By Jeniffer Solis, Nevada Current
Nevada’s limited water resources and wide open public lands will continue to be the source of legal and political battles for state lawmakers next year — whatever the outcome of November’s election.
When state lawmakers meet in Carson City next February, they will be asked to consider several — likely contentious — bills related to groundwater, agriculture, and public land use during their four-month legislative session.
On Friday, the Joint Interim Standing Committee on Natural Resources voted to advance a number of bill draft requests that could deeply affect the state’s water use, including a bill that would essentially overturn Nevada’s “use it or lose it” water law.
Bill draft requests (BDRs) are not official bills, they are requests by lawmakers for a draft of the proposed bill they can further amend and discuss during the legislative session.
The most substantial BDR coming out of the committee would revise water law to encourage water conservation by allowing a water right holder to conserve their water under a water conservation plan without losing their water right. Under the proposal, water conserved under a conservation plan would be considered appropriated water, or water that is already being put to beneficial use.
The bill would substantially change Nevada water law, which states that water users can’t hold on to water rights if they do not intend to use it productively in a timely manner.
During the Friday interim meeting, several members of the committee were reluctant to advance the bill draft request.
“We all know we have to address water and water conservation, but this particular bill is so encompassing,” said Republican Sen. Pete Goicoechea, who represents rural Senate District 19. “I really want to see some language before I vote to bring a bill like that forward and some of the ramifications that could come out of a bill like that.”
Washoe Republican Assemblyman Rich DeLong said he did not think next year’s legislative session was the right place to debate such a massive change in Nevada water law.
“I just don’t think the discussions have matured far enough to be able to put together a BDR,” DeLong said. “I just think it’s too soon to do this.”
Democratic Assemblywoman Natha Anderson of Sparks, vice-chair of the Assembly on Natural Resources, said the bill was an important first step in putting language on the table and starting a conversation about reworking Nevada water law.
“It’s important that we start here, so that we can have that conversation and work on it throughout the next session. I don’t think our state is getting in any better position, water-wise, if we wait,” added Reno Democratic Assemblywoman Selena La Rue Hatch during the Friday hearing. “We need to get started as soon as possible.”
Three-fourths of Nevada is currently experiencing abnormally dry conditions, with parts of the northwest corner of the state hitting moderate drought this summer, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
In several parts of the state, significantly more groundwater is extracted than is returned to aquifers each year, leading to declining water levels. About 56 of the state’s water basins are currently over-pumped, according to data compiled by the Legislative Counsel Bureau’s Research Division.
The Joint Interim Standing Committee on Natural Resources also voted to advance two bill draft requests for bills that would create and expand state programs to buy water rights from over-appropriated groundwater basins.
One of the bills would establish a dedicated account for the Voluntary Water Rights Retirement Program, which was allocated $25 million in funding last year to address groundwater conflicts by purchasing groundwater rights from private landowners in over-pumped and over-appropriated basins. The bill draft request was recommended by the Las Vegas Valley Water District and Jeff Fontaine, the executive director of the Humboldt River Basin Water Authority.
The program has proved more successful than anticipated. While the program is only available to landowners in about half of Nevada’s counties, water rights sellers offered to sell a total of $65.5 million in water rights in a matter of months — about $40 million more than available funding.
The other water purchasing bill— recommended by Goicoechea— would create the Nevada Water Buy-Back Initiative for the purpose of purchasing and retiring water rights in over appropriated groundwater basins over the long term.
Another water conservation bill draft request advanced by the committee Friday would extend the state’s time limit on temporary conversion of agricultural water rights for wildlife purposes from three to ten years.
The Walker Basin Conservancy, a conservation group focused on Walker Lake, spoke in support of extending the time limit.
“The future of Walker Lake and the Walker River depends on Nevada statute extending the time period for temporary conversions. It will provide more flexible management tools for our region,” said Peter Stanton, the executive director of the Walker Basin Conservancy.
Part of protecting and managing Nevada’s groundwater is collecting better data on Nevada’s intricate network of groundwater aquifers, said lawmakers. The committee voted to advance a bill draft request for a bill that would appropriate $1 million to the Division of Water Resources to update baseline science to improve the understanding of groundwater availability across the state.
Water managers in Nevada currently rely on water budget estimates developed 50 to 70 years ago, raising major concerns about the accuracy of groundwater availability, according to the Nevada Division of Water Resources. That uncertainty has become an even larger issue, as Nevada faces escalating economic growth and development pressures, including lithium mining and solar development.
