Editorial: Bill language should not allow water grab

A growing number of public and private entities are joining a concerted effort to make sure a bill pending before Congress does not inadvertently create a means for Clark County to tap rural groundwater, though Clark County officials protest that is not the intent of the proposal.

According to Great Basin Water Network (GBWN) — a coalition of conservationists, rural officials, tribes and agricultural interests — there are fears that the wording in the proposed Southern Nevada Economic Development and Conservation Act, whether intentional or not, could skirt a federal judge’s ruling blocking a proposed 300-mile right-of-way for a network of water pipelines.

The bulk of the bill, not yet introduced in Congress, proposes freeing up more than 40,000 acres of public land in Clark County for economic development, but two sections at the end of the 21-page bill call for the Interior Department to give the Southern Nevada Water Authority rights-of-way for an electric power line that “shall be subject only to the terms, conditions and stipulations identified in the existing rights-of-way, and shall not be subject to further administrative or judicial review. The right-of-way shall be granted in perpetuity and shall not require the payment of rental fees.” Opponents fear that a right-of-way for a power line could just as easily be used for pipelines.

Two years ago a federal judge ruled that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) could grant the water agency right-of-way for its network of pipelines to take groundwater beneath White Pine, Lincoln and Nye counties, but first it had to come up with plans to mitigate the potential loss of wildlife habitat due to a draw down of the water table, as is required by the CleanWater Act and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act.

That might prove to be impossible, since federal studies show the interconnected aquifers are already at equilibrium — meaning water that is now being drawn from the aquifers is being replaced gallon for gallon annually with no leeway for additional withdrawal. The water agency proposes to withdraw 84,000 acre-feet of groundwater per year. The project is projected to cost more than $15 billion and could triple water rates in Clark County.

This past week more than a dozen entities joined in opposition to Congress approving the right-of-way proposal. These include several Nevada and Utah counties, three Indian tribes and a number of environmental groups.

“What Clark County is proposing is a pro-pipeline bill,” said Kyle Roerink, executive director of the GBWN. “Elected officials, attorneys, and non-profit organizations that span Nevada, Utah and the region all agree: The SNWA wants the congressional delegation to carry its water by surreptitiously advancing a project that has consistently lost in federal and state courts. The Nevada delegation deserves better than sneaky end-runs masked as technicalities. For now, the name of the bill should be the Great Basin Water Grab Act of 2019.”

A resolution passed by the Duckwater Shosone Tribe warned, “Science has shown that the pipeline would ultimately destroy Bashsahwahbee, killing off Swamp Cedars and drying up the Sacred Water Valley’s springs and aquifers that plant and wildlife currently depend upon.”

A spokesman for the water authority told the Las Vegas newspapers there is no intention to use the right-of-way for anything other than power lines. Though he thought the language was sufficiently clear, he said it has been modified recently. Another official offered that it might be further altered to allay concerns.

Clark County could use the economic development. Changing the language in the bill should satisfy the opposition.

A version of this editorial appeared this week in some of the Battle Born Media newspapers — The Ely Times, the Mesquite Local News, the Mineral County Independent-News, the Eureka Sentinel,  Sparks Tribune and the Lincoln County Record.

Nevada State Sen. Pete Goicoechea and Kyle Roerink, executive director of the Great Basin Water Network, discuss efforts by Clark County to tap rural groundwater. (Pix by Roger Moellendorf)

 

Newspaper column: Water agency should not skirt law and courts

Clark County has sent to Congress a bill draft proposing that more than 50,000 acres of federal public land in the Las Vegas Valley be opened for private development, but dangling like a vestigial tail at the end of the 21-page proposal is an end-run around the courts and the law that could allow the currently stalled rural water grab by the Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) to take place.

In 2017 a federal judge ruled that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) could grant the water agency right-of-way for a 300-mile network of pipelines to take groundwater beneath White Pine, Lincoln and Nye counties, but first it had to come up with plans to mitigate the potential loss of wildlife habitat due to a draw down of the water table, as is required by the CleanWater Act and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act.

That task may be impossible, because federal studies show the interconnected aquifers are already at equilibrium — water that is already being drawn from the aquifers is being replaced gallon for gallon annually with no leeway for additional withdrawal. The water agency proposes to withdraw 84,000 acre-feet of groundwater per year.

The lands bill Clark County sent to Congress calls for the Interior Department to give the water authority rights-of-way for an electric power line that “shall be subject only to the terms, conditions and stipulations identified in the existing rights-of-way, and shall not be subject to further administrative or judicial review. The right-of-way shall be granted in perpetuity and shall not require the payment of rental fees.”

A right-of-way for a power line could easily accommodate pipelines, too.

The Great Basin Water Network (GBWN) — a coalition of conservationists, rural officials, tribes and agricultural interests which was one of the parties that successfully sued to block the water grab — is crying foul over the decision to try to skirt the law and the federal judge’s ruling with legislation.

“What that decision tells us is that SNWA and federal land managers cannot figure out how to mitigate a project that would –– when fully built –– destroy 305 springs, 112 miles of streams, 8,000 acres of wetlands, and 191,000 acres of shrubland habitat on public lands, according to the BLM,” GBWN and others write in a letter to Nevada’s congressional delegation. “In the path of this destruction is Nevada’s first national park, Great Basin, which hosts the state’s only glacier, supports magnificent stands of ancient bristlecone pines, and dazzles visitors with a majestic network of limestone caves.”

In a press release announcing its opposition to the bill draft, Kyle Roerink, GBWN’s executive director, stated, “SNWA is trying to re-write the laws to allow their destructive pipeline and remove barriers that were enacted to protect Nevadans and their public resources. Members of the delegation should not do SNWA’s dirty work by gutting bedrock environmental protections to pave the way for a project that will kill endangered species, mine groundwater, and siphon away Eastern Nevada’s future in return for sprawl.”

Roerink also noted the opponents have been fighting the water grab for 30 years.

If it goes forward, it is estimated the groundwater project will take 40 years to complete at a cost of $15 billion — a cost that would require the tripling of water rates in Clark County. According to an SNWA resource plan the water is not needed until 2035.

“Its gargantuan $15 billion price tag (in 2011 dollars) highlights SNWA’s blatant disregard for its own ratepayers –– many of whom live on low or fixed incomes,” Roerink argues. “Those costs could mean water bills skyrocketing in Las Vegas while wildlife, landscapes, businesses, local governments and tribes suffer in Eastern Nevada.”

In his 2017 ruling federal Judge Andrew Gordon noted the importance of the controversy to both sides of the issue, writing, “I am sensitive to the strong feelings and weighty interests at stake in this contest over Nevada’s water — after all, in the West, ‘whisky’s for drinkin’ and water’s for fightin’ over.’ There can be no question that drawing this much water from these desert aquifers will harm the ecosystem and impact cultural sites that are important to our citizens. On the other hand, southern Nevada faces an intractable water shortage.”

Our congressional delegation should allow Clark County to develop land within its boundaries, but should not grant this proposed end-run around the courts and the law to slake its thirst.

A version of this column appeared this week in many of the Battle Born Media newspapers — The Ely Times, the Mesquite Local News, the Mineral County Independent-News, the Eureka Sentinel and the Lincoln County Record — and the Elko Daily Free Press.

Editorial: No need for murky water law changes

Two bills proposing to alter water use policy are pending in the Nevada Legislature. They are at best problematic.

Assembly Bill 30 appears to give the state engineer greater leeway in the use of monitoring, management and mitigations — known in the jargon as 3M — to resolve conflicts in water rights. The language is rather vague and subject to interpretation.

Assembly Bill 51 appears to give the state engineer more flexibility in what is called conjunctive management of water. While current law treats surface water and groundwater as interchangeable in a basin in the scheme of allocations, AB51 tells the state engineer to adopt regulations that mitigate conflicts between the two water sources.

Nevada water law is based on the concept of prior authorization, in other words the first one to use a water resource has priority or senior water rights. Those who come later, if there is enough water available, have junior rights that must yield to the senior rights if supply becomes inadequate for any reason.

The Great Basin Water Network, an organization that has been fighting attempts for years by the Las Vegas Valley water provider to tap groundwater in eastern Nevada basins, suspects these two bills are intended to give the state engineer the flexibility needed to allow the project to reach fruition.

GBWN says the Southern Nevada Water Authority’s $15 billion groundwater importation plan would pump 58 billion gallons of groundwater annually in a 300-mile pipeline to Las Vegas. They say the Bureau of Land Management has estimated the project would irreparably harm 305 springs, 112 miles of streams, 8,000 acres of wetlands, and 191,000 acres of shrub land habitat.

A federal judge has so far blocked the water grab from Spring, Cave, Dry Lake and Delamar valleys, saying the state engineer failed to establish any objective criteria for when mitigation — such as halting pumping — would have to be initiated. The engineer plans to appeal that ruling, but a change in state law could moot that.

GBWN questions the effectiveness of the two bills’ calls for monetary compensation and water replacement to make whole senior water rights owners.

Abby Johnson, GBWN’s president, says in an op-ed she has penned for area newspapers, “From ranchers to environmentalists, there is a consensus that we don’t need to fix what isn’t broken. Nevada water law has served Nevadans well for more than 100 years and continues to serve the public interest. That success, however, has stymied a select few.”

The select few, Johnson says, include real estate developers and the Southern Nevada Water Authority, which has “not had much luck in recent years getting what they want under the current legal and regulatory framework. Why? Because what they want is to facilitate unsustainable over-pumping of the state’s fragile, limited groundwater resources.”

She adds, “ The problem –– for all of us –– is that they want water that either doesn’t exist or already belongs to someone else.”

Johnson further charges that the change in law would grant the state engineer “czar-like powers to unilaterally choose winners and losers without regard to senior water rights holders’ existing property rights … which would mire Nevada water rights owners and the state government in complex and unpredictable litigation for years.”

Assemblyman John Ellison of Elko released a statement saying the bills would constitute an unconstitutional “taking” of water rights and said a recent hearing saw a consensus of opposition from industry, ranchers and farmers and not one person testifying in support of either bill.

“We cannot allow an unelected bureaucrat to wield this much power over one of our state’s most precious resources. I’m reminded of the famous Mark Twain quote, ‘Whiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting over.’” Ellison said. “I will never stop fighting for the rights of senior property rights owners in my district and throughout Nevada.”

Though Twain probably never said that, it sounds like something he would say and is apropos to the current situation. AB 30 and AB51 need to be sent down the drain.

A version of this editorial appeared this week in some of the Battle Born Media newspapers — The Ely Times, the Mesquite Local News, the Mineral County Independent-News, the Eureka Sentinel,  Sparks Tribune and the Lincoln County Record.

 

Editorial: We suggest an ally in the fight against the water grab

The three-decade legal wrangle over whether Clark County will ever be allowed to tap groundwater from White Pine, Lincoln and Nye counties has reached another milestone, but may be far from over.

Jason King, state engineer for the Nevada Division of Water Resources (NDWR), issued a 111-page ruling denying the Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) request for water permits.

In 1989 the water agency filed paperwork seeking 589,000 acre-feet of groundwater from various eastern Nevada aquifers, intending to build a 300-mile, $1.5 billion network of pipelines from near Ely to Las Vegas. The amount of water sought has since been trimmed to 84,000 acre-feet and the cost has ballooned to more than $15 billion.

(GBWN pix)

While the opponents of the project celebrated the denial, the state engineer issued a statement saying he planned to appeal in the courts his own ruling, because he disagrees with the methodology for determining the availability of water mandated by a judge.

“The Nevada Division of Water Resources is dedicated to protecting, managing, and enhancing Nevada’s precious water resources,” King said in a statement. “In an effort to protect the integrity of Nevada’s water laws, the NDWR intends to appeal sections of the mandated instructions that threaten to upend the historical application of Nevada water law and water rights.”

In his ruling King wrote, “Although the State Engineer believes there is water to appropriate in the four subject groundwater basins … he is precluded from doing so as a result of the scope of those remand issues, which imposes new water policy into the science of water appropriation in Nevada.”

The state engineer had approved groundwater permits for Spring Valley, Cave Valley, Dry Lake Valley, and Delamar Valley groundwater basins in 2007, 2009 and 2012, but state Judge Robert Estes in 2013 remanded the matter to King with instructions for how to proceed with monitoring, managing and mitigating — abbreviated as 3M — the impact of the groundwater withdrawal on other water users and the ecosystem.

Estes wrote, “There are no objective standards to determine when mitigation will be required and implemented. The Engineer has listed what mitigation efforts can possibly be made, i.e., stop pumping, modifying pumping, change location of pumps, drill new wells … but does not cite objective standards of when mitigation is necessary.”

Judge Estes concluded that if “it is premature to set triggers and thresholds, it is premature to grant water rights.”

In his ruling King approved the SNWA’s 2017 redrafting of its 3M plans, subject to any subsequent reinstatement of water permits.

Despite the expressed intention of the state engineer to continue the legal battle, opponents of the project see the ruling as a victory.

“We welcome the State Engineer’s denial of SNWA’s applications, which clearly was required by Nevada water law, as the State District Court and Supreme Court have explained,” said the Great Basin Water Network’s attorney, Simeon Herskovits, in a statement. “We do, however, disagree with the State Engineer’s gratuitous finding that SNWA’s monitoring, management and mitigation (or 3M) plan is adequate. Their slightly elaborated 3M plan remains as much of a sham as it always has been.”

Abigail Johnson, a spokesperson for the water network, said, “With the denial of these applications by the State Engineer, this ill-conceived multibillion dollar boondoggle is now dead in the water. After a string of court victories, we have a decision showing that the water is not available for this project without hurting the area’s existing water rights and environment.”

We suggest that the opponents seek to form a partnership in their fight against this water grab with another party who would be damaged by this project — the SNWA’s customers.

An SNWA-drafted study in 2011 found the cost to drill wells and build pipelines and pumps to send the groundwater to Las Vegas would in some years cost as much as $2,000 an acre-foot, which could triple the rates for water customers. Who knows what the cost would be now.

And this is while the water authority has done next to nothing to renegotiate the outrageous 1920s division of Colorado river water — in which California gets 4.4 million acre-feet a year, Arizona 2.8 million acre-feet and Nevada a mere 300,000 acre-feet.

Meanwhile, farmers in California and Arizona can buy Colorado River water for as little as $20 an acre-foot.

A version of this editorial appeared this week in some of the Battle Born Media newspapers — The Ely Times, the Mesquite Local News, the Mineral County Independent-News, the Eureka Sentinel,  Sparks Tribune and the Lincoln County Record.

Newspaper surely would not rock the advertising boat

Sunday morning Las Vegas newspaper

It was surely a coincidence.

The Las Vegas newspaper on Sunday carried a banner story that jumped to two full pages inside. The headline declared: “We have enough.” Enough water that is for continued new housing development.

“We have enough water to support future growth, even with cuts that are anticipated if Lake Mead continues to decline,” the water district manager is quoted as saying.

Wrapped around that front page was something people in the industry call a spadea, which is essentially a three-page ad. A half-page flaps over the cover and two pages form the back of the section. In this case the ad was for the Summerlin housing developments, with half of that devoted to the developer’s new housing development called The Cliffs.

The Cliffs, according to the ad, is a 450-acre development that will add 1,700 new homes to the valley abutting the mountains to the west.

It is also a coincidence that the Sunday paper has two sections devoted to 18 pages of mostly real estate ads, including a full-page one for a 313-new home development called Ascaya.

“So whether we should stop growing is really a philosophical question. It’s the water authority’s job to provide the tools to let the community be what it wants to be through its zoning, business licensing and investment decisions,” the news article quoted John Entsminger, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority,” as saying. “If the community doesn’t want growth, that’s a community decision. It’s not in our purview to stop issuing water commitments when we have sufficient water resources.”

Population growth? Not a problem.

Global warming? No sweat.

Drought? That third intake pipeline will let the valley suck water from Mead even if the lake levels dip so low Hoover Dam would have to shut down.

Perhaps this story will make up for the column a couple of days earlier under the hed: “Desalination dawdling could leave Southern Nevada high and dry.”

Of course, the new owners of the newspaper would never stoop to coordinating the news with advertising interests.

But tell me again just why the water district and the rural counties are spending millions of dollars on lawyers, engineers and court costs if the valley doesn’t need that $15 billion pipeline to bring groundwater from eastern Nevada.

 

 

Nevada Supreme Court refuses to hear appeal of Las Vegas rural water grab

The Nevada Supreme Court has dealt another blow to the Las Vegas attempt to grab groundwater from Lincoln and White Pine counties.

In December 2013, state court Senior Judge Robert Estes ruled that State Engineer Jason King had failed to establish adequate criteria for protecting the residents of eastern Nevada and western Utah from damages that might result from drawing down the groundwater to supply the Southern Nevada Water Authority with 84,000 acre-feet a year of groundwater from Spring, Cave, Dry Lake and Delamar valleys.

Now the high court has ruled that since the judge remanded the matter to the state engineer for further studies and review that the case is not yet appealable.

Crops in eastern Nevada already are irrigated with groundwater. (Photo by Kristi Fillman for GBWN)

The unpublished opinion cited the judge’s own words about how the engineer’s findings were lacking. Judge Estes repeatedly called the plans for monitoring, mitigating and managing the water transfer “arbitrary and capricious.”

“There are no objective standards to determine when mitigation will be required and implemented,” the judge wrote. “The Engineer has listed what mitigation efforts can possibly be made, i.e., stop pumping, modifying pumping, change location of pumps, drill new wells … but does not cite objective standards of when mitigation is necessary.”

Judge Estes concluded that if “it is premature to set triggers and thresholds, it is premature to grant water rights.”

In a press release, attorney Simeon Herskovits, representing one the groups suing to halt the water grab, Great Basin Water Network, said, “SNWA has had 25 years to provide basic information proving that its proposed project to pump and pipe water out of these rural valleys would be sustainable and comply with the most basic requirements of Nevada’s water law. The fact that they not only have failed to produce such evidence in all that time, but also have gone on record saying repeatedly that they cannot produce such evidence, only goes to show this misguided proposal never has been and never will be scientifically defensible or legally permissible.”

Abby Johnson, president of GBNW, added, “All of the science actually shows that SNWA’s plan to pump groundwater out of these rural valleys and pipe it down to the Las Vegas Valley simply will not be sustainable and cannot avoid destroying existing water rights and the environment in the vast affected area.”

Since Estes’ ruling a study by the U.S. Geological Survey calculated all the annual groundwater recharge for the valleys involved from various sources is about 175,000 acre-feet. The current outflow — current wells, springs, streams and outflow to other aquifers — is almost precisely the same amount of water — equilibrium.

“Increased well withdrawals within these high transmissivity areas will likely affect a large part of the study area, resulting in declining groundwater levels, as well as leading to a decrease in natural discharge to springs …” the study concluded.

It is those springs and streams that support livestock, agriculture and a vast array of wildlife, some of which are threatened or endangered. Declining groundwater levels would mean local wells might have to be drilled deeper, a very expensive proposition for local landowners and homeowners.

A study for SNWA found the cost of wells, pumps and pipelines could top $15 billion and triple Las Vegas water bills.

Whiskey might be cheaper.

 

Putting the news in its proper perspective

“What you see and hear depends a good deal on where you are standing …”

— C.S. Lewis

Guests tour a water project in September. (R-J photo)

You really can’t tell what you are seeing until you determine where you are standing. In other words: What is your perspective?

Take the glowing report in today’s newspaper about the about-to-be completed “third straw” to tap Lake Mead water for Las Vegas.

“This is a big deal,” the Southern Nevada Water Authority’s director of engineering was quoted as saying. “It’s very exciting.”

Gov. Brian Sandoval said after touring the project, “If you ever had any doubt in the capability (and) the ingenuity of modern engineering, you won’t have any doubt any more if you (go) down there. … It really made an impression on me in terms of what has to be done and what is being done throughout the West to ensure a secure water supply in the future for Nevada.”

The project cost $817 million and has taken seven years to complete.

Hoover Dam itself took five years to complete and cost about $833 million in inflation-adjusted dollars.

But it’s very exciting, especially when you consider that the SNWA board just voted this morning to spend $650 million on a new pumping station that would keep the third intake working even if the lake level falls too low for the dam to release water downstream. That, of course, comes with a water rate hike.

 

 

 

 

Just say no to the rural groundwater grab, once and for all

The Las Vegas newspaper today editorially points out the city’s primary water source is drying up. That’s obvious from the white bath tub ring around Lake Mead.

As to the answer to the problem, the editorialists suggest tapping groundwater from rural Nevada — a proposition that would be harmful for both the rural area and the urbanites.

Saying “make no mistake” twice, the editorial concludes:

The truth is that, historically, droughts along the Colorado River are normal and can last decades. As such, the continuing decline of Lake Mead is a reminder to develop whatever additional water resources we can. Reducing the standard of living in this region is not a solution.

Make no mistake, no one wants to build the rural groundwater pipeline. Indeed, several lawsuits aim to prevent it, and the cost of the project would be massive — many billions of dollars, including service on construction debt. But make no mistake, the water authority must be prepared to forge ahead if river conditions continue to deteriorate.

That would be a mistake.

According to the state engineer, who is water rights arbiter in Nevada, the Southern Nevada Water Authority’s plan to draw 84,000 acre-feet of groundwater would affect the water table outside the valleys that would be tapped. Groundwater in Cave, Dry Lake and Delamar valleys are linked to the White River Flow System and drawing down the water table in those valleys could affect water resources as far away as Pahranagat Valley, Lake Valley, Muddy River Springs Valley, Lower Moapa Valley, and Coyote Spring Valley.

Lake Mead’s bath tub ring

One state lawsuit opposing the pipeline project contends, “The proposed pumping would amount to a devastating groundwater mining project, under which the groundwater system would not even begin to approach equilibrium for thousands of years, with the potential of never reaching equilibrium.”

That would deter rural development efforts.

As for urban Clark County, the bottom line is that it’s still too darned expensive.

The infrastructure cost is still $7.3 billion, according to a study by Hobbs, Ong & Associates of Las Vegas and Public Financial Management of Seattle. (The study: SNWA_Exh_383_Hobbs and Bonow Report) The cost per acre-foot just for the capital expense alone is well north of $2,000 per acre-foot. That’s while Colorado River water is being sold to farmers in California and Arizona for well less than $20 per acre-foot.

As the SNWA’s own study admits, water rates in Las Vegas would at least triple if the groundwater is tapped and piped south. That would deter development in Clark County.

The first that should be done is to fill Lake Mead with Lake Powell water.

Research for the Glen Canyon Institute by hydrologist Dr. Thomas Myers found that 260,000 to 390,000 acre-feet of water seeps into the banks of Lake Powell annually, which the Bureau of Reclamation, the manager of the river, fails to take into account.

That is Nevada’s annual allotment of Colorado River water.

But the real solution lies in changing water from a socialized commodity to one openly bought and sold in a free market.

Allow the municipalities, industries, farmers and ranchers with existing water rights to buy, sell and trade in an open market. Why would a farmer continue to grow rice or cotton with his $20 an acre-foot water, when he can sell it to the water authority in Las Vegas for, say, $200? Instead of allowing that allotment to flow through the dams and canals to Yuma, Las Vegas could take that share from Lake Mead.

No need for a water grab. Problem solved.

 

Water grab: The laws of economics trump the state and federal lawful approval

The state engineer and the BLM may have both given the Southern Nevada Water Authority a green light to pump up to 84,000 acre-feet of groundwater a year from four rural valleys in Lincoln and White Pine counties, but that doesn’t make the project economically feasible — and it isn’t.

While various coalitions, alliances, do-gooders, sage huggers, animal lovers and assorted rural politicians greeted the approval news with apoplexy, Eureka Republican state Sen.-elect Pete Goicoechea explained why the pipeline probably never will be built: “Spending $15 billion for 84,000 acre-feet of water is not cost-effective,” he said. “The project is not economically feasible …”

Yes, you can give your grandson permission to fly from the roof of the barn, but the laws of physics dictate that, if he tries, he’ll crash. Likewise, economics dictate the rural water grab is a pipe dream, as explained in this week’s newspaper column available online at The Ely Times and the Elko Daily Free Press.

Groundwater permits were first sought in 1989 to ensure a continued water supply for the rapidly growing Las Vegas metropolitan area and to supplement drought-prone Lake Mead, from which the valley now gets 90 percent of its water.

But a not-so-funny thing happened on the way to the spigot.

The housing market in Las Vegas incinerated. Property values plummeted by half and home foreclosures and business closures and unemployment rates were the highest in the nation as the recession hit.

In fact, according to water authority records, the system’s water use fell by more than 44,600 acre-feet between 2007 and 2012.

One study for the water authority projects costs for the rural water importation project would in most years over the next decade exceed $2,000 an acre-foot. This is while Colorado River water has in recent years been sold to farmers in California and Arizona for less than $20 an acre-foot. That same study estimates water rates in Las Vegas would triple if the groundwater is tapped and piped south. Imagine what would happen to water consumption if that happened. Some of the member districts of the authority are already trying to figure out how to increase rates because they aren’t selling enough water to cover expenses.

The 44,600 acre-feet already saved in five years is more than half way to the 84,000 acre-feet of rural groundwater. All that’s needed is a bit more conservation.

But the real solution is to allow water rights to be bought and sold in a free market like any other commodity.

Economist Thomas Sowell explains in his book “Basic Economics”: “There is no need for government officials to decide arbitrarily – and categorically – whether it is a good thing or a bad thing for particular crops to be grown in California with water artificially supplied below cost from federal irrigation projects. Such questions can be decided incrementally, by those directly confronting the alternatives, through price competition in a free market.”

Read the entire column at Ely or Elko website.