LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Colorado River water users and federal officials met in Las Vegas this week to tackle, what could be, one of the most critical issues in faces facing western states.
“Reservoirs across the West are storing less and less water,” says Arizona Senator Mark Kelly.
As water levels get lower, the messages get louder.
The push to find solutions for the ongoing drought and our diminishing water sources was the main focus at the Colorado River Water Users Association conference.
Senator Mark Kelly’s attendance was not on the agenda sheet, but he appeared Friday morning to talk to members. He said there are more long-term solutions to the problem.
“Like large-scale desalination plants and importing water from other basins, these are ambitious ideas, I get that," says Kelly, "but they are no more ambitious than the Hoover Dam of the Glenn Canyon Dam when they were conceived."
Kelly also pushed Congress to ask for drought-related funding in the next Farm Bill.
Officials from the states that use the river's water shared ideas and discussed solutions for the first two days of the conference. Friday, they all listened to federal officials from the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Reclamation.
We asked Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Touton about solutions.
“There are some low-hanging fruit solutions of water conservation, water efficiency in our municipal areas; we are working with the irrigation districts, building more efficient systems, whether it is lining of canals or being able to reuse water," says Camille Touton, "We are using investments from the bipartisan infrastructure law, $8.3 billion from the federal government."
Touton, a Las Vegas native, says she knows what the risks are if solutions to the drought are not figured out.
“It is a 23-year drought, so let’s adjust to the reality of the situation and operate the system that sustains the 40 million who depend on it,” she says.
The federal Bureau of Reclamation will finish taking comments from the public on Tuesday, which is also the deadline for the first draft of a plan detailing how to use at least 15% less river water among the seven Western U.S. states, 30 Native American tribes and Mexico.
States have until January to come to an agreement, and the preliminary report is expected in the spring.
