DOWNSPOUTS AND DEVELOPMENTS

Water Issues Whirl Around the West

By Headwaters News, 3-05-07

New Mexico’s Gov. Bill Richardson declared 2007 to be the “Year of the Water,” for his state’s Legislature, but with increasing populations and dwindling water supplies, water will no doubt continue to be one of the top issues for federal, state and local governments in the West – no matter what the year.

The Santa Fe New Mexican reports that in New Mexico developers’ plan to use irrigation water rights to help keep a project near Santa Fe afloat there has raised the ire of neighbors who fear the development may be too big and have too great an impact on water supplies in the area.  Developers have claimed that enough water exists on the 1,300-acre parcel for 120 homes, but the development could see between 200 and 700 homes.

The State Engineer’s Office says that any irrigation water right that’s converted to another purpose has to be evaluated at “consumptive use amount, or that which is actually used by crops,” – which is about 14.5-acre feet.  And the State Engineer’s Office will no doubt have the final say on the project, since in New Mexico, that office has authority over all surface and groundwater and the allocation of those resources.

Development in Mesquite, Nev., has sparked an interstate debate over water between Arizona and Nevada.  Mesquite officials are looking south into Arizona for water to supply their needs in that fast-growing community.  And just as Las Vegas’ water prospecting plans near the Utah border has caused a commotion in that state, Arizona residents are not pleased with the water-witching ways of Nevada. 

The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports on a water hearing currently under way in Beaver Dam, Ariz., on the request of Arizona-based Wind River Resources to export groundwater from the so-called “Arizona Strip,” where Interstate 15 dips into the northwest corner of the Grand Canyon State on its way from Nevada to Utah.

The application takes Arizona law into unchartered waters as it’s the first of its kind in the state. Both sides in the debate are claiming growth as the underlying need for water.  Wind River Resources’ attorneys say the explosion of growth in Mesquite is the compelling reason for approving their application to pump groundwater north to Nevada, but residents of Mohave County in Arizona cite burgeoning growth in the Arizona county’s tiny towns as the reason for the water judge to nix the application.

It doesn’t appear that the Arizona water court will issue a final decision on the matter, as both sides have said they’ll continue the fight no matter which way the gavel falls.

In Colorado, folks who have revived the water-capturing ways of their ancestors may be violating the law.  Under Colorado water law, the state has a share in every drop of rain that falls there.  So the folks who are funneling rooftop rain through downspouts and into rain barrels are siphoning off shares of the state’s water.

In a Denver Post article about an upcoming national conference at the University of Denver’s Rocky Mountain Land Use Institute this week, a Denver water-use attorney said that if every household in Douglas County decided to horde an estimated 1,000 gallons of rainfall each year, that would mean a loss of 80 million gallons a year to downstream water right holders.

Engineers quoted in the Post said the loss of rainfall captured by homeowners to downstream users is negligible, and said that homeowners would spend about $5,000 on capture systems that would ultimately end up saving about the same amount of water as installing a low-flow toilet.  But they also said homeowners who installed such a system of drains and cisterns, along with water-wise landscaping, could provide 75 percent of their outdoor watering needs.

The capture of rainwater has captured the interest of some Colorado groups, so much so that a coalition of water districts and homeowners associations have decided to spend nearly $100,000 to study the feasibility of funneling rainwater to provide water for open space.

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