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. . Las Vegas "\Vheels and deals by Jon Christensen Las Vegas is prepared to give up its controversial quest to pipe underground water from rural Nevada, says the area's top waler offi- cial. But only if the booming metropolis can get morc water from the Colorado River. That's a big if, requiring changes in how the Colorado River has been run for mosl of this century. But Las Vegas, one of the faslesf- growing cities in the nalion, just might have the juice 10 pull it off. Patricia Mulroy, the hard. driving general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, is bel- ting everything on it. As Las Vegas has boollled in recent years so has the power of her agency. it merged over the pasl few years with several competing water districts, and now serves 900,000 people, 65 per- cent of the state's popula- tion. Mulroy is throwing .that power into changing how the Colorado River is managed. If she can get access to Colorado River water for Las Veg.as, Mul- roy is offering to abandon one of the biggest urban water grabs in Western history. The move puts Las Vegas at the center of reforms that are changing the way waler is managed throughout the West. And it may unite her urban constituency and environ- menlalisls against tradi- tional water interests. II's a startling about- face. Four years ago, when Mulroy unveiled a plan to pump all the avail- able groundwater from 26 valleys stretching as far as 200 miles north of Las Vegas (HCN, 4/6192), she asserted that rural Nevada could not stand in the way of the slate's economic engine. The plan seemed a bold blast from the past. Its scale - over 1,000 miles of pipeline - would dwarf the Owens Valley pipeline 10 Los Angeles, 10 which it was often compared. Mulroy now acknowledges that the groundwater importation plan has been proclaimed "the singularly mosl stupid idea anyone's ever had." But, she says, "I don't think we would ha.ve gollen attention to southern Nevada's needs without the outpouring of concerns on those applications." David Donnelly, chief engineer for the water authority, is also openly dis- dainful of the importation project that he defended unlil recently. "Frankly, it doesn't make any sense. We don't want to build any more dams, reservoirs, or construction projects. We want to do things that cost less and that are more politically, socially and environmentl1l1y acceptable." With the groundwater project - a traditional approach to a city's need for water - out of the way for the moment, Mulroy and her colleagues now see Las Vegas as a major player on the Colorado River. Last year, she took her message to Washington, D.C., as the first chairman of the Western Urban Water Coalition, a new lobbying group for citieS seeking a greater share of water .in the West. Western water attracts visionaries. Some pursue mirages; others prove to be ahead of their time. And there are It few acknowledges, wiJJ require "major rethinking" up and down the river. The 1922 Colorado River Compact - a major strand in the web of interstate compac~s"legislation, regulations, court decisions an4 rules collectively known as the "law of the river" - aHots 7.5 million acre-feet of water annually to the upper-basin states of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico, and 7.5 mimon to the lower basin states of Nevada, Arizona and California. Of that, California gets 4.4 million acre-feet, Arizona gets 2.85 mil- lion acre-feet, and Neva- da gets 300,000 acre- feet. Most of Califomia's and Arizona's Colorado River water goes to agri- culture, as does the upper.basin's water. Those allocations made sense when the 1922 compact was signed, and when the West was seen as a potential agricultural powerhouse if it only had water. But today irri- gated agriculture is on the defensive. In California, for exa-mple, Rep. George Miller helped put togeth- er a coalition of urban interests and environ- mentalists that pushed a major water reform bill through the Congress in 1992, despite intense . opposition from Califor- nia agricultural interests. That reform will make it easier for cities to buy up agricultutal water. Southern Nevada, an overwhelmingly urban area, has essentially no irrigated agriculture for Las Vegas to buy and dry up. Unlike California and Arizona, where huge chunks of those states' Colorado River water goes to farms, the Southern Nevada Water Authority already controls nearly all of Nevada's Colorado River water. Nor will conser- vation help much. Even with the most optimistic projections for conservation, Mulroy says, the Las Vegas area will .need more water soon after the turn of the century. To get that extra water, Mulroy wants to change the "law of the river" to allow southern Nevada to buy, borrow or otherwise bargain for water from other states' farmers and ranchers and deliver it through the agency's existing "straw" in La.keMead. The "'law of the river" presents a formidable obstacle to her quest - an obstacle rooted in the traditional West, much like the laws and traditions gov- erning mining, logging and grazing. But in an era when irrigation districts across the West are having trouble paying for their water, Las Vegas has what they need: cash. Mulroy has also found new allies in high federal positions, and in cities across the West, who share her vision of a changing region that needs some new rules. Before he became secretary of Inte- KIt Miller "You can't take a community as thriVing as this one and put a stop sign out there." Patricia Mulroy Southern Nevada Water Authorfty who figure out how to get what they want from the changes they see coming. Patricia Mulroy may be one of tile practical visionaries of the post~ reclamation era. She appears to understand, where reform of ~este(n water is headed: away from new' con- struction projects and toward better ma{\~ agement of rivers and ecosystems. She watched Denver's Two Forks Dam pro- posal go down to defeat. Closer to home, she saw Southern California fail to get its peripheral canal. From those lessons, she has come up with an alternative to a massive construction and dewatering project. Mulroy says that if Nevada can add 200,000 to 250,000 acre-feet of Col- orado River Wllter 10 the state's current annual allocation of 300,000 acre-feet from the Colorado River, then she will recommend dropping the agency's claims on rural Nevada water. Those claims are for about 200,000 acre-feel. Mulroy says the water needed to supply the next century of gro'wth in southern Nevada is not a major amount, given the allocations to other states on the Colorado River. But to get there, she 12 - High Country News - February 21, 1994 rior, Bruce Babbitt advised the rural Nevada counties fighting the l-as Vegas groundwater importation plan. Now, Babbitt says, he is an "advocate" for southern Nevada. "I'm-trying to find a way for Nevada to get an increased share of Colorado River water," he announced last summer. "Las Vegas needs an expanded water supply from the Colorado River." Around the same time, Betsy Reike, the assistant secretary of Interior who oversees the Bureau of Reclamation, was explaining her plans for reform to an annual gathering of high-powered water managers and attorneys at the University of Colorado's Natural Resources Law Center. "The Colorado River has been locked up in the chains created by the law of the river," Reike said. "It is time to figuratively mellthose chains." Reike said the Department of Interior, which manages most of the river, would "patiently leverage change" on the Col- orado River, starting in the lower basin. That was just what Patricia Mulroy, sit. ting in the audience, hoped to hear. The Bureau of Reclamation is draft- ing rules. and regulations to "provide some new flexibility by allowing and facilitating voluntary transfers of water" on the lower Colorado, says Ed Osann, an assistant to bureau director Dan Beard. The proposal wit! be the subject of public workshops and hearings after it is released in March. "This is something that does not- require fundamental changes in the Jaw of the river" or "tampering with the basic apportionments among and between states," says Osaon. But it. will be "a big step forward in encouraging the market- ing ofwaler in the lower Colorado." The Southern Nevada Water Authority has already opened II small crack in the Colorado River arrangement with a three-way deal Mulroy put togeth- er last year with the powerful Metropoli- tan Water District of Southern California and the Central Arizona Water Conser- vation District. The California and Nevada urban water districts agreed to pay the finan- cially troubled irrigation district (HCN, 8/10192), w~ich operates the Cenlral Ari- zona Project, to store 100,000 acre-feet of Colorado River water in groundwater aquifers under farms served by the aque- duct. During droughts, the cities could draw on that stored water. The deal, which was approved as a demonstration project by the Bureau of Reclamation, is simple conceptually but complicated in the details. Basically, some of Arizona's share of the Colorado River is moved through the Central Ari- zona Project canals - at Nevada's and Southern California's expense - to Ari- zona farmers who normally irrigate with groundwater. These fanners use the Col- orado River water, leaving the ground- water in the aquifers. In a drought, the farmers would draw on the stored groundwater, and California and Nevada would take addi. tional water out of Lake Mead. Other conditions apply, of course. But in out- line, some of Arizona's share of Col- orado River water is being transferred to Nevada and SQuthern California. "It's a chip away at water market- ing" on the Colorado River, says David Donnelly, chief engineer of the Las Vegas water. agency. "It required people