Water is a renewable resource only if properly conserved

In the Southwest, water is growing scarce with the depletion of Lake Mead. In Kansas, the Ogallala Aquifer has dropped 30%.

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Editorials

May 11, 2022 - 3:45 PM

The water level at Lake Mead, a key reservoir on the Colorado River. (Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times/TNS)

Last week’s rains and cold had us wondering if we could ever put winter wear away only to be followed by this week’s scorching temperatures. 

Our region’s unpredictable weather is part of its charm — and challenge. 

For the Southwest, however, there’s just one forecast on the horizon: Dangerously dry. And after 20 years of prolonged droughts, Nevada officials are watching their very life-source, the Lake Mead reservoir, dry up before their very eyes. Today, the reservoir is at 30% capacity.

To lessen the rate the water levels are dropping, Nevada legislators are looking for more ways to reduce water usage. Last year, they banned “nonfunctional” grass. This is grass that spruces up strip malls and office parks, abuts sidewalks and roundabouts, and simply fills large expanses, making transplants forget they are now living in the Mojave Desert. 

Nevada is giving offenders until 2027 to pull up the water-thirsty fescue and convert to native plants. In the Las Vegas area, experts say almost 4,000 acres of nonfunctional grass exist. Removing it will save 9.5 million gallons of water annually, or about 10% of the region’s intake.

Lake Mead was created in the early 1930s when the Hoover Dam was built on the Colorado River. In addition to Nevada, the Colorado is the principal source of water for Arizona, California and parts of northern Mexico. An estimated 20 million people, and large areas of farmland, depend on it.

It’s not as if Nevada and its neighbors haven’t been proactive.

For the last two decades Nevada has incentivized homeowners to plant native grasses and plants with “cash for grass” programs. These and other efforts have helped cut per-person water consumption by about half. 

What undermines that progress is its continued growth. The population of Southern Nevada has grown by 20% in the last 20 years and shows no signs of abating, prompting water authority officials to set the even more stringent goals.

WESTERN KANSAS is no stranger to water management.

The Ogallala Aquifer is our equivalent to the Colorado River, and it, too, is being rapidly depleted by droughts and misuse, primarily by irrigation, which accounts for 90% of that being removed.

In western Kansas, about 30% of the underground water has been pumped out, according to David Steward of Kansas State University. If the current farming practices continue of extracting more than the rate it can be replenished, another 39% is expected to be lost over the next 50 years.

It’s not that we couldn’t see this coming.

In 1989, Kansas created a State Water Plan to address issues concerning reservoirs, groundwater such as the Ogallala, and water quality.

But since 2008, legislators have shorted the effort by refusing to fully fund it by an estimated $80 million. It’s only this most recent session that legislators heeded the call, fully funding the $8 million request. 

Connie Owen, director of the Kansas Water Office, says the aquifer’s issues are dire and threaten the livelihoods of farmers and ranchers. 

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