Thirsty Las Vegas Eyes a Refuge's Water
Hydrologists worry that tapping aquifer beneath a bighorn sanctuary
could threaten rare wildlife.
By Bettina Boxall
Times Staff Writer
June 21, 2004
DESERT NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, Nev. — Water is not what comes to mind in this sun-bleached landscape of
crumpled mountains and creosote-coated basins. But that's what Las Vegas thinks of when it glances across its northern
border at this sprawling bighorn sheep refuge, the largest federal wildlife sanctuary in the lower 48 states.
The city of water-themed casinos and ever-expanding subdivisions is looking here to begin a massive pumping project that
would reach deep into rural Nevada to tap an ancient aquifer running from western Utah to Death Valley National Park in
eastern California.
In Nevada's scrappy outback, the plans have prompted comparisons to Owens Valley, Los Angeles' infamous eastern Sierra
water grab of a century ago.
Federal hydrologists worry that the first round of pumping, which if approved by the state engineer could be in operation by
2007, could starve springs on public lands. They are concerned not just for this place but for several other national wildlife
refuges in southern Nevada that provide havens for endangered species found nowhere else in the world.
In Death Valley and surrounding Inyo County, Calif., officials believe the pumping could jeopardize water supplies. "There's
no doubt the aquifer will be drawn down. It's a question of magnitude and where it will occur," said Death Valley hydrologist
Terry Fisk. "In our view, the withdrawal of water … could potentially harm our senior water rights."
The Southern Nevada Water Authority, the agency that manages the region's water supplies, insists the pumping will have
minimal, if any, effect. If they're wrong, authority officials say, they'll turn off the offending pumps. "We've made a commitment
if one of our wells causes environmental degradation, we'll shut it off," said Pat Mulroy, the agency's general manager.
The groundwater development is just one of several fronts her agency is pursuing as it hunts for more water for fast-growing
Las Vegas, which gets most of its municipal supply from the fully claimed Colorado River, now in the grip of what some
experts say might be the worst drought in 500 years.
The authority has obtained rights to divert water from the Virgin River northeast of Las Vegas, expressed interest in buying
irrigation water from other states and lobbied the federal government for a bigger share of the Colorado. "Something has to
give. Southern Nevada is the economic engine in the state of Nevada," said Mulroy, who is known in Southwestern water
circles for her combative style.
In the last year, regional water demand dropped thanks to drought measures, reversing a more than decade-long trend when
water use jumped from about 300,000 acre-feet to more than 500,000 acre-feet. (An acre-foot is the amount of water that
would cover 1 acre to a depth of 1 foot. One acre-foot is enough to supply two average homes for a year.)
But every month, the Las Vegas metropolitan area continues to grow by another 3,000 to 4,000 people. The groundwater
system that the authority is proposing to meet new demand would take a decade to fully develop and could eventually deliver
enough water to supply more than 300,000 homes.
The Nevada congressional delegation introduced a bill last week that would grant the water authority pipeline rights of way
across federal land.
The authority would like to start here, pumping enough water from beneath the 1.6-million-acre desert range and nearby
basins to annually fill a 3-mile-high football stadium.
Established in 1936 to protect desert bighorn sheep, the refuge has the stark, unforgiving contours of a place where summer
temperatures reach 117 degrees and annual rainfall averages 4 inches on the valley floors. More than three-fourths of it is
pristine enough to have been recommended for inclusion in the federal wilderness system.
"We have some very serious concerns about the effect of withdrawing that much water," said Dick Birger, a veteran U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service manager who oversees the desert refuge and three other much smaller refuges nearby. "Any creature that
can live in the Mojave [Desert] is already on the ragged edge. There's no fat in survival in the Mojave."
At the other wildlife sanctuaries — Moapa Valley, Ash Meadows and Pahranagat — warm springs bubbling from the earth
provide a home for remnant fish and aquatic life left over from prehistoric times, when Nevada was a place of lakes and
plentiful water.
"The species we're talking about occur only here," said Cynthia Martinez, an assistant field supervisor for Fish and Wildlife in
southern Nevada. "When the water's gone, they're gone. There's no place else to put them."
Refuge officials think spring flows at Moapa are already dropping because of nearby groundwater pumping started in the late
1990s by a local water district.
Water managers say the drought might have more to do with the Moapa spring decline than any existing pumping, a
disagreement that illustrates the quandary officials could face if Las Vegas withdraws large amounts of groundwater and
springs start drying up.
"Who decides who's to blame? Who decides who's having the impact?" wondered Tim Mayer, a hydrologic engineer for the
Fish and Wildlife Service's western region. "It's very hard to agree on these things."
The Southern Nevada Water Authority says the worries of federal agencies are unjustified. "I don't disagree that any time you
change scenarios there may be a minimal impact. That is the key, minimizing," said Kenneth Albright, resources director at the
authority. "Our proposal is to develop a series of resources that we can manage. We don't plan on pumping or diverting from
any resources 365 days a year."
But Death Valley officials are concerned — about springs that supply eastern portions of the park as well as Devil's Hole, a
tiny holding just across the Nevada border. The water-filled underground cavern was the site of a 1970s legal battle resolved
when the U.S. Supreme Court halted groundwater pumping by a nearby ranch that was threatening to wipe out its resident
endangered fish.
And a few miles to the west, officials in Inyo County are nervously following the pumping plans. "We are cautioning Nevada
to be careful," said Greg James, special legal counsel to the county, which has had protracted battles with Los Angeles over
Owens Valley water exports. "Once the water is going to the city, it's very hard to get it back, and it's hard to restore the
environment that's been affected."
The Las Vegas pumping would draw at least in part from a vast underground aquifer known as the carbonate aquifer, after
the type of rock it occupies. It extends from beneath western Utah through eastern and southern Nevada to Death Valley in
eastern California. Several miles thick, it holds an enormous amount of water, much of it stored for thousands of years after
falling as rain or snow during much wetter eras.
"It's a huge aquifer system," acknowledged Dan McGlothlin, supervisory hydrologist for the National Park Service's water
rights branch. "But the recharge in relation to the storage is so small, and if you look at it as a bathtub with water spilling over
— if you draw water down so you no longer have flow over the top of the bathtub, you have essentially dried up the springs."
How quickly and by what amounts the aquifer is recharged is a pivotal point in the pumping debate. "The real issue for water
development is the current rate of recharge, and the major area of contention in science is determining that," said Kimball
Goddard, who runs the U.S. Geological Survey's Nevada water program. If significantly more water is withdrawn from the
aquifer than is annually replenished through rain and snow, the aquifer level will drop.
Environmentalists complain that there is no room for mistakes in places like Death Valley and the desert refuge.
"Nobody is denying Nevada has a need for more water," said Don Barry, executive vice president of the Wilderness Society
and a former Interior Department official who oversaw the Park Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service during President
Clinton's final term. "I just think a national wildlife refuge should be the last place you go to get it."
Barry and others are especially critical of the water authority and the Sacramento regional office of the federal Fish and
Wildlife Service drawing up a plan to drill monitoring wells on the desert refuge. They contend the agreement helps the
authority skirt a tough legal standard that says activities on federal refuge lands can't interfere with wildlife conservation.
"It really looks like a political deal in the making, and the short end of the stick goes to the refuge," maintained Jamie
Rappaport Clark, executive vice president of Defenders of Wildlife, who directed the Fish and Wildlife Service from 1997 to
2001.
Steve Thompson, the California-Nevada director for the service, defended the agreement as the only way his agency could
learn about the groundwater beneath its land. "We don't have the resources to look into that. We need help," he said. "They
offered help to do that. But it doesn't guarantee them anything."
If the state engineer approves the pumping, Fish and Wildlife would still have to grant access to the water authority for full-
scale pumping on the refuge. If the agency doesn't get it, Albright said, wells could be drilled outside the refuge on adjacent
federal land.
The desert refuge claims are just the beginning. There will be many more to come as Las Vegas pursues applications to pump
water under a swath of Nevada extending from Ely to Las Vegas. The pumping system ultimately would reach more than 200
miles north into White Pine County, where the 8,500 residents are eyeing the plans warily. "Some fear that we'll tap into
something and adversely affect farms and ranches and the ecosystem," said Paul Johnson, chairman of the county commission.
Johnson predicts Las Vegas won't stop in White Pine. "They're going to be like a junkie looking for a fix of more water," he
said. "We really think there is a growth issue. They can't just continue to grow at the rate they are without a much larger
solution than the water we have."
Western drought worse than Dust Bowl
By ANGIE WAGNER
Associated Press Writer
06/18/2004
LAS VEGAS -- The drought gripping the West could be the worst in 500 years, with effects in the Colorado River basin
even worse than during the Dust Bowl years, scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey say.
"That we can now say with confidence," said Robert Webb, lead author of the new fact sheet released Thursday. "Now I'm
completely convinced."
The drought has produced the lowest flow in the Colorado River on record, with an annual average flow of only 5.4 million
acre-feet at Lees Ferry during the period 2001-2003, adjusted for the effect of Glen Canyon Dam. By comparison, during
the Dust Bowl years, between 1930 and 1937, the annual flow averaged about 10.2 million acre-feet, the report said.
Scientists use tree-ring reconstructions of Colorado River flows to estimate what conditions were like before record-keeping
began in 1895. Using that method, the lowest five-year average of water flow was 8.84 million acre-feet in the years
1590-1594. From 1999 through last year, water flow has been 7.11 million acre-feet.
"These comparisons suggest that the current drought may be comparable to or more severe than the largest-known drought in
500 years," the report said.
Environmental groups say water managers should take heed.
"The water managers, they just continue to pray for rain," said Owen Lammers, director of Living Rivers and Colorado
Riverkeeper. "They just say, well, we hope that things change and we see rain."
Lammers said the report reinforces the need to figure out a better way to manage the Colorado River before reservoirs run
dry.
"Once our reserve supply is gone, we have no plan of action for what to do," he said.
The report said the river had its highest flow of the 20th century during 1905 to 1922, the years used to estimate how much
water Western states would receive under the 1922 Colorado River Compact.
The compact should now be reconsidered because of the uncertain water flow, said Steve Smith, a regional director for the
Wilderness Society.
"We've got to figure out a new way of distributing the water that exists in the Western United States and be a lot more
deliberate about our cautious and efficient use of the water," he said.
The report didn't surprise water managers.
"The big lesson is communities cannot afford to put all their eggs in the proverbial basket. You need .. a diverse portfolio of
resources," said Adan Ortega, spokesman for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the largest wholesale
water supplier in the country.
Ortega said the water district is increasing water storage, buying water from farmers and investing in alternatives to the
Colorado River.
Vince Alberta, spokesman for the Southern Nevada Water Authority, said water use in southern Nevada this year is actually
down and the authority continues to enforce watering restrictions, impose fines for water waste and promote conservation.
"I think we can be successful managing this drought, but it's going to take a unified effort with everybody making sacrifices,"
Alberta said.
Herb Guenther, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, said the agency continues to plan for a continuing
drought.
"It's serious, but the sky is not falling. Of course, we wish it would in the form of rain," he said.
Webb said predicting when the drought will end isn't easy because the Colorado River is difficult to forecast.
"It's sort of a split-personality river. It has headwaters up in Wyoming as well as headwaters in Colorado," Webb said.
"Those two regions tend to respond to different things. ... We can't explain it very well."
Droughts seldom persist for longer than a decade, the report noted. But that could mean the current drought is only half over.
"If you're a betting person, you will bet that we will come out of this drought next year," Webb said. "It's a very severe event
and these things tend to end fast. There are other indications, though, that suggest that this drought could persist for as long as
30 years.
"We don't really know."
------
EDITOR'S NOTE -- Angie Wagner is the AP's Western regional writer, based in Las Vegas.
Heat's on agriculture
Unrestricted growth and unrelenting drought threaten
the future of farms and ranches in the Mountain West
By Gary Nabhan
for Headwaters News
Something unprecedented in scale but chronic in its effects on our livelihoods and landscapes is happening all around us in the American West:
drought.
Recently, the water level of Lake Powell has dropped more than 100 feet, and federal agencies predict that the lake may be empty by 2007.
In central Arizona's Verde Valley, eight of 10 springs have dried up, and irrigators have been told that they must cut their deliveries to forage
crops by a third.
Drought-driven bark beetle infestations have killed off more than two-thirds of the trees on a million acres of New Mexico, Colorado and
Arizona, increasing fire hazards that can further diminish rangeland productivity.
While some of these changes are "natural" and largely beyond our control, most have been aggravated by having already-scarce water supplies
shunted from working landscapes in the West to cities where both growth and per capita use remain largely unchecked.
In a survey of residents living in every county of Arizona, less than a third of the urban dwellers in metro Phoenix and Tucson felt their
consumption patterns had been affected in any way by the drought, whereas well over two-thirds of rural dwellers had already suffered impacts
on their economic and food security.
In a recent forum aimed at advancing food security and sustainability in the West, I was asked which was the worse threat to the future of
Western ranching and farming, drought or land conversion for urban sprawl?
If we step back a moment, and look at the course of Western history, it becomes clear that there is a curious but insidious connection between
the two.
It is now dawning on many Western livestock producers that pre-drought levels of cattle, sheep and hay production in the region will never again
be achieved, at least not during our lifetimes. The reason for this is that whenever a prolonged drought occurs in the rapidly urbanizing West,
more water is permanently shunted away from agriculture to maintain the growth of cities and their suburbs, which then further subdivide and
fragment the West's working landscapes.
Take a look at the fate of Arizona's farms and ranches since the prolonged drought began to worsen around 1997. Because farmers in the state
have faced diminished irrigation supplies, higher water prices, reduced yields and rising input costs, they are currently shouldering nearly a
quarter more debt than they did at the start of the drought.
The average number of Arizona farms and ranches lost each year over the past half-century has been 82, but since the onset of the current
drought, it has increased to 100.
Many of the region's prime farmlands have been converted to condos, retirement homes, malls and golf courses that demand more water be
permanently allocated to them. Ironically, there are ample indications that while farmers are adopting water-conserving practices that have cut
their per-acre use by one-fifth over the past quarter-century, per capita urban use in Western cities has increased by one-quarter over the same
period.
What many fail to see is that current water allocation policies exacerbate the meteorological drought faced by farmers and ranchers, creating a
"political drought" that threatens to undermine our food security.
The facile assumption of such developer-biased policies is that the food production lost in the West due to urban expansion can always be made
up by importing meat, vegetables and grains from offshore sources.
But as Americans are quickly learning, food produced and imported from beyond our borders may be fraught with perils: mad cow disease,
contamination from E. coli and salmonella, high pesticide residues and farm worker abuse.
In a recent public opinion survey undertaken for the Center for Sustainable Environments by the Social Research Laboratory at Northern
Arizona University, it became clear that well over half of consumers contacted are deeply concerned about the quality, safety, traceability and
production proximity of the food they eat.
And yet, while such strong concerns are prevalent among every economic class and ethnicity now living in the West, they have yet to influence
state and federal water and land policies that determine how secure our food future will be.
Let's look in detail at what the public wants that our federal water projects, land-use agencies nor land grant agricultural colleges are not
currently offering.
Recognizing that local food production contributes to food security and safety, 59 percent of Arizonans surveyed strongly support and 33 percent
somewhat support setting aside a portion of each community's water supply to be used exclusively for local food production.
Surprisingly, 80 percent claim they would be willing to pay as much as 10 percent more than their current food bills if locally produced food
became accessible to them.
In addition, 24 percent of those surveyed are concerned enough about meat safety to want to purchase more locally produced and packaged
range-fed beef and lamb. Of those, 71 percent claimed they would pay more for range-fed beef and lamb produced and direct-marketed by
neighboring ranchers, given current concerns about meat safety and traceability.
While this should be good news to the farmers and ranchers forging the marketing efforts of the American Grassfed Association, there remain
many obstacles in the way of both producers and consumers.
One of them is the disappearance of smaller-scale slaughterhouses and meat-processing plants near where range-fed and grass-finished beef
and mutton are produced.
In the aftermath of the mad cow scare last winter, federal agencies began to close down some of the few small-scale meat processors, claiming
that they didn't have enough inspectors to frequently monitor such operations. This was an infuriating move in the wrong direction, since most
critics agree that large feedlot and slaughterhouse operations run by the likes of ConAgra and Tyson are more likely to chronically violate
food-safety rules.
Range-fed cattle and sheep are among the few food-production strategies that do not require large water diversions to function, and
conservation-oriented ranchers in particular need the hurdles lowered to provide their neighbors with fresh, safe, sustainably grown meat.
Westerners will inevitably face further impacts of drought driven by erratic and changing weather conditions. But it is time to end the
agricultural water shortages caused not by drought itself but by greedy developers who push our region's population beyond the carrying capacity
of our land and its water supplies.
Such "developer-driven droughts" threaten to rob the West of its food security and the health of its rural communities, while leaving no water
in our rivers and lakes for fish or wildlife.
To arrest these trends, the Center for Sustainable Environments has launched a marketing campaign for regionally grown food products grown
with water-conserving practices: "Get Your Fresh From Canyon Country."
It is time that water-conscious consumers and environmentalists help farmers and ranchers stay on the land through this era of record drought,
rather than standing by passively while land developers further diminish our region's chances to have a sustainable food future.
Dr. Gary Nabhan is co-author of a new policy paper on drought, water scarcity and food security in the West, available at www.environment.nau.edu
Saturday, May 29, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
EDITORIAL: Reclaimed water a go
Another way to conserve
The county sanitation district's push to use more "reclaimed" water in an effort to conserve the valley's drinking supply makes
good sense.
Some people, of course, might be squeamish about irrigating parks and other areas with treated sewage. But their fears are
misplaced.
In the first place, it's nothing new here. Many golf courses already use reclaimed water -- and have done so for years without
any problems. Henderson and the city of Las Vegas have reclamation facilities.
In addition, the technology exists today to ensure recyled water is virtually indistinguishable from drinking water.
"Reclaimed water at the standards we have is as clean or cleaner than the drinking water in most of the world," said Marty
Flynn, spokesman for the Clark County Water Reclamation District (which recently upgraded its name from the less
appealing "sanitation district").
The district hopes to have a pilot program up and running by the end of next year at the park near Sam Boyd stadium. It
hopes to expand that to other area parks within a few years.
The cost of building additional pipelines and pumping stations throughout the valley to handle the non-potable water will run
into the millions, but can be accommodated under the existing sewage rate structure.
Given the current drought -- and the valley's limited water supply -- it's wasteful to maintain the region's parks and playing
fields with drinking water. As the technology surrounding reclaimed water advances, Southern Nevada would be foolish not
to take advantage of it. LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL ¥ SATURDAY, MAY 29, 2004
May 9, 2004, NYTimes
For 28 Cows and Precious Water, a Man's Got to Sit in Jail
By CHARLIE LeDUFF
WILLCOX, Ariz., May 4 — "Sometimes a man has to die for what he believes in before anyone knowed he truly believed
it," said Wally Klump, a 70-year-old rancher who sits in jail because he refuses to remove some cows from federal land.
Mr. Klump has spent the last year behind bars for repeatedly thumbing his nose at a judge's order to remove 28 cows from
the Dos Cabezas mountain range here in southwest Arizona, land owned by the Bureau of Land Management but ranched by
the Klump clan for 100 years.
Last week, Judge John Roll of Federal District Court summoned Mr. Klump from solitary confinement and asked him again if
he had had a change of heart. Mr. Klump said he had not and was returned to jail. Now Mr. Klump promises to spend the
rest of his natural days behind bars in canvas shoes instead of on the open range in cowboy boots.
"It's a land grab and a water grab," Mr. Klump said. "The government's trying to steal my land."
Mr. Klump acknowledges, however, that he and his family do not own most of the land, but have the common-law claim to
the use of nearly 500 square miles of it. He said he believed he would lose his claims to the coveted groundwater if he did not
have cattle drinking it.
At the heart of the dispute, Mr. Klump says, are liberty, water and preservation of the Western life that he will not idly watch
evaporate.
"I want to show the American people how to live," he said in the visitors' room of a private jail in Florence, a two-hour drive
northwest of his ranch near Willcox. The Klumps own about 50 square miles of land.
Government agents have decided not to round up Mr. Klump's livestock as they have done in the past, since he has
threatened to shoot them dead. While this is impossible from behind bars, his family remains on the land and the government
prefers not to provoke them.
Mr. Klump said he had never been in jail before. He has never been to New York or Los Angeles or even Amarillo, Tex., for
that matter. He is tall, his body without a trace of excess. His face is severe, his hands soft from disuse, and he walked about
the jail with a defeated shuffle.
"Ownership by the government is tyranny," he said. "Ownership by the rich is feudalism. The people become slaves. I'm
talking about land and liberty. I'm doing this for the people. Not for me."
And here he wept, drew a laborious breath, wiped his nose in disgust at himself and said, "Shoot."
Without enough private land to raise a profitable amount of livestock, ranchers have long leased adjacent land owned by the
government. The arrangement for decades was friendly, even when the government rearranged the process in 1934 to stop
desperate cattlemen of the Dust Bowl from killing each other.
Mr. Klump said the government even helped his father put a barbed wire fence around his allotment. Ranchers used the
allotted land pretty much as they saw fit until the mid-70's when environmental regulations severely curtailed agricultural
operations and grazing rights. It is these grazing rights Mr. Klump is charged with violating.
At the same time, agencies like the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service staked claims to water that had been
claimed by ranchers decades ago, in case the ranchers should ever abandon their properties or forfeit them.
The West is growing at a pace that has it tapping every water source. The population of Arizona, for instance, is expected to
grow by 40 percent in the next 20 years.
Despite spending $5 billion on an aqueduct to deliver Colorado River water 2,400 feet up and 335 miles across the state,
Arizona still draws about 45 percent of its water from the ground. Every year the subterranean water is depleted by 2.5
million acre feet and officials wonder where the future's water will come from. Recycled toilet water is one idea. The
retirement of ranchers is another.
"Anyone whose livelihood depends on the water is feeling the pinch," said John Lavelle, a spokesman with the Arizona
Department of Water Resources. "You can't blame a man like that for feeling threatened."
About 20,000 ranchers have their cattle grazing on federal land in the West, and how the land and water regulations are being
enforced is the key to their survival or death.
Wayne Hage, a Nevada rancher, lost his grazing and water rights for what the government said was mismanagement of public
property. His case has been wending its way through the federal courts for more than a decade. He argues that under the
Fifth Amendment the government cannot take property without paying for it and that grazing permits and water rights are
property.
"The essence on Western lands is water," Mr. Hage said. "And water has reached the status of oil. The easy way for the
government to get it is take away your grazing rights. We won't let that happen without a fight."
And in this spirit, Wally Klump refuses to remove the cows from the land.
"If I take the cows off, they'll take the root of my water away," he said. "My family withers on the vine."
The dispute with the Klumps has nothing to do with water rights, said Mike Taylor, deputy director for resources for the
Bureau of Land Management in Arizona, though he confirmed that the government has staked claims on top of Mr. Klump's.
"We do not covet his water, O.K," Mr. Taylor said. "There is no desire for that. All we want from Wally is compliance with
grazing regulations. That means removing the cows."
One of the original settler families in Arizona, the Klumps have battled the bureau since the late 1980's. The Klumps lost
lawsuits and countersuits and appeals. The government confiscated cattle and sold them at auction. It canceled easements and
claims to smaller springs. It placed liens on private parcels of property. It seized bank accounts. All were humiliating losses for
the Klumps. This time, Mr. Klump said, he got fed up with losing.
Citing the constitutional right to own firearms, Mr. Klump has threatened to take "Second Amendment action." He has
threatened to do so in a paid advertisement in a local paper. He has personally threatened to do so in the sheriff's office. He
said it again to a visitor in jail.
"The Second Amendment is my ace, and they know it's my ace," he said. "The founding fathers gave the individual a gun to
fight the tyranny of the government. What's that mean? The bearer can kill someone in government if the reason is justified.
But it's never been tested. I told them, you take those cows, I'll kill you as mandated by the Second Amendment."
Believing him, the government has refused to remove the wayward cows, instead letting Mr. Klump corrode in prison, passing
the time with the Bible and the music videos on Black Entertainment Television.
The prisoners support Mr. Klump, clap him on the back and call him old-timer. The townsfolk of Willcox supported him until
he started talking about killing people. Now they say he should take down the barbed wire, let the government on the public's
land and take the cows off.
"He lost a whole lot of support in town with talk like that," his brother Wayne said. "It's a fine line between a nut case and a
man with principle, but you got to understand that even if you whip a lamb so many times, he'll come after you."
Wayne Klump is a tall, erect, real-deal cowboy struggling with an icy sense of guilt.
"I wonder if I took those cows off myself, would that get Wally out of jail?" he asked. "I don't think Wally would like that
though."
Parched Vegas
With growth, drought both relentless, the desert metropolis faces a crisis
By Stuart Leavenworth -- Bee Staff Writer - (Published May 2, 2004)
LAS VEGAS - Every night in this neon-lit town, the fountains gush, the gondolas float down Venetian canals and lava spews from a faux volcano on the strip.
Given this lavish display of liquid entertainment, it's hard to believe Las Vegas is gripped by drought. But after betting on the Colorado River for decades, the city is
holding a losing hand.
East of Las Vegas, Lake Mead is nearly half-empty. The river that feeds it has shrunk to half its normal size. Drive around the suburbs and you will see lawns being
ripped out and landscapers planting desert shrubs.
One thing you won't see is Vegas slowing down.
Since 1964, Las Vegas has grown faster than any U.S. metropolis, from 130,000 to 1.6 million people. It is an economy grounded in gaming and golf course
retirement living, industries that now compete for a diminishing resource.
"Las Vegas is a city of illusions," said Jeff Van Ee, a Sierra Club activist who has led a quixotic battle for slower growth in his adopted town. "Ever since the days of
Bugsy Siegel, people have come to Las Vegas to gamble and win. And now we are gambling again."
Vegas' current gamble focuses on the good will of neighboring states, which it will need if the Colorado River doesn't quickly turn around. Unlike Arizona and
Southern California, southern Nevada doesn't have large amounts of water banked in underground reservoirs, or big farm districts that might be willing to sell some
of their supplies.
Arizona and California water leaders are in discussions with Nevada about ways to help it bridge the drought, but some fear that Las Vegas easily could become
dependent on their in-state supplies.
"The real issue, in my opinion, is the incredible growth of Las Vegas and the fact they don't have any water to meet that growth," said Sid Wilson, manager of the
Central Arizona Project, which provides water for farms and cities in that state. "They have maximized what they can do for local groundwater development, and
it may be some time before they can obtain other supplies."
Named after the meadows that periodically sprouted in this valley, Las Vegas gets a mere 4 inches of rain a year and probably would be sparsely inhabited still if not
for Hoover Dam. The filling of Lake Mead provided southern Nevada with a secure supply of 300,000 acre-feet of water - enough for at least 600,000 households.
Many thought that supply would quench southern Nevada's thirst for centuries. They guessed wrong.
"The crisis started in the late 1980s, when we began to see major increases in water consumption because of growth," said Patricia Mulroy, the hard-driving general
manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority. Up to that point, the Las Vegas area was consuming 3 percent to 4 percent more water each year. Suddenly,
water consumption was growing by 20 percent annually.
To better manage its supplies, the Las Vegas Water District joined forces with other agencies to form a regional water authority, with Mulroy as its captain. One of
Mulroy's early actions was to sit down with major casino owners, such as Steve Wynn, developer of the Bellagio, and seek money for a major conservation
campaign. Wynn quickly wrote out a $100,000 check, she said, and urged others to match it.
Why would big casino owners finance a conservation crusade?
"Because the perception of Las Vegas running out of water has huge financial effects on Wall Street. That just starts rippling through everything," Mulroy said.
"The banks start getting squeamish about giving loans. The whole economy of southern Nevada could crater."
Helped by casino bucks and development fees, Mulroy's agency has launched what some say is the most aggressive outdoor water conservation campaign in the
nation. The Southern Nevada Water Authority pays homeowners and businesses $1 per square foot to tear out water-sucking lawns and replace them with native
plants or artificial turf. The region is removing a football field worth of lawn every day, she says, and is spending $20 million to $30 million a year to do it.
Bill and Erminia Drobkin are two homeowners who recently jumped at the water authority's offer. Owners of a Las Vegas pawn shop, the Drobkins in 1995 bought
a 7,000-square-foot home with a 1.5-acre yard. After they installed lawns, their water bills quickly soared to $1,000 a month, partly because of rising utility rates.
So over the last few years, the Drobkins have torn out all their grass and re-landscaped the yard with Mediterranean-style gardens, pergolas and strips of artificial
turf.
"We like it a lot more now," said Bill Drobkin, who says the couple's monthly water bills have dropped to about $200 in the summer. "All you have to do is get out
your leaf blower and blow the turf."
Water authority officials say the incentives and restrictions helped reduce consumption between 2002 and 2003, but not without political fireworks. Some golf
course owners have griped about strict limits on watering, and last year, owners of business parks blocked a proposed ban on nonresort fountains. Some homeowners
complain that they pay high water bills to subsidize the exuberant water displays on the Vegas Strip, a notion Mulroy says is misguided.
"The idea that hotels are wasteful water users is perception, not reality," said Mulroy, noting that nearly all of the strip casinos utilize recycled water for their
fountains.
Moreover, she said, the big hotels generate a lot more economic benefit than do thousands of people watering their lawns.
"The hotels consume only 3 percent of southern Nevada's water and they generate 70 percent of the state's gross product," she said. "They employ 50 percent of
the people in southern Nevada and use a lot less water than a microchip producer in Silicon Valley."
A 51 year-old native of Germany, Mulroy never set out to become a Las Vegas water wonk. In fact, she can vividly recall her first visit to Vegas, when she stayed
in a hotel room with a mirror above her bed.
"It was so bizarre," she recalls.
Needing a job, Mulroy joined the Las Vegas Water District in 1985, and despite little experience in the male-dominated world of water management she quickly was
running the place. Now, in trying to ride out the drought, she says, one of her top goals is to avoid impacts on local employment.
"People aren't going to stay at the Venetian if the canals are dry," Mulroy said. "The minute a hotel starts losing business, it starts laying off people."
In the eyes of many Las Vegas leaders, the cheapest source of readily available water is residential water, which accounts for 65 percent of all water used in southern
Nevada. Most of that water is used outdoors, often in ways that are woefully inefficient.
On a recent afternoon, one could see excess sprinkler water flowing down street gutters in two upscale neighborhoods, Desert Shores in northwest Las Vegas and
Lake Las Vegas in Henderson. Both neighborhoods have large artificial lakes, which are prone to evaporation and are regularly refilled.
Some business leaders say such practices must change in Las Vegas, regardless of how long the drought continues.
"We have to recognize we live in a desert," said Tom Warden, government affairs manager for the Howard Hughes Corp., which is developing a relatively
water-efficient community called Summerlin on the west side of the city. "Las Vegas uses more water per-capita than Phoenix, which gets more rain. We have to
acknowledge the resource."
Right now, southern Nevada's main water resource is shrinking Lake Mead, which provides about 90 percent of the region's supplies. Prior to the drought, Mulroy
hoped to store surplus Colorado River water in Arizona and Nevada water banks - an option that is vanishing as Lake Mead ebbs.
As of last week, the reservoir had dropped to an elevation of 1,135 feet, about 58 percent of capacity. Lake Powell, the upstream reservoir that feeds Mead, was
42 percent full, with about half its normal inflow.
If Mead drops 10 feet more, Interior Secretary Gale Norton will be required by law to shut off "surplus supplies" to California, Nevada and Arizona. And if the lake
drops another 42 feet, she may start cutting the basic water entitlements of the three lower-basin states, something that never before has happened.
Wary of federal intervention, Mulroy and her counterparts in the Colorado River basin are discussing projects that until recently were thought to be decades in the
future. They are talking about interstate water banks and desalination projects. Southern Nevada is trying to secure groundwater rights in outlying counties and tap
water from two sensitive tributaries of Lake Mead.
"The battle has just begun," she said.
Along with supply problems, the water authority is grappling with increasing pollution as Lake Mead drops. Las Vegas' treated effluent flows into the Las Vegas
Wash, a canyon that has been heavily eroded over the years. From there, it flows back into Lake Mead itself, where the organics-rich water tends to hang on the
top of the lake - near the city's intake pipes - when the reservoir is low.
To secure cleaner water, Mulroy is studying plans to relocate both its intake pipes farther out into Lake Mead, a project that could cost hundreds of millions of
dollars.
"It is a time problem," said Mulroy. "How fast can we build these kinds of facilities? We could have quite a crisis."
Even some of Mulroy's environmental critics say they sympathize with her situation. As head of a water agency, said Van Ee, Mulroy doesn't have authority over
residential development. Water conservation is helping, he said, but the population boom easily could outpace it.
As a result, Van Ee says, southern Nevada could end up fighting decades of water battles, both in state and within the Southwest, as demands increase.
"It is clear Pat Mulroy will do whatever it takes to keep the water flowing," Van Ee said. "I don't know how long she would last if she had to tell Las Vegas, 'I can't
get you water to grow.' "
Related link
Las Vegas Valley Water District: Drought Restrictions
About the Writer
---------------------------
Looming Colorado River shortage forcing tough choices in the West
By Seth Hettena
ASSOCIATED PRESS
10:03 a.m. May 1, 2004
GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, Ariz. – The Colorado River runs cold and fast through the Grand Canyon, a
postcard picture of the water wealth that greens farms and slakes the thirst of booming cities.
But there's a lot less to the Colorado than meets the eye.
Five years ago, the vast reservoirs at both ends of the Grand Canyon were essentially full, brimming with water for showers,
kitchen sinks, irrigation and ornamental fountains. Today, they are both half empty as drought in the region enters its fifth
consecutive year, making this the driest five-year period on record.
The river supplies water to 25 million people in seven states and more in Mexico.
But with no end to the drought in sight, the Interior Department may be nearing the first declaration of a water shortage on the
Colorado River, said Bennett Raley, the department's assistant secretary for water and science.
Such a declaration would mean a cut in the amount of water that can be drawn from the river, Raley told reporters during a
224-mile rafting trip through the canyon in April.
"If current trends continue ... the secretary would be forced to take action certainly within three years and potentially within
two," unless the states offer a solution, Raley said.
The severity of the cut would be up to the interior secretary, but even a small reduction would ripple across the West. The
1,400-mile-long river grows U.S. and Mexican crops, generates electricity, supports a huge recreation industry and delivers
water to some of the nation's driest and hottest cities, including Phoenix and Las Vegas.
Drought is already doing what environmentalists could only dream about: It's draining Lake Powell, the reservoir just upriver
from the Grand Canyon that submerged hundreds of miles of scenic canyons and countless archaeological sites.
Powell is so low that hikers are beginning to explore glorious sandstone canyons once submerged under 100 feet of water.
The lake has fallen to 42 percent of capacity, its lowest since it was filled in 1970.
At the downstream end of the Grand Canyon is Lake Mead, the huge lake formed by Hoover Dam. It is at 59 percent of
capacity and could reach the same state as Powell as early as 2008.
Las Vegas is almost entirely dependent on Lake Mead for water, and is worried about the effect continued drought could
have on its explosive growth. The city is stressing conservation to avoid a self-imposed drought emergency, and water
managers are ripping out water-guzzling lawns.
In a shortage declaration, Arizona would be the first to suffer. Under a 36-year-old compromise the state now regrets,
Arizona would lose all the Colorado River water that now goes to Phoenix, the nation's sixth-biggest city, before California
would lose a single drop.
Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming are worried as well. Under a 1922 accord they would be required to cut their
own water to guarantee a supply to California, Arizona and Nevada.
While the states depend on a steady source of water, nature is anything but steady. A study of tree rings at the headwaters of
the Colorado River found evidence of a drought as recently as the 16th century that lasted 20 years.
In fact, tree rings have led scientists to believe that much of the past century was unusually wet and that more dry years could
lie ahead, said Robert H. Webb, a hydrologist who studies the Grand Canyon for the U.S. Geological Survey and is
co-author of "Floods, Drought and Climate Change."
"We have no idea how long this drought is going to last," Webb said. "Every indication says this one's gone beyond all our
past experience."
Raley is pushing the states to do something unusual: share the water. The best chance of avoiding a shortage may lie in
California, Nevada and Arizona working together to help each other. One possibility is an interstate water bank in Lake
Mead that the three states could share.
However, when it comes to water, the states are more used to bickering than cooperating. Arizona and California waged
legendary battles over the Colorado, including Arizona's comical effort to stop construction of a dam intended to divert water
to Los Angeles by sending five soldiers to the river in 1934.
During the rafting trip, Raley asked three water managers from Arizona, California and Nevada what they would do,
hypothetically, to prevent the interior secretary from declaring a shortage next year.
As they discussed the problem, the age-old feud between California and Arizona flared again.
"I'm not going to be looking to California to help me out. I'm not figuring Arizona's going to do much to help California until
the reservoirs turn around," said Sid Wilson, general manager of the Central Arizona Project, the 336-mile concrete channel
that carries Colorado River water to Phoenix and Tucson.
Wilson did say, however, that Arizona is trying to help Nevada.
Pat Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, says she will have to turn to Arizona or California for
help if the river continues to shrink.
But Mulroy isn't optimistic.
"All the legal mechanisms are set up for disaster," she said. "We can't seem to get the idea that if we share we get so much
further."
Water woes
Arizona must plan for vagaries of Colorado River
Apr. 18, 2004 12:00 AM
The West's long-running drought is forcing many communities that depend on the Colorado River for water to impose tough conservation measures.
For the third straight summer, Denver and its suburbs will face water restrictions. Las Vegas has imposed limits on watering lawns, washing cars and using patio misting systems.
Lake Powell, which straddles Utah and Arizona, is at its lowest level ever - 42 percent of capacity. The reservoir feeds Lake Mead, which stores water for Arizona, Nevada and California. If
the drought continues for another two or three years, Powell could be dry by 2007.
Downstream, the picture is a little better, but not much. Lake Mead is at 59 percent of capacity.
For greater Phoenix, the drought is a paradox.
No mandatory restrictions on water use are in place here because there's no need, according to officials. Voluntary conservation measures are working. New code requirements for toilets and
shower heads have helped reduce water usage. Thus, backyard pools are full. Green lawns dot the landscape.
Yet behind this happy face, Valley reservoirs operated by the Salt River Project are at about 48 percent of capacity. The forecast for inflows is only 42 percent of normal.
SRP is in new territory because it has never experienced a long drought; this one is in its ninth year. To reduce reservoir withdrawals, SRP has reduced allocations by one-third, pumped
groundwater and purchased surplus Central Arizona Project water.
The CAP has truly served its purpose as envisioned - it's the region's lifeline. And it's essential to understanding the Phoenix region's unique status.
Through the CAP aqueduct flows 1.5 million acre feet of Colorado River water each year. It's enough water for more than 6 million people, but 400,000 acre feet is for agriculture and the
rest is shared between cities and tribes.
Because cities aren't taking their full allocations, SRP has been able to buy CAP water. Arizona's Water Bank has been buying water too, prudently storing enough for about 7 million
people. It's water that will supplement city supplies in times of shortage.
Tim Henley, the water bank's director, says modeling of various drought scenarios indicate the water won't be needed until 2025.
That's the good news, and helps explain why few people in metropolitan Phoenix are worried, unlike rural Arizona towns that don't have a CAP.
But there's a fear that the drought might last 10 more years. And with Lake Powell so low, Colorado River basin states are starting discussions on what to do in times of shortage.
Nobody's faced this dilemma before. There's no criteria; no guidelines because it's never been this bad.
Arizona has the most to lose in the battle for water. That's because in exchange for the CAP authorization Arizona agreed to junior status - in times of shortage it would lose its water first.
Arizona probably could withstand a 33 percent reduction, or 500,000 acre feet of its CAP water. Recharge programs and agriculture would be the victims in such a scenario. Cities would
feel the pinch if the shortages were greater.
State water users will meet next month to try to reach an agreement on how to handle a shortage. Arizona would take that agreement to talks involving all seven basin states - Colorado,
Utah, New Mexico, and Wyoming in the upper basin and California, Nevada and Arizona in the lower basin.
Obviously, Arizona would like to revisit its junior status. Whether other basin states would agree to do so is hard to say.
By law, the upper basin must deliver into Lake Powell 7.5 million acre-feet each year for use by the lower basin states. But what happens if states decide not to release the full amount,
claiming they've released more than the minimum for years? Or what happens if they must choose between fulfilling an obligation to the lower basin or shutting off supplies to Colorado's
western slope?
It's clearly a new, uncertain time on the Colorado River. It's essential that the basin states discuss these issues of shortage while there's still time. Moreover, it's important for the Valley to
understand what it means to live in a desert, and to conserve water.
Sunday, March 21, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
BATTLING THE DROUGHT: The water use myth
Despite major casinos' splashy use of water, their actual water consumption is small
By ROD
SMITH
GAMING WIRE
Gaggles of visitors stroll up and down the Strip, agog over the spectacle, especially features such as the fountains, the tropical
landscaping, and the assorted pools and water features.
"Awesome. But you'd think when they tell us we have to order water (in hotel restaurants), they'd tell them they have to shut
down the water works and cut out the tropics," notes Maggie Sullivan of Boston.
That's part of the myth of Las Vegas.
Southern Nevada Water Authority General Manager Pat Mulroy says that in reality, hotel-casinos consume a very small
proportion of the water used here.
In fact, she says, local hotels account for 7 percent of the area's total use, even though their visitors account for an average of
14 percent of the people in the valley at any given time.
Another reality is that water consumption in Nevada is actually low on a per capita basis compared with the nation.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, Nevada ranks 36th in population but 41st in water consumption among the 50
states.
Finally, Mulroy says the amount of water hotel-casinos consume is miniscule on average, compared with the total amount of
water that is piped into the hotels. In truth, most of the water goes to room use and other guest amenities, all of which is then
returned to the system, purified and recycled into Lake Mead for everyone to use again.
"I don't care about (hotel-casino) use (because) 80 percent of the water goes back in the system. It has no impact on water
consumption," Mulroy said.
However, she said the authority does care about the hotels' landscaping and cooling towers, even though they account for
only 20 percent of the water piped into the properties.
"That's the exact opposite of the typical (residential) customer who uses 70 percent of their water outside," Mulroy said.
University of Nevada, Las Vegas professor and casino industry expert Bill Thompson agreed with Mulroy.
"The biggest water problem in the valley is personal lawns. If we have a major crisis, the government should mandate that we
not water our lawns at all until the crisis is over. We could then proceed to dealing with waste at casinos, but we need to
recognize that this is a minor part of the problem," he said.
Mulroy does note, however, that the averages can mask enormous discrepancies in relative water use between different
hotel-casinos and what they may be doing to cut their consumption.
How much water a hotel-casino and its guests consume depends on the size of the property and the amenities they offer,
Mulroy said.
For example, water consumption at Circus Circus is very low per room, 51,000 gallons a year. Even though it is an older
property, it has few water features, little landscaping and no spa or similar amenities. It therefore illustrates that what happens
inside the resort is more important than its age, she said.
On the other hand, water consumption per room at casinos such as Sunset Station and Green Valley Ranch is very high,
346,000 gallons and 752,000 gallons, respectively, because they have few rooms but vast amenities.
Still, Station Casinos adheres to watering restriction guidelines in Henderson and Las Vegas, and most of its restaurants have
implemented a policy of only offering "water upon request" and a plan to minimize the use of linens to reduce water needed
for laundering.
By comparison, MGM Grand, the largest single hotel in Las Vegas, uses more water than any other property in Las Vegas,
but only modest amounts on a per room basis, 94,000 gallons, thanks to modern water management systems.
For example, more than half of the total acreage at MGM Grand and the surrounding land owned by parent company MGM
Mirage has been converted to xeriscaping, or landscaping using low-water consumption, desert plants and ground materials.
This compares with 1995, when 85 percent of the total acreage was turf and 15 percent was xeriscaped.
Turf requires 60 gallons of water per year per square foot, compared with xeriscaping, which requires 20 gallons of water per
year per square foot.
MGM Grand has further increased water efficiency by using two water wells to supply water to the cooling tower for air
conditioning, irrigate the landscape and operate its water feature, all of which amounts to saving the water authority about 120
million gallons of water a year.
On the other hand, the tourists gawking at the fountains at Bellagio are not all wrong.
Of the top 10 hotel-casino water users, Bellagio uses more water per room than any other Strip property by far, but that is
not to say it is snubbing its nose over the issue.
The casino company recently removed more than 20,000 square feet of turf from the MGM Grand property and converted it
to rock mulch and xeriscaping, converted more than 1.5 acres of shrub-landscaped areas from overhead spray irrigation to
drip irrigation to save up to 80 percent of its water, and replaced all parking lot planters with water-wise landscape.
Mandalay Resort Group is similarly managing its water resources.
Mandalay spokesman John Marz said his company has replaced thousands of feet of sod at its hotels with water smart
landscape or removed it altogether.
"We've also removed a waterfall from The Adventuredome (at Circus Circus) and set timers on fountains at Mandalay Bay so
that less water evaporates. And we've replaced most of our spray sprinklers with bubblers at Circus Circus and Excalibur,"
he said.
Similarly, Boyd Gaming Corp. has launched a turf conversion project at the Stardust this year to replace roughly 132,000
square feet of grass landscape with xeriscaping of native desert plants and flowers.
Each of Boyd Gaming's nearly 40 restaurants has also implemented a water upon request program to eliminate waste from
unconsumed glasses of water.
Also, in an unusual move for Las Vegas, the company has turned off the decorative water features at Sam's Town and the
Stardust.
Mulroy said the authority is generally pleased with the consumption and conservation programs the hotel-casinos have in
place, specifically because such a large proportion is recycled.
"They need to do more, but only because of the leadership role they need to play. It's a symbolic value," she said. "The same
thing went on in Southern California. Look at Anaheim. You can imagine how much water Disney uses, but nobody wanted
to shut them down.
"I've had this conversation with the hotels. I understand their dilemma. They sell an escape from reality. You can leave the real
world behind. Their worry is when customers see the real world intrude, it'll hurt the tourist industry."
Gaming companies have also heard such pleas from regulators, and some are working to reach conservation goals
cooperatively.
For example, Station Casinos is providing related messages on property marquees urging residents and other businesses to be
water-smart in order to encourage community participation. Also, sessions with employees bring them the latest information
from the Henderson Water Watchers and the Southern Nevada Water Authority.
"We partnered with the city of Henderson to have representatives come in and conduct employee information and awareness
seminars on issues concerning the drought. We did the same with the Las Vegas Valley Water District for our non-Henderson
properties. The water district set up informational tables back-of-house with brochures identifying ways in which our team
members can save water," said Station Casinos spokeswoman Lesley Pittman.
Thompson agreed that water features and lavish landscaping could prove critical to the gaming industry and the economic
development of Las Vegas.
"We have to recognize that the splendor -- like it or not -- of our casinos is a very big part of the (economic) engine that
makes Las Vegas work for all of us. I want to see the engine run strong well into the future. If some dramatic use of water
that is not harmful to the supply in terms of the overall picture is attempted by casinos, I would say 'lay off' -- their dramatic
games keep us all in business," he said.
Since hotel-casinos are relatively modest water users, Mulroy said there is little the water authority can do with them to
conserve added amounts of money.
"We raised rates and they pay the top tier. So when you look at their consumption they pay more per gallon and more in total
(than anyone else)," she said.
However, on their own, the hotel-casinos can still play their symbolic role and take steps such as taking out tropical
landscaping and replacing it with xeriscaping, "that's where they can make a difference for Las Vegas," Mulroy said.
Las Vegas Thirsts for More Water
The fast-growing city may tap rivers and groundwater from outlying
counties, to the dismay of some rural residents.
By Ken Ritter
Associated Press Writer
March 7, 2004
LAS VEGAS — After nearly two decades of busily converting desert into sprawling metropolis in the fastest-growing region
in the nation, southern Nevada finds itself beset by a four-year drought and straining against limits in the water that it can pump
from nearby Lake Mead.
Las Vegas is turning to rural counties to the north to quench a thirst that the nation's largest man-made reservoir can't sustain.
Plans include drilling wells and building a $1-billion pipeline to tap rivers and groundwater from neighboring rural counties.
The Southern Nevada Water Authority says there is enough water out there to let the population of the Las Vegas area nearly
double in the next decade — to more than 3 million — without drawing more from the Colorado River, which supplies Lake
Mead.
But some at the head of the proposed pipeline worry that their high desert valleys and ranches will dry up if precious
underground water is pumped to Las Vegas. They say the obvious solution is being ignored.
"You have growth in an area that doesn't have water and the decisions aren't how to control growth, it's how to get water,"
said Paul Johnson, chairman of the White Pine County Commission in Ely, 250 miles north of the Las Vegas Strip.
Farrel Lytle, who lives in Eagle Valley — an enclave of about 30 homes, a trailer park and a bar near Pioche — is worried
that his community will go the way of California's Owens River Valley.
"That country dried up. It lost its water to a big city," Lytle said.
Johnson too sees parallels in the early 1900s Los Angeles water project that drained a valley about 200 miles north of Los
Angeles and turned Owens Lake into a dust bowl. The 1974 film "Chinatown" was loosely based on the episode.
"All of these preceding disasters are examples that people use when they talk about transferring water," Johnson said.
The Southern Nevada Water Authority last year settled a 1989 water rights claim that it staked across vast stretches of
Lincoln County, and is negotiating with White Pine County, the next county to the north.
White Pine's five-member commission suspended talks last month to address community opposition to water-sharing.
"The community is very divided on how to deal with this," Johnson said.
He acknowledged that 8,800 people living in a rural county the size of Massachusetts may be no match for business and
political interests in Clark County — which includes Las Vegas and 1.6 million of the state's 2.3 million residents.
"We're trying to save our water," said Gary Lane, a truck-stop owner, cattle rancher and alfalfa farmer outside the White Pine
community of Lund, 210 miles from Las Vegas. "We're looking at our pumps and our springs running dry if the water is
pumped out."
No one really knows how much water exists beneath the desert. State Engineer Hugh Ricci estimates that there are millions of
acre-feet.
"The question is, where can you get it and how much can you get?" Ricci said.
Water officials say they'll need to drill test wells to determine whether the supply is finite ancient water trapped underground,
or is replenished by springs and scarce surface precipitation.
In 2003, Nevada led the nation in population growth for the 17th year, according to the state demographer. About 80% of
new residents moved to Las Vegas or nearby.
The Lake Mead reservoir behind Hoover Dam is at its lowest level in 35 years, at 1,140 feet above sea level and 65 feet
below its high-water mark. It is still more than half full, with about 5 trillion gallons of water.
A growth study delivered to the Southern Nevada Water Authority on Feb. 26 did not refer directly to water. But it came the
same day that the authority received a report on plans to reach far to the north to meet future demands.
One project calls for tapping groundwater in northern Clark County by 2007.
Another would draw water from the Virgin and Muddy rivers before they empty into one end of Lake Mead. The third would
extend the pipeline north to Lincoln and White Pine counties.
The growth study, by Las Vegas-based Hobbs Ong & Associates, was commissioned to determine whether growth control
would work as a means of drought management, and to provide an answer to other states relying on the Colorado River that
wonder why southern Nevada won't stop growing.
It said the economies of southern Nevada and the rest of the state depend on continued growth, as well as on gambling,
tourism and mining. Turn it off and the entire state would suffer, it concluded.
The report made a case for growth that the construction industry in southern Nevada wanted to make, said Daniel Patterson,
a desert ecologist with the Center for Biological Diversity in Tucson, Ariz.
"It was 'Maximum water for maximum development,' and 'We need Congress to do it,' " he said.
Patterson noted that Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) plans to introduce legislation to free acreage for development around Lincoln
County's four largest towns — Caliente, Pioche, Alamo and Panaca — and set aside other land as protected wilderness.
The proposal would include a spider-web of hundreds of miles of mile-wide utility easements that could serve as a route for
the water pipeline.
"There doesn't seem to be an acknowledgment of the reality that Las Vegas is in the driest desert in the United States,"
Patterson said. "If you're going to have a sustainable city there into the future, Las Vegas has got to get very serious about
reducing waste."
Patricia Mulroy, water authority general manager, insisted that conservation is a top priority for her agency, which delivers
water to most of Clark County and the 35 million tourists who visit each year.
Although the water board recently relaxed drought restrictions on car washing, outdoor misting systems and decorative
fountains, Mulroy said aggressive conservation measures remain in place.
"We're paying for people to take turf out," she said. "Everything that reaches the sewer system is treated and returned to the
Colorado River, or it goes to a regional system for parks and golf courses and turf applications."
The state is allowed 300,000 acre-feet of river water a year under a deal in which water is shared by seven Colorado River
states and Mexico.
The Las Vegas area draws 85% of its water — 297,000 acre-feet in 2003 — from Lake Mead, Ricci said. The rest comes
from underground wells. An acre-foot can supply a family for a year.
Ricci said that in 1995, his predecessor as state water engineer approved letting the water authority draw up to 190,000 acre-
feet per year from the Virgin River.
Meanwhile, the Reid bill would underpin a deal last year between the water authority and Lincoln County and its business
partner, Vidler Water Co., to split 200,000 acre-feet of groundwater reserves in Lincoln County.
Some critics have accused Las Vegas water officials of duping Lincoln County, with fewer than 4,000 residents, into giving up
its water rights.
"I've described it as a rape," said Lytle, a retired Boeing scientist who traces his family back to the first Mormon settlers in the
Pioche region.
"All we see … is fountains in front of casinos down there, while some old grizzled cowboy up here is trying to get a drink for
his cattle at a trickling creek," he said.
Lincoln County Commissioner Tim Perkins, who chairs the Lincoln County Water District, said a pipeline could help develop
property in the county.
"A lot of residents feel like Las Vegas is coming up and stealing their water. In reality, it all belongs to the state," he said.
Ricci, who decides what water goes where in Nevada, said his determination will be made on how the water can best serve
the public interest.
Friday, February 20, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
WATER CONSERVATION: Turf fund running dry
Thousands take advantage of rebates for removing grass
By HENRY BREAN
REVIEW-JOURNAL
It wasn't the region's record five-year drought that persuaded Gordon and Polly Hafenrichter to rip out the grass in front of
their Las Vegas home after 22 years.
What really swayed them was the chance to swap one shade of green for another.
The Hafenrichters are among the thousands of valley residents who have been paid to remove grass from their yards through
rebates offered by the Southern Nevada Water Authority.
The number of people trading turf for cash has exploded in the past year, draining the water authority's rebate budget and
prompting the need for temporary labor to administer a growing backlog of applications.
For the fiscal year, which ends June 30, the water authority earmarked $12.8 million for turf-replacement rebates. Through
January, $10.6 million in rebates have been paid.
The fund is expected to run dry in early March unless the water authority board approves an additional $8 million, a decision
that is expected to come when the board meets Thursday. Funding for the rebate program is provided by connection fees
paid by developers.
"Our intent is not to have to turn anyone away from the program this fiscal year," said Doug Bennett, conservation manager
for the water authority.
But that could prove difficult for the first-come, first-served program. In January alone, the authority logged 459 residential
applications and paid rebates for conversions at 510 residences and 83 commercial properties. In January 2003, 40
residential applications were filed and rebates were paid on 26 residential and six commercial properties.
"It's been a very steep climb," Bennett said.
He traces the program's rapid growth to an increase in drought awareness among valley residents. Mostly, though, it's the
money, he said.
In January 2003, the water authority increased the rebate from 40 cents to $1 per square foot, the most significant of several
changes made to the program since 1999 to entice more applicants.
"When they kicked it up to a dollar, they made it more than worth our while to do it," Gordon Hafenrichter said. "But I think
it's part of good community spirit, too. We've got to save some water."
Rate increases adopted in the fall by the Las Vegas Valley Water District and other local water providers also have prompted
residents to tear up their lawns, Bennett said.
Residential water rates were raised by an average of 30 percent, and Bennett expects that to result in another run on rebate
applications this summer, when the heftiest water bills of the year land in local mailboxes.
Since it's inception in January 1999, the rebate program has paid out more than $15.3 million and eliminated almost 20.9
million square feet of turf in the Las Vegas Valley. That's enough grass to cover 363 football fields or roll out a strip of sod 8
inches wide and 2,634 miles long.
Replacing that much grass with drought-resistant landscaping will save more than 1.29 billion gallons of water a year, enough
to supply 5,624 households based on an average per-household use of 230,000 gallons per year.
"That extends our water resources at about half the cost of developing new resources within the valley," Bennett said.
By new resources, Bennett means privately held water rights, which he said are difficult to come by and often cost $10,000
an acre-foot or more. An acre-foot is the amount of water that would cover an acre to the depth of 1 foot -- about 326,000
gallons.
The water authority's estimate for the number of gallons saved under the rebate program is based on the results of a five-year
study involving more than 700 valley households. The study, launched in 1995, showed that each square foot of grass
consumes an average of 79 gallons of water per year, while each square foot of turf-free landscaping with drought-resistant
plants uses an average of 17 gallons per year.
About two-thirds of the water used in the Las Vegas Valley goes to landscaping, Bennett said. On average, residential
customers use about 70 percent of their water to keep their lawns and gardens green.
Driving down the Hafenrichters' street, it's easy to see how. Almost every home is surrounded by turf, a mostly decorative
remnant of a neighborhood developed more than 30 years ago, before water conservation became a matter of policy -- or
even serious debate -- in many Southwest communities.
Even the Hafenrichters still have grass in their back yard and on the side of their house.
But in their front yard, 3,800 square feet of turf is gone, replaced by decorative rock, cactus, drought-resistant shrubs, and,
Polly Hafenrichter's personal favorite, a green-barked Palo Verde tree.
The conversion cost the Hafenrichters $8,000 and earned them a $4,000 rebate. It also cut their water bills almost in half,
Polly Hafenrichter said. "We're very happy with it."
So far, only a handful of the Hafenrichters' neighbors have followed suit, but Bennett said it could take some time to "loosen
the grip of the ornamental lawn," especially in older neighborhoods that are filled with them.
"What we're finding is it is contagious. Our staff is going back to the same areas over and over again," said Bennett, who
recently converted 2,000 square feet of turf in his own yard but did not apply for a rebate, in part because he did not
complete the work within the requisite six months.
Residential applications account for about one-quarter of the total square feet converted and total rebate money paid. The
average residential application includes about 1,500 square feet of turf, while the average commercial application is for
15,000 square feet.
The $1 rate is good for up to 50,000 square feet. It drops to 50 cents per square foot for the next 450,000 square feet.
There is no rebate after that, but Bennett said several golf courses, apartment complexes and homeowners associations have
opted to remove more turf than they will be paid for.
One of the largest such projects is at the Siena Golf Club, where 27 acres of turf -- about 1.2 million square feet -- have been
converted to desert landscaping so far.
According to the course's own estimates, the conversion has reduced water use by 42 million gallons a year.
Bennett said Siena has received the maximum rebate allowed under the program, which is capped at $300,000, or roughly 12
to 13 acres of turf per property.
Turf removal work began at the course before drought was declared in Southern Nevada. An additional 60 acres of grass
have been targeted for conversion.
The water authority has set specific guidelines on what property owners must do to qualify for a rebate. Among them: At least
half of the converted area must be covered by living plants, a percentage based on how large the new plants are expected to
grow, not on how large they are when first planted.
"What we don't want to do is hand out money to people who turn their yards into moonscapes," Bennett said. "It's not about
saving money at all costs."
Starting March 1, those who receive a rebate will be required to sustain the conversion for 10 years instead of the five years
currently required.
There is nothing to prevent someone from buying a property that has been converted and replant turf, though Bennett said the
cost of the work makes such a scenario unlikely.
Also on March 1, the authority will begin accepting rebate applications online at www.snwa.com, which is expected to speed
up the process by about a week.
"My advice: Apply early," Bennett said. "We're backed up."
Although the rebate program staff has been doubled with the help of temporary labor and part-time interns, Bennett said
property owners can expect to wait several weeks for a pre-conversion inspection.
Rebate checks used to arrive within a week or two of a project's completion and inspection. Now the wait is more like four
to six weeks.
Tribe threatens Flagstaff boycott over snowmaking
By SETH MULLER
Sun Staff Reporter
02/14/2004
At least one Native American tribe, angry over the prospect of snowmaking with reclaimed wastewater on the San Francisco
Peaks, isn't just getting mad. It may get even.
"This is serious enough to where we will be starting some mobilization efforts to boycott the city of Flagstaff," said Cora Max,
aide to Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley, noting the economic benefits Flagstaff receives from visiting Native Americans.
Max's comments came Friday during a press conference in the Flagstaff City Council chambers, where a panel of more than a
dozen speakers made pleas to the Forest Service to reverse its position on snowmaking.
Forest Service representatives were not present at the Friday conference.
Carrying signs with messages like "Make Love, Not Snow" and "My Culture 4 Your Recreation," several dozen people
against the snowmaking proposal for the Arizona Snowbowl walked from Northern Arizona University and converged with
another group staging a prayer vigil under the flag at Flagstaff City Hall.
The plan for snowmaking already is making some waves among downtown business owners.
Marty Shideler, owner of Aradia Bookstore, and Winter Sun Trading Company owner Phyllis Hogan have taken stands
against the snowmaking proposal. Hogan announced that she terminated her Chamber of Commerce membership on
Thursday because of its support of the Snowbowl plan.
"I cannot justify being a member of an organization that promotes or would even consider such insensitive behavior," Hogan
said to applause from the crowd. "I rely on tourism for my business, too, but not at the expense of other cultures' religious
beliefs."
James Peshlakai, Navajo tribal elder for NAU students, sang a traditional blessing song and gave a prayer into a megaphone,
while attendees gathered and braved the blustery and cold morning.
"I've worked with the Forest Service," said Louise Yellowman, a Coconino County supervisor, who is Navajo. "Today, I
want them to listen to us."
Caleb Johnson, vice chair of the Hopi Tribe, said that the Forest Service decision is "not only disappointing, but it's a harmful
decision to take as far as the Hopi are concerned."
Rowland Manakaja, natural resource and cultural director of the Havasupai tribe, echoed the sentiments of many others who
spoke about the importance of the Peaks and how Native Americans would continue to take a stand to protect them.
"We as indigenous people will not tolerate further desecration of our Sacred Peaks," Manakaja said.
The outcry against the proposal could further push tribes to take action against the city of Flagstaff, which has agreed to sell
the reclaimed water to the Snowbowl should it receive approval for the upgrade.
The tribal opposition to snowmaking, outlined in the draft study, is because it is waste and considered a desecration of a
sacred site. Also, the man-made snow could upset the Hopi katsina spirits that grant the rain and snow, based on that tribe's
beliefs.
Also, numerous traditional practitioners gather herbs from the mountains for ceremonies. Those practitioners are concerned
about how the reclaimed water could rob the spiritual properties of the plants.
The Forest Service released the 800-plus page draft environmental impact statement for Snowbowl's upgrades Feb. 2, and
the EIS addressed the tribe's concerns.
"These concerns are focused on the spiritual and cultural issues, not the actual biological purity of the water itself (i.e., the fact
that reclaimed water meets both Environmental Protection Agency and Arizona Department of Environmental Quality
standards is irrelevant to tribal peoples)," according to the EIS.
The proposed upgrade calls for the construction of a pipeline to send 1.5 million gallons daily to the ski area to make snow. It
also includes creating additional trails and facilities within the current boundaries of the ski area.
The announcement that the Forest Service proposed an action that would allow for the upgrades recharged opposition, which
also was voiced two years ago when the proposal first surfaced.
Save The Peaks started as a grassroots effort the same day of the draft EIS release, according to organizer Berta Benally. It
represents concerned citizens who want to unite under one banner to oppose the Forest Service position. She reports the
coalition has more than 200 members.
She said it further plans to hold conferences and vigils during the course of the public comment period for the draft EIS, which
reportedly started Friday with its publication in the federal register and runs 60 days. A vigil is tentatively scheduled for Feb.
24.
The environmental study recognizes the impacts the snowmaking and upgrades to the cultural property of the Peaks, but it
suggests these impacts would be mitigated through the Forest Service's consultation with tribal leaders to insure religious
practices are allowed in "an uninterrupted manner."
Reporter Seth Muller can be reached at 913-8607 or smuller@azdailysun.com