintain their water demand pales in comparison to others in the region.
“I think there’s become a realization that if you don’t have water, your rights don’t mean much, and that it’s really a resource that we all need to take a part and conserve,” Lee said.
Some 40 million people in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah andWyoming— as well as parts of Mexico — depend on the watershed for drinking water, agriculture, hydroelectricity generation, among other uses. The West has been mired in a two-decade drought that is leaving less water flowing through the Colorado and its tributaries.
Lake Mead, which straddles the Nevada-Arizona border, is one of four reservoirs on the Colorado and supplies about 90% of the drinking water used by the Las Vegas Valley. A
rainier-than-usual winter and spring as well as recent storms, however, have increased the water levels throughout the watershed, causing a slight rise in Lake Mead’s elevation.
Lake Mead was operating at 28% capacity when the deal was announced May 22.
It has since risen roughly 20 feet throughout the summer, and Lakes Mead and Powell — the largest reservoirs on the Colorado — together are projected to be at roughly 36% capacity, said Stacy Wade, deputy regional director for the Bureau of Reclamation, which oversees water management and infrastructure for the Interior Department.
“What that’s enabled us to do is take a step back and reassess all of those operating agreements … so that we can make smart decisions, long-term decisions, on how to maintain our natural resources,” said Wade, noting that increased collaboration among states in recent months has also helped. “We are all in this same game together, and we value and appreciate our long-term relationships with them.”
And while a 20-foot gain in water levels may seem like an encouraging sign, it would take dozens of consecutive winters like this past one to adequately fill Lake Mead to levels seen in previous decades, Lee said.
But it also can serve as a reminder that the efforts might be heading in the right direction.
“When people see the results of that type of conservation, it actually motivates them to do more,” Lee said. “And I think there’s been a recognition of the need and recognition there are things that we can do both in urban and agriculture (settings) to conserve this precious resource.”
