U.S. Water News Online
LAS VEGAS -- A state engineer has issued a new rule that will enable local water providers to earn credit for any groundwater they do not pump in a given year.
State Engineer Hugh Ricci took the action to protect the Las Vegas area's principal groundwater aquifer while giving water providers more flexibility.
Under the rule, the Southern Nevada Water Authority and its member utilities would be able to go back and use 85 percent of the groundwater they do not pump in a given year. The remaining 15 percent of the unused water must be left in the aquifer permanently.
"So the basin sees a benefit," Ricci said.
Roughly 75,000 acre-feet is pumped each year from the area's groundwater basin, and only 40,000 to 45,000 acre-feet of that is replaced through natural recharge, Ricci said. Such over-pumping of a basin can cause earth to subside and wells to run dry.
Efforts to bring the water basin back into balance have been ongoing since 1955, when the state began issuing revokable permits only in the Las Vegas area. No new water rights have been issued in the area since 1992.
The Nevada Division of Water Resources continues to lobby the state Legislature for more authority to pursue well owners who over-pump their groundwater allotments.
Robert Coache, chief engineer for the division's Southern Nevada office, said local permit holders, most of them small-well owners, over-pumped their allotments by about 3,000 acre-feet in 2003.
About 90 percent of the area's drinking water comes from the Colorado River, but North Las Vegas and the Las Vegas Valley Water District pump a combined 46,000 acre-feet of groundwater a year to meet peak demand in the summer.
"They now have additional capacity to not have to pump their groundwater during the summer. It allows them to change their operational schedule," Coache said.
The rule applies only to municipal water purveyors.
The average Las Vegas area household uses about 230,000 gallons of water, slightly more than two-thirds of an acre-foot, each year.
The water authority is not required to use in-lieu recharge, but Deputy General Manager Kay Brothers thinks the agency will.
"I don't want to underplay the in-lieu credits. I don't want to overplay them," Brothers said. "It's a tool, just like the banks are a tool. It's about water management and being flexible."
The water authority stores water in Las Vegas and holds water-sharing agreements with Arizona and California.
Ricci issued the in-lieu recharge rule on Dec. 10. Local water officials suggested the concept to the state engineer's office almost 10 years ago, he said.
Brothers said: "It's something Arizona does. It's something that the western water world has been doing for some time."
Vincent Marden, president of the Nevada Well Owners Association, is studying the details of the new rule, but he likes what he has seen.
"As long as the water table doesn't drop, we see that as a positive," said Marden, whose association boasts about 10,000 members, most of them the residential well owners in the Las Vegas area. "Anything left in the ground would definitely help us."
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