Millennium Challenge Looks Like Texas

Cherry Blossoms

Western Water Wars Worsen

Two stories out of the West illustrate the need for consensus and agreement on water availability facts and figures and for Texas-style planning to ensure water quantity and water quality for future generations. The first, from the British newspaper The Independent, notes that rural communities across northern Nevada are worried over a plan hatched to benefit Las Vegas that includes a network of pipelines being laid by the Souther Nevada Water Authority.

Growth in the gambler's mecca has outstripped the ability of the Colorado River (and its reservoirs) to supply water to Las Vegas, and SNWA director Patricia Mulroy says she has no choice but to tap new rivers and aquifers, including the Muddy and Virgin Rivers. While tourism accounts for just 7% of water use in Las Vegas, the battle has been dubbed "crops v. craps."

Meanwhile, over in California, the Sacramento Bee reports that U.S. District Judge Lawrence K. Karlton (a Carter appointee) has ruled that the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation violated the Endangered Species Act in pushing through tens of millions in water delivery contracts for farmers in that state's Central Valley in 2001. Judge Karlton found that biological opinions by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service written to support the contracts were fatally flawed.

Attorney Kate Poole, who represents the Natural Resources Defense Council in this 17-year-old battle, says it's time for the government to take the blinders off and acknowledge the effects of Friant Dam on the downstream environment and local fisheries. Indeed, this is the second time in less than a year that Judge Karlton has found that the Bureau has harmed the San Joaquin River and its fish populations.

The two orders and a third expected order on other liability questions have set the stage for a trial due to begin next Valentine's Day on how to repair the damage done to the river, the species, and their habitat. The Bureau has been receiving about $117.7 million a year to deliver diverted waters from the San Joaquin to 28 irrigation districts that support Central Valley agriculture along the Friant-Kern Canal in Fresno, Tulare, Kern, and Madera Counties.

Apparently, the FWS, in the final days of the Clinton Administration, ignored current contracts for delivery of 2.14 million acre-feet a year for the next 25 years and instead used lower delivery figures for 1988 through 1997 to calculate the impact of the withdrawals. Their rationale was that delivery of full contract quantities was "unrealistic." Their excuse was that the FWS biological opinion had to be rushed out in January 2001 to avoid its becoming even weaker once President Bush took over the White House (a contention for which there could be no proof).

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