Nevada Drought Forum to continue work Friday

The governor’s Drought Forum meets Friday to continue working toward a set of recommendations to rescue Nevada from years of drought.

Conservation and Natural Resources Director Leo Drozdoff told the Legislative Interim Committee on Public Lands Tuesday the forum is expected to present the governor’s office with not only immediate or short-term recommendations but long term changes including potential changes to existing water law by mid-December.

Those issues range from purely legal changes to water law dealing with such things as priority water rights to measuring and monitoring of water in the state.

Any legal changes would have to be approved by the 2017 Nevada Legislature.

Drozdoff said the forum has been collecting data and working on ideas since its creation last April and has received a lot of input.

“Because we live in a desert, many advances and techniques have been developed by water users in rural settings,” he said.

But Drozdoff said much more can be done in terms of monitoring and research.

State Engineer Jason King told the public lands committee there are a number of different activities statewide right now including in the Smith and Mason valleys southeast of Carson City where he has issued an order that would sharply reduce groundwater pumping.

“Those two basins rely greatly on water from the Walker River and the four-year severe drought has exacerbated water problems in those two basins,” he said. “They’re not getting recharge from the river and when the surface can’t deliver, they pump.”

Pumping, King said, “is at an unprecedented level,” causing the water table to drop 8-12 feet. His office is currently under an injunction until the issue is heard in District Court next month.

Pending a decision by the court, that order would cut pumping by up to 75 percent unless El Niño gives western Nevada a good winter.

Even if approved, the order isn’t necessarily final.

“If we get a good water year, there will be no curtailment,” he said.

King also pointed to litigation on the Humboldt River where farmers who rely almost exclusively from the river have gone to court arguing increased pumping along the Humboldt “is actually depleting water in the Humboldt River.

He said his office has raised fees on groundwater users to pay for a four-year study of the connection between groundwater and the river in that area. In the meantime, he said, “we could certainly use a wet year to give us a break.”

King said it would cost just shy of $1.4 million to have the Desert Research Institute and U.S. Geological Survey do that study.