There is no water problem.

There is a problem of attitude.

Culture and history.

A pioneer in saving water.

She says Nevada should now double down on finding brand new water sources.

Former southern Nevada water chief Pat Mulroy joins us in studio this week on Nevada Week.

Support for Nevada Week is provided by Senator William H. Hearn, STAT and other supporters.

Welcome to Nevada week.

I'm Amber Renee Dixon.

About 40 million people rely on water from the Colorado River and right now, the seven states that share it cannot agree on how to manage its shrinking supply.

Those states are divided into two groups.

The upper basin includes Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming, while the lower basin consists of Nevada, Arizona, and California.

The river's current operating guidelines are set to expire this year, and if the two basins can't reach a deal, the federal government will step in with its own plan.

Our guest once represented Nevada in several negotiations with Colorado River basin states.

She's one of the West's most recognized voices on water policy, and today consults companies and government agencies on water issues while continuing to speak out about ways to add to the water supply.

Pat Mulroy, former general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority.

Thank you for joining Nevada Week.

My pleasure.

Amber.

I want to start off with that clip that we ran at the top of the show so long ago.

What did it feel like seeing that?

I felt like I was see myself as a baby in that show.

It was 1996, and that was prior to the start of the decades long drought that we are currently in.

Do you still feel the same way from that clip about we don't have a water problem or did that change?

Oh, we have a current water problem if you want to put quotes around it.

And that's simply because we haven't adopted the same strategy that say, Israel's adopted or Singapore's adopted, where they've said, look, our freshwater sources are limited and we have to turn our eyes toward the ocean.

And they aggressively built, desalination facilities and have made their entire water plan for their future predicated on that.

So they went from being extremely vulnerable to being extremely sustainable and very secure in their water supply.

And that is what we are talking about when we refer to water augmentation.

Correct?

What particular project do you support in terms of desalination?

How does that work?

Well, I was really encouraged to see that as WA and Arizona, through the Central Arizona Project, we're going to be in discussions with California and San Diego about adding to the San Diego Carlsbad facility and becoming a partner in that facility.

What that will do is it will lay the foundation on how those kind of ocean desal projects can benefit multiple states, and I think that's the future.

I don't think any one of the three of us in the lower basin have an independent future.

We're absolutely linked at the hip.

And in order to create a sustainable Colorado River.

You have to add to the supply.

And that is from a memorandum of understanding that was recently signed.

Correct.

The current general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, John Densmore, spoke with KNBR recently about that.

And when he was asked, so how much water does that give Nevada?

He said, well, it hasn't been determined yet.

That's correct.

It hasn't.

How do you figure that out?

Because you can't pump water from there.

Here.

Oh, no.

You do it through and through exchanges.

In this one, for example.

I would assume and I'm making some assumptions here, but it is San Diego's facility.

So my, my belief would be that San Diego would use the ocean desal water and forego a portion of its Colorado River supply, leave it behind in Lake Mead, and make that then available to Nevada and to Arizona.

That's the beauty of this.

You don't have to build massive pipeline facilities moving water from the ocean into Nevada or into Arizona, that it would be foolish.

There are enough large users in the California area and in the northern Mexico area where you can effectuate exchanges that will prop up Lake Mead and the Colorado River system.

And the project that you also support involves the Imperial Valley in California.

Tell me about that one that I was approached about that one years ago.

And what it would do is bring water in from northern Mexico.

the Baja area, bring it into the Imperial Valley.

The cities would pay to let Imperial use that water, and Imperial would leave water behind in Lake Mead, letting AG use desal water or reuse water as they do in Israel, where they send it into the Negev.

To grow fruits and vegetables is not an uncommon practice, and it makes a lot of sense.

Imperial is the largest water contractor, on the river, even in the upper basin, and has the ability, if we give them additional water supplies to leave water behind for Nevada and Arizona.

What would it take for the Southern Nevada area to have the desalination infrastructure at the scale of Israel?

And I know that wouldn't be here in Southern Nevada, but it would be in California.

It would take some doing.

And it would take resources.

Financial resources would be a way.

Are we from that?

Because there is the desal plant in Carlsbad.

There is the desal plant in Carlsbad.

And one thing I've been thinking about a lot lately is it would make so much sense if the federal government created a lower basin Colorado River Commission that had one purpose and one purpose only, and that was to explore on how we could augment the Colorado River, and it would have the authority to engage in bilateral conversations.

It would have the financing necessary to do the science and the engineering, and finding the sites for desalination facilities.

And the reason I say, let the federal government establish that kind of a multistate with themselves, also in participation group is when the United States signed the 1944 treaty with Mexico one of the provisions was that the United States gave Mexico 1.5 million acre feet off the Colorado River.

In that legislation that the Senate adopted is a provision where the Senate and the Congress of the United States makes a commitment to the basin, states that it will replace that 1.5 million acre feet.

It has never done it.

So as far as I'm concerned, that obligation is still out there.

And so to say that the federal government can just walk away from this is nonsense.

The burden financially should not all fall on the States.

Yes, we need to be participants.

And I think 42 million people can afford it.

But the federal government has to have a huge stake in this in terms of financial participation.

It's a commitment they made and it's a commitment that's never been honored.

What about current Colorado River water negotiations?

I completely understand the frustration that's going on.

It's fear.

Everyone is terrified.

Why would you give up something that you have on paper?

I mean, there's there is this notion amongst the Colorado River users that if I have something that I feel is a promise in the compact or a right in the compact, I'm not going to let it go.

Because if I do, how vulnerable am I going to be?

That's why every time somebody has talked about long term solutions and wanting to permanently reduce the amount of water that is being used, I cringe because I know it won't pass.

It will never get through.

Nobody is going to walk away in the upper basin from what they perceive as their birthright.

And you're referring to the 1922 call I am gave Nevada 1.8% of the Colorado River.

Well, actually, it wasn't the compact that gave Nevada that.

The compact simply divided the basin into the upper and the lower basin, giving each basin 7.5 million acre feet.

It wasn't until the 1968, Supreme Court decision that the Nevada's allocation, quote unquote, was cemented at 300,000 acre feet, 300,000 acre feet.

How do you put that in perspective?

an acre foot can probably service three if not for households.

Now.

under the new usage guidelines.

Let's put it that way.

I mean, when I started a house used an acre foot, maybe a half an acre foot if they were on a smaller lot in the 90s, in the 90s, in the 8 or 89.

And I started so in that time we couldn't spell conservation.

I mean, it was anathema in Southern Nevada.

So we've come a long way.

But water was being recycled at that point.

We have been sending our wastewater to the Colorado River for a very long time.

Yes.

And you were responsible for telling the federal government, hey, we are sending this water back.

Give us water credit for that.

When the Southern Nevada Water Authority was created, one of the major impetus for the creation of that authority was that it created an agency that was capable of entering into a contract with the federal government to use the return flow credits because they had all the water and wastewater agencies on their board, and could make a commitment that they would continue to send the water to the Colorado River and would take responsibility for accounting, that there was never more water taken than what was returned.

Okay.

How do you foresee the current negotiations going?

What's the outcome?

Do you think?

Best case scenario is there will be a last minute Hail Mary compromise.

It will be very short term because I don't think anybody can go long term right now.

It'll be short term.

But it'll get us over the hump.

And what it does is it just forces the states to stay at the table and continue talking and react to the hydrology as it occurs.

I mean, it's not that we never imagined that the Colorado River could get to this point.

It's just that it's happening so much faster than anybody envisioned.

Right.

It's the rate of change that has everyone thrown.

It's not the fact that it's changing the Lower basin has proposed at least 3.2 million acre feet of savings in water over the course of two years.

For Nevada, that would look like, I believe.

Let's see, 100,000 acre feet over the course of two years.

That's 50,000 a year.

Okay.

And we don't use that right now.

Right.

So so that was the whole theory behind conservation early is so that when you get to a point where you have to cut back, you don't have to go to your community in a panic mode and say, oh my God, Chicken Little of the sky is falling.

You we're going to come in with draconian conservation measures, you know, let you, you know, brush your teeth every other day or something.

And because we don't have the water supply, we've saved it early and we're ready for the cuts.

Okay.

Yeah.

If those cuts were applied today, Southern Nevada uses less than absolutely would be because of that, though, how do you make people feel the urgency of the issue if pending water cuts wouldn't even really impact them in their day to day lives?

Nevadans have been far more astute and in tune with the water problems in the Colorado River than their compatriots in California and Arizona, especially California, probably because of proximity.

All they have to do is go out to Lake Mead and see that bathtub ring.

Every time they go out to go swimming in Lake Mead, or they go boating in Lake Mead, they see it to them.

It's not theoretical, it's real.

Okay.

So the Southern Nevada Water Authority under you and under the new leadership, well, not new, right.

John Anthony or has been there since.

Oh, yes.

And I hired him right out of law school.

What's your relationship with him like?

We have a great relationship.

What's it like?

I mean, do you call him on the cell phone?

I nag him all the time.

Nag him?

Yes, I nag him all the time.

What?

What's like.

Oh, I'm never been a person who's kept her thoughts to herself to ask anybody, so.

Well.

So I have something to say.

I'll call him and tell him.

What do you think about where conservation measures have gone under his leadership?

Well he hasn't.

He didn't have much of a choice.

I mean, he had a gun to his head.

I think right now we're testing the limits of conservation.

I mean, look, there have already been some modulations to it that's already taken place.

For example, on the septic issue, the health district has said, no, we're not going to do it right.

We're not going to go out and force people to abandon their septic systems and hook into the sewer system.

They've already had to back off of some of that, and that's not unusual.

I mean, what you it happened to us when we started with conservation.

I mean, I'll never forget getting yelled at by then, Mayor Goodman, because I was going to kill his koi fish.

Because of the fountains.

We wanted to ban all fountains.

Right?

I thought this community was going to lose its mind.

So finally we had to come up with a compromise, which was you can keep your fountain if you will take out enough grass to equal 50 times the amount of water that that fountain uses.

So you effectuate the same conservation.

You just came out a different way.

I think we're experiencing the same thing right now.

I think there's some areas where we have pushed the conservation issue to see how far it can go, to a point where it's going to have to compromise, let's say it's going to there's going to have to be some compromises made.

I mean, I know a lot of people that are upset about the trees that were removed in Summerlin because they had to take the grass out, and in course they took the trees out.

And I'm going to stop you there because I know you are right.

Okay.

So one of the controversial measures we're talking about is now the subject of a lawsuit as the result of Assembly Bill 356.

It became law during Nevada's 2021 session and empowered the Southern Nevada Water Authority to develop a plan to identify and remove what it considers nonfunctional grass by the end of 2026.

Nevada's Assembly Committee on Ways and Means sponsored the bill, and in 2021 said this about what kind of grass the Water authority would not target.

First of all, well, we're not defining it in statute.

This bill does not target common areas, for communities that is functional turf.

So the green spaces that people enjoy, including in multifamily, development, is not what is, intended to be addressed with this bill.

However, medians, and other areas that really do not serve a purpose there.

You know, as has been said by some, the only time anyone steps on it is when it's being mowed.

That's the turf that we're looking to address under the provisions of this bill.

But since then, as you mentioned, several homeowners say the opposite has happened that grass has been removed.

That was actually being used, and that the removal of some of that grass has caused mature trees to die.

I want to get your perspective on that.

But first I want you to hear from this group's attorney, Sam Castor.

He was recently on Nevada Week and had this to say about the power of the Southern Nevada Water Authority.

What we're just saying is the SWA is using this water conservation clause, which is a just cause improperly, they're using it to abuse Las Vegas residents, and they're dramatically overreaching.

They have more power than the police.

They have no oversight, and they're destroying Las Vegas.

And so that's something that needs to be checked by the Nevada Constitution, by fundamental law due process.

And right now, none of those laws are being honored by us.

And they're basically pretending like they don't answer to anyone and they can do whatever they want.

That's the silliest thing I've heard in a long time.

I have to be honest.

Obviously he doesn't understand how the US works.

First of all, there are five members that are city councilman, county commissioners that represent the water agencies.

When an issue that affects water or facilities or budget or anything that really matters comes before the board, if one of them votes no, it's dead.

It has to be unanimous and then it has to go back to the parent jurisdictions.

In other words, they can't change building codes.

They can't change the, the, the service rules for the water district or the service rules for Henderson or North Las Vegas.

Every one of those cities had to vote on that.

So in order to make those conservation measures come to life, they were really brought to life by the Henderson City Council, the North Las Vegas City Council, the Las Vegas City Council, and the Clark County Commission and the Boulder City City Council.

So by the time it's adopted, every single elected official in Southern Nevada, local elected official has voted on it the same way.

Can't do any of that when CWA was created, it was handcuffed.

It was deliberately put together to where it couldn't overreach, to where it had to go back to the cities and make them do the changes that had to happen.

Will you tell our viewers about the time that you did take action, and Steve Wynn called you to his office?

Oh, yeah.

I remember, okay.

And this had to do with something.

I mean, you stopped.

That was the Las Vegas Valley Water District.

That was okay.

There wasn't a Western way.

It was the incentive to create this.

In a way, what we had done is we had looked at our will serves that we had issued, and we said, what for?

When a developer goes to the bank in those days, he had to prove that he had water for his project.

So he would he or she would come to the water district and get a will serve letter where the district committed to service, a certain development, a certain project.

Well, we had way overextended our well serves.

We had more committed than we had water supply.

I mean, in 1989, when we looked at our resources that we had available, we were going to run out in 1993.

It was going to be over.

So the only way to get some sanity back into this was to stop issuing will serves.

So they still call it the Valentine's Day Massacre because it was February 14th, 1990 when I, with a consent of the board and told the community we are no longer issuing will serve letters.

It's not a period, it's a comma.

But we have to find a way to develop the resources, and we have to find a way to bring our accounting into balance.

And Steve Wynn said, hold on.

Steve Wynn said, who is that crazy person?

Because he was in the middle of building Treasure Island.

But that could not happen.

Now.

The Southern Nevada Water Authority, what our city could, but John is the general manager of the Las Vegas Valley Water District, could could say, no, we're not going to give you we're not going to allow you to build this new development because you can't pick and choose.

If he says there's no new development, it's everything.

One of the things he cannot do is say, you get to build and you don't.

Could it be you get to build because you are good with water?

You don't because you'll use too much, I mean, and set parameters.

No, he just won't let the the developer use more than is allowed.

Right.

But he's he's limited.

Or is he.

He couldn't say no.

Well the board could.

The Las Vegas the county commission sitting is the Las Vegas Valley Water District board could say.

But then they have to say everybody is cut off.

That's why all wheel serves were cut off.

It wasn't selective.

Nobody got it will serve anymore.

Okay, well, this makes me think of data centers and oh, the poor data centers.

Okay.

Why do you say that?

Well, you know, I represent switch, and I took them on as a client because I was really impressed with how they approach the natural resources issue and what they wanted me to do.

When was this, 2015.

Okay.

And we negotiated an agreement with, Tom Wharf, which is the wastewater agency for Reno and Sparks.

They had a problem with the quality of the wastewater they were discharging into the Truckee River.

It was causing problems with the heat query at the end of the river.

And for the tribes at the end of the river.

So we negotiated an agreement whereby that plant will send 4000 acre feet of waste water to Story County, across county lines, two Story County to that industrial park, to the Tahoe Regional Industrial Center for use by data centers, predominantly switch.

Switch paid for half of the line.

They led the charge in the negotiations.

And so when I looked at that, I went, that's really responsible.

They're not coming out of just saying we're going to just tap in and we're going to take whatever we want.

No, they've been very thoughtful on what can they do to mitigate their energy use, what can they do to mitigate their water use.

And so for that reason, I mean, I completely understand that data centers are enormous energy users.

I mean, we all want our AI, right?

And water users in order to cool for cooling purposes.

And they dry cool.

Google does all dry cool.

Now and then the Southern Nevada Water Authority enacted that moratorium on evaporative cooling about four years back.

So now the data centers here are not using water to cool.

I mean, at least since that time period.

But then they have to use more energy to cool.

As a result, an energy is generated by water, so well, where is the savings happening then?

Energy's water is needed in order to create energy.

That is correct and energy is needed in order to move water.

The two are in inextricably linked.

You can't uncoupled them and it's a trade off.

Are are there technologies that allow power plants to use less water?

And I think those are being developed every single day.

People are racing to develop those.

And at the same time, water agencies are looking for less power intensive ways to example to diesel.

There's a new technology that's been developed whereby you use the pressure of the ocean to push the salt out.

The desalination actually takes place in the ocean, and you use the weight of the water to push the salt out.

I can't I'm not an engineer.

Don't ask me to explain it.

All I know is it's being seriously considered by several agencies in Southern California right now.

Pat Mulroy, former general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, first ever general manager of that water authority.

Thank you so much for joining Nevada Week.

My pleasure was great to be here.

And thank you for watching.

For any of the resources discussed in this show, including a link to the document listing what actions the federal government is considering taking.

If the Colorado River basin states don't reach an agreement on their own, go to Vegas, PBS.org slash Nevada Week and I'll see you next week on Nevada Week.