Thursday, March 04, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

COLORADO RIVER: Plan to boost water share returns

Idea would let Nevada draw from Virgin, Muddy rivers

Click above for enlarged image. Graphic by Mike Johnson.

WASHINGTON -- The federal government is evaluating a controversial plan that would allow Southern Nevada to draw more water from the Colorado River to meet the demands of a growing population in a drought-stricken desert.

Federal lawyers are reviewing a decade-old proposal that would let the Southern Nevada Water Authority increase its allocations by adding water that flows into Lake Mead from the Virgin and Muddy rivers, said Bennett Raley, Interior Department assistant secretary for water and science, on Wednesday.

The states sharing Colorado River water are being asked to reconsider what has been an unpopular idea.

"We've asked the states to consider the issue again, and we're doing the same thing internally," Raley said.

Nevada water officials welcomed Raley's comments about the proposal, which could save the region millions of dollars while boosting its water supply from the Colorado River by about 40 percent.

The plan would allow authorities to avoid building a pipeline directing Virgin River water to Las Vegas. Instead, a corresponding amount of water would be pulled directly from Lake Mead through existing pumping stations.

Other states, though, continue to criticize such a plan as a violation of existing law governing the river.

Raley said the other Colorado River basin states would need to agree to such a plan, an occurrence that California and Arizona water officials Wednesday called unlikely.

"Right now that water is flowing to Lake Mead and contributing to our system's supply," said Larry Dozier, deputy general manager of the Central Arizona Project in Phoenix. "If Nevada were to say 'I want to call that mine,' we would get damaged.

"It's a break in the rules," Dozier said.

Raley said the Interior Department is considering the "policy ramifications" of such a plan, but he declined to elaborate.

At the heart of the matter is whether Nevada legally could draw additional water from the Colorado River because it owns 128,000 acre-feet of surface water rights on the Muddy and Virgin rivers.

The U.S. Supreme Court in a 1964 decree ruled states could develop their Colorado River tributaries. The court said that once water enters the Colorado River, the flow is considered part of the system that is governed by a 1922 compact and subsequent acts and agreements dividing the river's output.

"Once it becomes mainstream, it is treated and subject to all the compacts," said Dennis Underwood, vice president of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. "That's been the long-standing position of everyone except the person who's trying to get credit for the tributaries."

Dozier and Underwood said a Nevada exemption would open the floodgates for others to claim Colorado River water.

Nevadans read the case differently.

"It comes down to how you read the (decree) language," said Jim Davenport, chief of the water division of the Colorado River Commission of Nevada.

Davenport said Nevada law classifies the Muddy River and Virgin River as tributaries even after their water flows into the Colorado River. Therefore, Nevada has a right to use it, he said.

In times of drought, when the Nevada rivers might not generate as much flow, Davenport said, Southern Nevada would reduce its take from Lake Mead.

Pat Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, said the Colorado River compact does not take into account flows from the Muddy River, which since the 1890s has been diverted to farmers.

"It wouldn't ever get to the mainstream were it not for us acquiring the water and putting it there," Mulroy said. "It's more like a water augmentation."

With the Virgin River, Mulroy said the proposal has environmental benefits. Mulroy said endangered fish at the mouth of the Virgin River would be better protected if the authority were allowed to tap water from Lake Mead rather than draw from the river.

Another complication, officials said, is that Utah and Arizona could try to claim additional water because the Virgin River runs through the two states before entering Nevada and dumping into Lake Mead.

The Southern Nevada Water Authority holds surface water rights for 15,000 acre-feet on the Muddy River and 113,000 acre-feet on the Virgin River, amounts awarded by a state permit based on studies of the rivers' capacities.

An acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons of water, enough to supply a family of four for a year.

The Colorado River compact allots Southern Nevada 300,000 acre-feet a year, compared with the 4.4 million acre-feet allocated to California and 2.8 million acre-feet guaranteed to Arizona.