‘Something dramatic needs to be done’: Water use needs federal oversight, nonprofits say

From the sprawling alfalfa fields of the Imperial Valley to the lush, water-guzzling grass of cities like Phoenix, the definition of what the feds consider “beneficial use” along the Colorado River needs an update, according to a coalition of nonprofits.

In a legal petition filed Tuesday, the Natural Resources Defense Council and a group of river advocates urged the federal Bureau of Reclamation to use its power to better dictate how water can be used in the Lower Basin states of Nevada, California and Arizona. Its authors acknowledge that’s a bold request.

“The current management of the Colorado River is completely unsustainable,” Mark Gold, the council’s director of water scarcity solutions and a UCLA professor, said in an interview. “Something dramatic needs to be done.”

Though Nevada is allowed only about 2 percent of the annual flow of the river, that small percentage keeps taps flowing in Las Vegas, where almost all of the city’s water comes from the river.

All three states’ top Colorado River officials declined to comment on the petition Tuesday.

The Bureau of Reclamation, tasked with overseeing state-to-state negotiations about which states get what on the river after 2026, didn’t comment specifically about the petition.

As states remain deadlocked on which ones should take cuts in how much water they can use, the agency emphasized in a statement its commitment to “long-term operational agreement for the river after 2026.”

The petition hinges on Part 417 of federal regulations — a section of code that gives the Bureau of Reclamation the authority over water deliveries to the Lower Basin states, with an obligation to ensure that water use is reasonable.

Some worry that if the Bureau of Reclamation took the actions outlined in the petition, it could open the door to even more legal challenges from states and water users, kicking progress on conservation even further down the line when time is a luxury that water managers no longer have.

The ag machine

Gold’s petition specifically calls out the inefficiency of the agricultural sector, where more than half of the river’s water is used every year — far more than city use. The petition says exporting water-intensive crops is “akin to exporting water itself.”

California’s Imperial Valley, where farming is a multibillion-dollar industry, receives more water than Los Angeles, Phoenix and Las Vegas combined to grow crops like alfalfa, carrots and lettuce.

Gold hopes the feds will use better discretion in choosing which contractors are able to divert water from the river, prioritizing conservation. Some practices, like using flood agriculture to cover fields in water, are not practical, especially on days that break 100 degrees, he said.

“That doesn’t sound like a reasonable use of Colorado River water for beneficial use to me,” Gold said, “but it’s really up to the Bureau of Reclamation to define what that is and then develop a program to ensure that the water is not wasted.”

Elizabeth Koebele, a professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, who studies water policy on the Colorado River and co-authored a report on the region’s farmers, said federal control over who can and can’t farm won’t be without legal fights.

Farmers whom Koebele has encountered are well aware of the state of the river, she said. But those farmers, often with the most senior and well-established water rights on the river, know that updating longstanding farming practices is an investment of time and money.

“Almost every farmer I’ve ever talked to in any of my interviews has told me: ‘My water rights are my 401(k),’” Koebele said. “‘This is the asset that I passed down in my family.’ Any change we make really needs to consider the precedents we’ve set about senior water rights.”

Nevada caught in crosshairs

While Nevada is lumped in with its two sister states in the Lower Basin, much of what Gold and his organization is targeting isn’t of much relevance to the Las Vegas area.

Southern Nevada has set the tone for conservation across the basin — sometimes to the chagrin of its residents — recycling almost every drop of water used indoors, banning the use of evaporative swamp coolers in new commerical buildings, mandating the removal of some grass and incentivizing homeowners to remove other grass in their homes.

Though she sees how action from the Bureau of Reclamation could speed up other cities’ adoption of such policies, Koebele said these changes are often best handled locally, by water agencies that can oversee implementation, such as the Southern Nevada Water Authority.

“We might be able to make a big change at a very high level, but it affects a lot of laws and rules and regulations at the state level,” Koebele said. “We need to be thinking about that whole line of actions.”

Lawsuit could be forthcoming

While no deadline exists for the Bureau of Reclamation to respond to the petition, Gold said the coalition hasn’t ruled out a lawsuit that could require the agency to take some action.

In the interim, time is disappearing as the states hash out a plan past 2026.

Justin Pidot, a professor of environmental law at the University of Arizona, agrees that the Bureau of Reclamation has the ability to take a more active role in deciding how water is used in the Lower Basin.

Though states have their own statutory definitions for beneficial use of water, the federal one would likely prevail, he said.

For decades, the agency has been hands off in letting states come to water agreements, largely because of the looming threat of lawsuits that would delay decision making, Pidot said.

“The federal authority over beneficial use in the Colorado has never been tested,” Pidot said. “There’s always this theoretical plan B where the feds take a much more muscular approach. There’s a good argument that they can do so, but it would certainly involve a whole lot of both political and litigation fights.”

Even if the Bureau of Reclamation isn’t responsive to the petition, Gold said, he hopes to send a message to negotiators that it’s far past time to consider more drastic solutions to the basin’s water crisis.

“The key is to catalyze progress,” he said.

NRDC Petition to the Bureau of Reclaimation by Las Vegas Review-Journal on Scribd

Contact Alan Halaly at ahalaly@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlanHalaly on X.