Congresswoman Susie Lee, D-Nev., hosts Congressman David Valadao, R-Calif., during a tour and discussion at the Lakeview Overlook at Lake Mead Friday, May 26, 2023. The stop at the overlook was part of a tour of Southern Nevada and a bipartisan exchange between the Representatives’ Nevada and California districts.
Friday, May 26, 2023 | 7:28 p.m.
A scenic view of a diminished Lake Mead served as the backdrop today for U.S. Reps. Susie Lee, D-Nev., and David Valadao, R-Calif., to discuss water issues that span state lines.
The meeting was days after Nevada, California and Arizona agreed to conservation measures to save 3 million acre feet of system water through the end of 2026. The states agreed that 1.5 million acre-feet would be conserved by the end of 2024.
Water districts, farm operators, cities and Native American tribes in the three states agreed to take less water in order to qualify for federal grants offered under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. Those payments will total about $1.2 billion. Officials did not say how much funding individual users in the states would get.
Lee said her hope is to use that bought time to implement more water recycling and reusing strategies to prevent history from repeating.
Valadao said years of drought have altered that agriculture-heavy region of the state. Communities whose water sources have run dry now receive drinking water pumped from elsewhere.
“We’ve got a lake near us that I haven’t seen since I was a little kid,” Valadao said. “Water is a huge issue for us.”
The pair are part of the Problem Solvers Caucus, which formed in 2017 as an effort to find common ground between Democrats and Republicans on various national issues. The Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington D.C. think tank, started organizing the trip about two months ago according to Co-Director Jonathan Perman.
Valadao said it’s become more difficult over time for lawmakers to spend time in-person with each other, even when they serve on the same committees.
“The opportunity to go out to each other’s districts and learn a little bit about (them,) it probably helps us highlight those opportunities we didn’t know existed,” Valadao said.
He said since the tour had just begun, he hadn’t yet picked up any interesting Nevada water conservation tactics that would translate well to his California district.
The West is mired in a two-decade drought that is leaving less water flowing through the Colorado and its tributaries. The result is depleted reservoirs that store the water that allows the West to thrive. Lake Mead — one of four reservoirs on the Colorado — is operating at 28% capacity.
The three states are entitled to 7.5 million acre-feet of water altogether from the river. But for the past two years, Arizona and Nevada to a lesser degree have not received their full allocations thanks to agreed-upon water cuts to keep more water in the system. California has been spared so far from those cuts thanks to its senior water rights.
“We are still in the middle of a drought, even though we had an incredible snowpack year,” Lee said, referring to the rocky shores of the lake and exposed intake valve visible from the scenic overlook. “As you can see, Lake Mead is still at 30% of its capacity.”
