Let’s be real. Despite your recent story on
Nevada, the world of water has changed of late and the Southern
Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) gets a good portion of the credit
(HCN, 9/19/05: Squeezing water from a stone).
SNWA
reinvented water in the Southwest, changing a nastily competitive
situation from the “whiskey’s for drinkin’,
water’s for fightin’ ” of legend to a cooperative model
in which everyone has a seat at the table and people negotiate like
grown-ups instead of like squabbling children. As a result, since
2003, southern Nevada has decreased its water use by 52,000
acre-feet (one-sixth of Nevada’s share of the Colorado
River). At the same time, it has added about 150,000 people. No
other American community can match that conservation record.
And regardless of the hullabaloo over groundwater in the
Great Basin, in the Southwest, groundwater is a side issue, a hedge
against future hard times. The real issue is the “Law of the
River,” the 1927 Colorado River Compact. Since its enshrinement,
the Compact has favored agriculture and ranching over urban use. As
a result, 3.8 million of the 4.4 million acre-feet that California
receives ends up in three rural agricultural districts. In a state
where urban economic activity exceeds that of even the enormous
agricultural industry by exponential factors, such an arrangement
makes no sense.
We should devise a new Colorado River
Compact, one that no longer inhibits job growth in urban areas. A
new Compact could begin by assigning the federally legislated water
allocations on the basis of existing law. Prior commitments and
legislatively mandated uses would come first. Then the rest of the
water could be divided up among stakeholders, with preference going
to the most economically efficient uses.
The funds this
water generates would be divided among those who gave it up. In
that way, two social goods would occur: The people who gave up the
water would be fairly and justly compensated, and the water could
create good jobs and prosperity for people who until now have been
left out of the American dream.
Nobody should be forced
to give up their water. Nor should anybody be able to stymie
economic progress for their own selfish purposes. There is a happy
medium, and we can achieve it.
Hal
Rothman
Las Vegas, Nevada
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Las Vegas deserves some credit.
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