Conservation agency presents Colo. River project updates to Senate

Camille Touton, the commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, praised the water conservation efforts of Southern Nevadans on Wednesday during a U.S. Senate committee meeting of energy and natural resources.

Las Vegas has shown it is possible to conserve water and have vibrant communities, Touton added. 

“Legislation today provides us with tools that allow us to meet our mission, serve the American West and ensure communities have sustainable water supplies,” Touton said.

The committee was updated on multiple proposals to promote drought resiliency and improve the safety, reliability, and conservation of groundwater, which include:

• Reauthorizing the Colorado River Basin System pilot program to help states like Colorado and Wyoming investigate ways to take voluntary water cuts through 2026.
  
  From 2015 to 2018, the Upper Division States of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming started the first pilot program to explore solutions and address declining water levels in Lake Mead and Lake Powell from long-term drought in the Upper Colorado River Basin.
  
  “In the west, water really is life,” U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., said. “We have no crystal ball, but we have to be ready for whatever comes.”

• The Sacramento River Act would authorize the Interior Department to set a federal leadership committee to improve federal coordination of ecosystem restoration, said Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., the bill’s lead sponsor.
  
  The legislation would position Interior to work with other federal agencies, like the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency, to leverage federal funding and administer a holistic approach to federal efforts.
  
  “As the West continues to adapt to the climate crisis and historic drought, it’s more important than ever to ensure the federal government is meeting these challenges with more thoughtful, innovative and cooperative strategies,” Padilla said.

• Allow the Lower Colorado Multi-Species Conservation Program to collect interest to continue to help fish species and increase the number of migratory birds, Padilla said.
  
  The Interior Department launched this program in 2005 to recover 27 species in the lower Colorado River. The species include fish, birds, bats, mammals and insects. The program has a 50-year plan to create over 8,000 acres of new habitat and restore habitat that has become degraded. 

There have already been more than $4.2 billion invested across 566 projects in seven Colorado River Basin states to increase water storage, increase water recycling and desalination, improve system efficiency and repair aging infrastructure, Touton told the committee.

The drought is the product of scorching temperatures and less snow melt in the spring to reduce the amount of water flowing from the Rocky Mountains, where the Colorado River originates before it snakes 1,450 miles southwest and into the Gulf of California. Some 40 million people from Denver to Mexico, including many farmers, depend on Colorado for water.

One of the projects is the pure water project in Southern California, which has a partnership with the Southern Nevada Water Authority and central Arizona project, that will bring water to 500,000 homes annually.

“The importance of these projects can be underestimated,” U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., said. “It really is bringing essential water and keeping water in the Colorado Basin but bringing essential water to households.”