Lake Mead is currently only at 36% capacity. (Photo: U.S. Bureau of Reclamation)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

Federal resource managers announced $99 million in funding for a large-scale water recycling project that will save enough water in Lake Mead to serve nearly 500,000 households in Southern California and Southern Nevada annually.

The Department of the Interior announced Tuesday that the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California will receive millions in funding for the planning and design of the state’s Pure Water Southern California facility, a planned regional large-scale water recycling project.

When completed, the Pure Water project will produce 150 million gallons of purified water every day, enough to meet the demands of 470,000 households in Southern California and Southern Nevada annually. That water would be piped for industrial use and to replenish groundwater basins, which provide well water.

Construction could begin as soon as 2026 and the first water could be delivered in 2032, according to the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.

The project is a partnership between the Southern Nevada Water Authority and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California to create reliable and resilient water supplies for Southern California and Nevada, reduce demand on the Colorado River, and keep water in Lake Mead.

In 2021, the Southern Nevada Water Authority agreed to invest $750 million into the water recycling project. In return for the investment, Southern Nevada will get a share of California’s water in Lake Mead. The Southern Nevada Water Authority also agreed to invest $6 million for environmental planning of the project.

“Water is essential to everything we do,” said Secretary Deb Haaland in a statement Tuesday. “As the climate crisis drives severe drought conditions across the West, it will take all of us working together to safeguard our communities and enhance water reliability.”

Southern Nevada water users consume 89 gallons per person per day. Projected growth for the region can only remain sustainable if water use is cut to 86 gallons per person per day by 2035, according to the Southern Nevada Water Authority. State water managers have said water recycling will play a major role in reaching those sustainability projections.

Lake Mead is currently only at 36% capacity due to decades of drought in the west and the Upper Colorado Basin, a major water source for the Colorado River and the reservoir. 

Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton made the announcement during a visit to the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California Tuesday, where she announced a total of $179 million in funding for water recycling and drought resilience projects for four projects in California and Utah.

Over the next five years, the Bureau of Reclamation will invest $8.3 billion for water infrastructure projects in western states, including water storage, conservation, water purification, and water recycling. Since the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law was signed in November 2021, Reclamation has announced more than $3.5 billion for more than 530 projects. 

“These historic investments will add a significant tool to our toolbox to bolster drought resilience in communities across the country,” said Touton in a statement.

U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto praised the funding Tuesday. Cortez Masto pushed for securing funding for the Department of the Interior’s large-scale water recycling program as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

“Addressing drought in the West and protecting Nevada’s water supply will require all of us to work together on innovative, sustainable solutions,” said Cortez Masto in a statement.

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated Southern Nevada water users consume 110 gallons per person per day. It’s been corrected to 89 gallons per person per day.

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The Gemini facility scheduled to begin operation this year near Las Vegas, with a planned solar capacity of nearly 700 megawatts and battery storage capacity of up to 380 megawatts, is expected to become the nation’s largest solar project. (Image: Primergy Solar construction simulation presentation of Gemini project)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

With some parts of the country already facing heat waves, the organization in charge of setting reliability standards for the American electric grid is warning that a scorching summer could lead to a shortage of power generation in some regions.

The warning comes as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says there’s a 99% chance that 2024 will rank among the five warmest years on record and 55% chance it will be the hottest on record.

Overall, though, the analysis by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation painted a rosier picture than last year’s report, in part because of a surge in solar power development.

The nation has enough energy supply to handle normal peak demand, called “load” in the electric industry, largely because of 25 gigawatts of new solar power capacity — at full capacity that’s the rough equivalent maximum output of 25 large fossil or nuclear power plants. (The number of homes that can be powered from one gigawatt of solar can vary widely across the country). But the new panels have helped move some areas from what NERC calls “elevated risk” of power shortfalls in last year’s analysis  to “normal risk” this year.

“Resource additions are providing needed capacity to keep up with rising peak demand in most areas,” Mark Olson, the organization’s manager of reliability assessments, told the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Thursday. New power transfer agreements, growth in demand response programs, which incentivize customers to reduce power usage during times of grid stress, and delayed power plant retirements “are also contributing to an overall improved resource outlook for the upcoming summer,” NERC says.

A solar surge

A separate FERC staff presentation said solar will make up 10% of overall national electric generation capacity by the end of this summer, with natural gas providing 42%, coal providing 14% and wind power at 13%.

Solar power is growing fast across the country, with the U.S. hitting five million total solar installations (most of them residential), per the Solar Energy Industries Association. Reaching that milestone took 50 years, but the industry group projects that hitting 10 million solar installations will only take six years. Solar power for the first time accounted for more than half of new electric generation capacity added in 2023, the group noted.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration expects “a record addition” of new utility-scale solar power this year, with about 36.4 gigawatts projected to be installed. More than half of that new capacity is planned for Texas, California and Florida.The Gemini Solar facility, scheduled to begin operation this year about 30 miles northwest of Las Vegas, with a planned solar capacity of nearly 700 megawatts and battery storage capacity of up to 380 megawatts, is expected to become the nation’s largest solar project.

Battery storage is also growing rapidly, with more than 14 gigawatts expected to be added this year, according to the EIA. Batteries complement solar generation well, since solar’s peak production doesn’t generally line up with peak demand on the grid, which happens later in the day. Batteries allow excess solar power to be banked for when it’s needed.

But a changing power mix also comes with new challenges and risks, NERC warned.

In his presentation to FERC, Olson said that while the overall summer electric reliability outlook has improved, some regions are seeing what he described as growing risks during extreme weather.

“Shortages could occur when demand is high and solar, wind or hydro output are low,” he said.

Those regions include parts of the Midwest and South in the grid area managed by the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, New England, Texas, much of the Southwest and California. Grid operators, though, are becoming increasingly adept at planning and running electric grids with large amounts of intermittent resources.

“It’s refreshing to finally get the recognition that renewables can help with reliability,” said Simon Mahan, executive director of the Southern Renewable Energy Association.

Shifting seasons and climate change

While most of the country has historically been “summer-peaking,” meaning regions hit their highest demand for electricity during the summer months, some areas are increasingly seeing demand spike in winter, a trend that is expected to continue as result of heating electrification, other decarbonization policies and more extreme, protracted cold weather events. Indeed, the majority of recent electric grid failures have been during severe winter weather, such as Winter Storm Elliott in 2022, which caused blackouts in several southern states and Uri in 2021, which caused a catastrophic collapse of the Texas electric grid that caused an estimated 246 deaths.

But summer heat still poses risks, NERC says, contributing to both high demand and power plant outages, such as at natural gas power plants.

“Last summer brought record temperatures, extended heat waves and wildfires to large parts of North America,” the organization said. And though energy emergency alerts were few and no electricity supply interruptions happened as a result of insufficient power resources, grid operators “faced significant challenges and drew upon procedures and protocols to obtain all available resources, manage system demand and ensure that energy is delivered over the transmission network to meet the system demand.” Utilities and state and local officials in many areas also “used mechanisms and public appeals to lower customer demand during periods of strained supplies,” NERC added.

Christy Walsh, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Sustainable FERC Project, said the reliability reports show how climate change is central to the pressures facing the electric grid.

“And it needs to be at the center of our solutions too,” she said in a statement to States Newsroom. “Earlier and more intense hurricanes brought on by increasing sea temperatures are a new and noteworthy concern, and this underscores the need for more large-scale transmission and connections between regions. Most of the new additions were wind, solar and storage, and last summer especially we saw just how crucial these resources can be during extreme heat events. We need to make sure we have a grid that can withstand the weather and move resources around during times of stress.”

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Walker Lake outside Walker River Paiute Tribe reservation. (Photo: Jeniffer Solis/Nevada Current)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

For years, members of the Walker River Paiute Tribe who depend on well water have been plagued by water scarcity, brought on by a lack of infrastructure and funding. 

Between aging pipes, pollutants and regional drought, the tribe’s existing water infrastructure has been stretched to its limits — compromising both public health and economic development.

But after seven years of lobbying, the Walker River Paiute Tribe now has the funding it needs for a $12 million water system improvement project to secure a reliable and sustainable water supply for well users on the tribe’s reservation. 

In total, the project will provide a comprehensive domestic water supply distribution system for more than 100 residences on the reservation.

Andrea Martinez, the chair of the Walker River Paiute Tribe, said the tribe hopes to complete the project in a little over two years. The project will secure clean drinking water, and expand the tribe’s capacity to add new homes on the reservation.

“This has been a priority for the tribe for years. And we’re fortunate to get funding for this project. It’s really humbling to see this come to fruition. It gives me hope for the next generations of our tribe,” Martinez said. 

Last week, the Department of the Interior awarded the Walker River Paiute Tribe more than $2.4 million to construct a domestic water supply for communities solely dependent on well water.

That funding builds on a $5.2 million U.S Department of Commerce economic development grant to the tribe in 2023, a $1 million U.S. Environmental Protection Agency grant for water quality improvements, and $3 million in drinking water state revolving loan funds. The remaining funds would be covered by the additional American Rescue Plan funding awarded to the tribe.

The $2.4 million grant awarded last week will be used to construct a 410,000-gallon water storage tank on the Walker River Paiute Reservation for the project, which will include about 25,000 feet of pipe across the reservation, and a new water line needed to construct housing.

“We’re going to be able to bring our people back home by having this water infrastructure and building out homes. Ultimately, I think that’s going to help our tribe continue to grow and succeed and be fruitful in the future,” Martinez said. “I think once we have the water infrastructure, we’ll be able to see our vision.”

‘Coming back home’

Nevada has 28 federally recognized tribes that span 28 reservations, bands, colonies and community councils. Most reservations in Nevada are remote and face a host of challenges unique to rural communities, including lack of infrastructure, inadequate water treatment facilities, and limited funding. 

Tribes in rural Nevada are highly vulnerable to water insecurity because of a lack of access to water infrastructure stemming from policy decisions made in the early days of federal agencies such as the Bureau of Reclamation.

Many homes that rely on well water don’t have adequate water pressure for home use, leaving residents with unreliable water access. A report by the Indian Health Service in 2019 noted that low water pressure in Walker River Paiute Tribe housing has led to health risks associated with bacteria growth in stagnant water.

Improvements to water infrastructure can reduce inpatient and outpatient visits related to respiratory, skin and soft tissue, and gastroenteric disease, according to IHS. Based on 2020 data, every $1 spent on water and sewer infrastructure can save $1.18 in avoided direct health care costs for these diseases.

Lack of adequate water pressure on the reservation also means that much of the reservation lacks the water pressure needed for piping fire hydrants, putting the tribe at severe risk of fire damage. Existing water storage capacity on the reservation falls short of meeting current codes for fire suppression, according to the Interior. 

“It could have been detrimental to our community if there were fires in areas that didn’t have adequate water pressure,” Martinez said. 

Lack of water infrastructure has cost the tribe, both in terms of public health and economic development, said Martinez.

“I think that’s probably one of the fundamental contributors to why we can’t have people come back home and work for the tribe. We talk about leaving the reservation, getting educated, coming back home to help your people and make something better for the tribe. But ultimately, what I have witnessed is that there are no homes for these individuals to come home to,” she said.

A number of current tribal employees are forced to live off the reservation despite a desire to return, due to lack of housing and the necessary infrastructure needed to support those homes, said Martinez.

“It’s just so sad and detrimental to see,” she continued.

The funding for water infrastructure is a huge game changer for the tribe, and will allow the tribe to build more homes and businesses,   said Martinez. The tribe is also wrapping up a $1 million water rights settlement with the Bureau of Reclamation that will secure the tribe’s water rights to the Weber Reservoir, and recognize the tribe’s jurisdiction over groundwater on their reservation.

“This is considered a historical settlement for the tribe. I believe it’s been over 100 years that we’ve been fighting for our water,” Martinez said.

Once the water infrastructure project is complete, the tribe can utilize those hard-fought water rights for the tribe’s benefit, she said.

“We can continue to build capacity and become successful, but also build cultural preservation. If we have more citizens living on the reservation there could be a stronger sense of cultural preservation and connection to our traditions and heritage.”

The funding for the $2.4 million grant will come from the Inflation Reduction Act passed by Congress in 2022. In total, the Department of the Interior announced $147.6 million in funding for 42 drought resilience projects in ten states last week.

In a statement announcing the funding, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland applauded the Biden administration for “making record investments to safeguard local water supplies and build climate resilience now and into the future.”

“By working together in close coordination with states, Tribes and other stakeholders, we can provide much needed relief for communities across the West that will have a lasting impact for generations,” Haaland said.

Editor note: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated Nevada is home to 21 federally recognized tribes. Nevada is home to 28 federally recognized tribes that span 28 reservations, bands, colonies and community councils.

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FERC's chairman said construction of the high voltage transmission lines that help get power to where it’s needed has slumped to a record low. (Photo: Getty Images)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

A divided Federal Energy Regulatory Commission this week issued a long-awaited overhaul of how regional electric transmission lines are planned and paid for, a move cheered by clean power groups but blasted by a conservative commissioner who said it was driven by “special interests” and exceeds the commission’s authority.

The commission’s final rule on transmission planning and cost allocation, intended to prod utilities and grid operators across the country into more forward-looking, comprehensive and cost-effective planning of large electric transmission lines and better account for the broad benefits those wires provide, was nearly three years in the making. It passed on a 2-1 vote, with the commission’s two Democratic appointees voting yes and the lone Republican opposed.

FERC Chairman Willie Phillips said an aging grid, increasing severe weather, demand growth from new manufacturing, data centers and increasing electrification as well as a changing generation mix all threaten reliability at a time when construction of the high voltage transmission lines that help get power to where it’s needed has slumped to a record low.

“This rule cannot come fast enough. There is an urgent need to act to ensure the reliability and the affordability of our grid,” Phillips said. “We simply will not be able to address these converging challenges and continue to supply the reliable, abundant and affordable power the American people depend on without taking a clear-eyed, long term, forward-looking approach to transmission planning.”

But Commissioner Mark Christie, a conservative former Virginia utility commissioner, vehemently dissented to the rule, calling it “a pretext to enact a sweeping policy agenda that Congress never passed” and one that will “facilitate a massive transfer of wealth from consumers to for-profit special interests.”

Christie has long opposed transmission cost allocation schemes that he claimed would force customers in some states to pay for the pro-renewable policies of their neighbors. “I was perfectly prepared to vote for this final rule if it were a bipartisan compromise, if it preserved the state role that everyone sitting up here voted for two years ago,” he said.

The genie and the bottle

The sprawling rule requires transmission operators to conduct transmission planning at least every five years, looking out along a 20-year horizon using “best available data to develop well-informed projections” of needs, according to a staff presentation. To identify those transmission needs, providers need to consider state laws and regulations, utility planning documents, fuel cost trends, power plant retirements, requests from developers looking to connect to the grid as well as “policy goals and corporate commitments.” They also must consider “grid-enhancing technologies,” a suite of potentially cost-saving tools common in other countries that have been slow to take root in the U.S., despite years of prodding from advocates, as well as identifying opportunities to upgrade existing lines, called “right-sizing.”

Transmission providers, including utilities and the organizations that manage the grid in much of the country, are also required to use a list of seven economic and reliability benefits as they evaluate and select long-term regional transmission projects as well as establish an evaluation process with transparent selection criteria that are not “unduly discriminatory or preferential, aim to ensure that more efficient or cost-effective long-term regional transmission facilities are selected and seek to maximize benefits accounting for costs over time without over-building transmission facilities.”

Christie criticized those “mandated inputs” and said states have no ability to consent to those criteria.

A major big problem FERC is trying to fix is that even as construction of large transmission projects has nearly ground to a halt, utilities in many parts of the countries are on a building spree of smaller — potentially duplicative and inefficient — projects that are easier to get approved and paid for, increasing customer bills.

“The absence of this type of regional transmission planning is resulting in piecemeal transmission expansion that addresses relatively near-term transmission needs,” the staff presentation reads. “The status quo approach results in transmission providers investing in relatively inefficient or less cost-effective transmission infrastructure, with the costs ultimately recovered through commission-jurisdictional rates. This dynamic results in, among other things, transmission customers paying more than is necessary or appropriate to meet their transmission needs, and customers missing out on benefits that outweigh their costs, which results in less efficient or cost-effective transmission investments.”

For example, proponents of the new rule point to hundreds of millions of dollars in transmission costs that will result from the closure of a Maryland power plant in the region overseen by PJM Interconnection, the nation’s largest grid operator, as an example of poor planning.

“It is hard to imagine the region could not have found a more cost- effective solution had it begun planning for that retirement along with other anticipated shifts further ahead of time,” said Democratic Commissioner Allison Clements, who took Christie to task over his dissent. She said he was pushing the commission to take a “fraught voyage” to decide which public policies are appropriate for creating transmission demands.

“All transmission needs are inherently influenced by state policies of all stripes,” she said. “The truth is that enormous sums of money are going to be spent on transmission investment regardless of whether or not it’s done within the framework of this new rule.”

She argued that the new rule will protect customers from the pricey, fits-and-starts transmission buildout happening in much of the nation now.

“Not everything is about politics,” she said. “It is not the commission’s job to try and force the genie that is the energy transition back in the bottle. It is our legal responsibility to protect consumers in light of whatever is going on in the world around us.”

Neil Chatterjee, a Republican former FERC chairman, posted on X that he would have voted for the rule if he was still on the commission.

“Today’s @ferc rule was voted out 2-1 but that does NOT mean it’s a partisan rule making,” he wrote. “Had I authored this rule as chair would it have looked exactly like this? Of course not. But it would have been in the range. Regulatory rule making is hard.”

‘Benefit of having a big grid’ 

Competitive transmission providers and clean energy groups were celebrating Monday. Organizations ranging from the American Council on Renewable Energy and the National Audubon Society to the Conservative Energy Network and Americans for a Clean Energy Grid issued statements applauding the order.

Some renewable power organizations had privately wondered whether a drive for a unanimous vote might produce a more watered-down rule to get Christie onboard. That might have left states with big renewable power goals paying for all the transmission costs necessary to accommodate them, as New Jersey is doing for its planned offshore wind buildout, even though that power generation could mean cheaper, cleaner electricity for its neighbors, also, along with other benefits.

The U.S. Department of Energy has found a “pressing need” for new transmission infrastructure across the country to alleviate congestion and improve reliability. Grid congestion costs electric customers billions of dollars a year, according to some reports. And because of the more diffuse nature of renewable power, getting it from where it’s produced to where it’s needed, as in the vast amount of wind power in the Great Plains, can require large, multi-state transmission lines.

“Families and businesses are paying the price for utilities’ and grid operators’ failure to address our critical electricity infrastructure needs,” said Heather O’Neill, president and CEO at national clean power business association Advanced Energy United. “Building more multi-state transmission lines unclogs the traffic jams on America’s electricity superhighways and unlocks our ability to keep up with our growing energy needs.”

Justin Vickers, a senior attorney for the Sierra Club, said the rule appears to be firmly within FERC’s jurisdiction, despite Christie’s concerns to the contrary.

“I think the commission is on very strong footing here,” he said. “This is a way of maximizing the benefits of living in a big country. We can send power around the country. It increases reliability and it lowers price. That’s the benefit of having a big grid. .. Let’s take advantage of it.”

The Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned utilities, said it was “disappointed” that FERC declined to include a “right of first refusal” policy for some transmission projects, which would have given their members first crack at some of the lines. The organization also said the rule lacked “regional flexibilities for evaluating project benefits.”

“A one-size-fits-all approach does not work, as different regions have different needs and different states have different policies,” said Phil Moeller, an executive vice president at the institute.

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Not a wolf. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

Wildlife managers in Nevada confirmed Monday that a possible wolf pack sighting north of Elko months earlier was, in fact, a pack of coyotes.

The Nevada Department of Wildlife reported the possible wolf pack sighting in March, prompting state biologists to collect DNA from two scats and hair samples nearby to confirm whether or not the pack sighted were indeed wolves.

However, results from two independent genetic labs completed this month found that the three suspected wolves spotted near Merritt Mountain were almost certainly coyotes.

Analysis of the hair, fecal, and urine samples collected along the suspected wolf tracks in the snow revealed with 99.9% certainty that the samples were from coyotes, according to NDOW. 

“While initial observations indicated the possibility of wolves in the area, the DNA results of the samples collected indicated that these animals were, in fact, coyotes,” said NDOW Director Alan Jenne in a statement. 

“We appreciate the diligence of our biologists, assisting laboratory personnel and the public’s cooperation throughout this process and we will continue to monitor the area for any indication of wolf presence,” he continued.

The possible wolf sighting was announced after a helicopter crew conducting an aerial moose survey spotted three suspected wolves traveling together. State biologists who conducted ground surveys immediately after the sighting believed the fresh tracks in the snow were consistent with wolves at the time. 

The sighting could have been significant for Nevada, which has not confirmed a wolf pack in the state for more than a century. A single gray wolf was documented in Nevada west of the Black Rock Desert in 2016. Before then, the last confirmed Nevada sighting of a wolf was in 1922, near Elko County’s Gold Creek.

Jenne said he understood “the significance of such sightings and the importance of accurate identification.”

“NDOW will continue to work closely with state and federal agencies to uphold our mission of protecting Nevada’s ecosystems and wildlife while also maintaining transparency as a top priority in all our communications with the public,” Jenne said.

While Nevada has seen few confirmed wolf sightings in the last century, surrounding states have significant growing gray wolf populations. Idaho’s gray wolf population was estimated at 1,337 wolves in 2022, 37% higher than the original recovery goal for the animals, according to Idaho’s Department of Fish and Game.  

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife in 2023 reported about 200 gray wolves in nearly 25 packs in the state. Oregon state biologists also warned that the gray wolf population may have reached its ecological limit in the eastern third of the state, and that packs would likely spread out to the west and south in greater numbers. 

As of 2024, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife said there are six known packs of gray wolves in the state for a total of 45 adult wolves, juveniles, and pups.

Gray wolves once ranged across all of North America, including the western United States. But decades of government-sponsored predator control programs brought gray wolves to near extinction in the lower 48 States. By the time wolves were protected under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, only a few hundred remained in northeastern Minnesota, and on Isle Royale, Michigan, according to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

Amaroq Weiss, the senior wolf advocate at the conservation group Center for Biological Diversity, said it is important to understand that wolves are wide-ranging animals that often travel hundreds of miles seeking new territory and resources, and may cross into Nevada. Weiss also noted it isn’t uncommon for federally protected wolves to be mistaken for coyotes and killed.

“Dispersing wolves all too often get shot and killed by folks who mistakenly think what they are shooting is an enormous coyote, so it’s good to keep the public apprised there could be wolves – which are federally protected – in the area,” Weiss said.

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The state Division of Water Resources recently reported about 35 miles of dry channel with no flow on the Humboldt River. (Photo Credit: Colton Brunson, Water Commissioner, Nevada Division of Water Resources)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

After two decades of dwindling aquifers, landowners in northern and central Nevada are choosing to surrender their groundwater rights to the state in exchange for cash payments, and more are waiting in line. 

Everyone from family farmers to residents in mid-sized towns depend on groundwater in Nevada, but over-pumping and persistent drought means there is simply not enough water to go around.

The Voluntary Water Rights Retirement Program was allocated a total of $25 million in funding last year to address groundwater conflicts by purchasing groundwater rights from private landowners in over-pumped and over-appropriated basins in northern and central Nevada communities, and there’s been massive interest.

While the program is only available to landowners in about half of Nevada’s counties, water rights sellers have offered to sell a total of $65.5 million in water rights in a matter of months — about $40 million more than available funding. 

“Farmers want to farm,” said Jeff Fontaine, the executive director of the Central Nevada Regional Water Authority and the Humboldt River Basin Water Authority. “But a lot of them see the writing on the wall.”

Throughout the Central Nevada Regional Water Authority region — an agency created to proactively address water resource issues in the region — there are 25 over-appropriated groundwater basins, eight of which are also over-pumped. An over-pumped basin is one that is pumped at a greater rate than it is replenished.

Water regulators have until September to enter into contractual agreements and acquire those groundwater rights, but as of May the program has already received commitments to retire more than 25,000 acre-feet of ground water annually. That’s about the average amount of water in both the Boca Reservoir and Donner Lake any given year.

“We’re gonna do that in one year,” said James Settelmeyer, director of the Nevada Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, during a Joint Interim Standing Committee on Natural Resources meeting Friday.

Due to high interest in the program not every application will result in a purchase, but state water regulators noted that not a single applicant has voluntarily dropped out of the program.

“We had some of the oldest ranches in the state that were looking at selling,” Settelmeyer said, adding that the decision came down to the rising cost of digging deeper and deeper wells to reach the shrinking water table.

Water rights holders are asking “’Do I drill another well or take my old well and go down an additional 200 to 300 feet? Or do I look at this program?'” he said, adding, “there are some that are getting a bit older and may not have someone willing to take over the property.”

Nevada landowners understand they’re between a rock and a hard place, said local water regulators. 

Fontaine, the executive director of the Central Nevada Regional Water Authority and the Humboldt River Basin Water Authority, said sharply declining groundwater levels is what motivated farmers in Humboldt County’s Middle Reese River Valley and Antelope Valley to sell.

“Some of the applicants we talked to were looking at having to spend potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars to deepen their wells. And at some point they realized that the situation isn’t getting any better anytime soon,” Fontaine said, during the Friday meeting.

Most of the funding will likely go to Eureka’s Diamond Valley, a small farming community in central Nevada, and the state’s only “critical management area,” as designated by the Nevada State Water Engineer. The designation means the valley’s groundwater levels are rapidly declining, and groundwater rights holders in the area are required to create a plan to address over-pumping or risk losing their rights.

More water rights than water

If all sales go through, the state expects to retire about 30% of the annual groundwater yield in Diamond Valley, Fontaine said.

Water regulators said the program application process was designed to purchase water rights that are in regular use and to weed out water rights sellers who have not pumped over the last five years, in order to effectively address shrinking aquifers in northern and central Nevada. 

Decades of granting more water rights than actual available water has left Nevada in a difficult position. Before electricity and modern pumping technology was available, there was little threat of draining an aquifer “but times have changed,” Fontaine said.

“The state did over-appropriate these groundwater basins. The past thinking was that water users were not going to put their entire allocations to use,” he said. 

Colorado, Kansas and Oregon have set up similar programs. But those programs have not seen the level of interest and demand Nevada’s water retirement program has. 

“There was a lot of interest in this program. In fact, I would say that it exceeded our expectations,” Fontaine said.

During the meeting, water managers and conservation groups in the state emphasized the need to establish a permanent statewide voluntary water rights retirement program based on the success of the limited program currently available for select counties.

Republican Nevada State Sen. Pete Goicoechea sponsored a bill in 2023 that would have created a statewide program to buy and retire water rights. But the legislation never made it to the floor for a vote.

“As we go into the next legislative session, we have the chance to take this pilot project and its learnings and create a stable funding mechanism to ensure that we can leverage these opportunities in the future,” said Peter Stanton, the CEO of the Walker Lake Conservancy, which focuses on restoring and maintaining Walker Lake.

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There is now and probably always will be a contingent of Nevada Democratic politicians who believe Nevada should remain a mining colony. (Photo credits: Jeniffer Solis/Nevada Current; Rosen campaign ad; Congresional Black Caucus)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

Three-fifths of the Democrats in Nevada’s congressional delegation agree with the state’s only Republican in Congress, Rep. Mark Amodei: If there’s one thing the federal government should do, that thing is whatever mining wants.

Amodei got a bill passed on the floor of your United States House of Representatives this week. 

First, congratulations, Congressman. A representative getting the House to pass a bill was no small thing even back in what might be thought of as saner times. The good ship Saner Times having sailed, the current Republican-controlled House, despite recent life signs, remains on pace to be the least productive in decades.

And it looked like that stunning record of mayhem-enriched underachievement would likewise doom Amodei’s bill, which went belly up on the House floor last week when someone evidently forgot to tell a few Republican members of a narrowly divided House that there was work that day.

But there was a mining industry to protect, dadgummit, and Amodei, a former president of the Nevada Mining Association (while he was still in the state Senate ha ha is that the Nevada Way or what?), would not be denied.

If passed by the Senate and signed by the president, the bill would erase a 2022 federal court ruling that tried to impose a small measure of long-overdue sense on another law that was sponsored by a Nevadan on behalf of the mining industry 150 years earlier, the General Mining Law of 1872.

Background: A couple years ago in what is known as the Rosemont decision, a federal appeals court said when mining companies stake claims on federal land, and they find minerals on that land, mine away, as per usual, under ye olde 1872 law. But! The court also ruled – and this was new – that companies can’t use adjacent federal land on which no valuable minerals have been proven to exist as part of the mining operation. So no filthy slag heaps on the other side of the road, that sort of thing.

Amodei’s bill aims to overturn the Rosemont decision, and thus make filthy slag heaps on the other side of the road great again.

The vast majority of House Democrats, including Nevada’s Dina Titus and Susie Lee, voted against Amodei’s bill. But there were eight Democratic exceptions, one of whom was Nevada Rep. Steven Horsford, who is reliably eager to demonstrate fealty to Nevada’s mining industry.

Nevada Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto was predictably giddy over the House passing Amodei’s bill, her being a lead co-sponsor of companion legislation in the Senate. 

Nevada Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen is one of that measure’s co-sponsors, which won’t win her many votes in the rurals this year, but at least should help dissuade the mining industry from spending any money against her in her reelection campaign. 

A similar – and successful – safeguarding of the mining industry’s bottom line earned Cortez Masto a small assist from the industry in the rurals during her 2022 reelection campaign. 

Arizona independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is also a co-sponsor, so between her, both Nevada senators, and all Republicans, it’s conceivable the bill could pass the narrowly divided Senate. If Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer lets it come up.

Mining corporations and the politicians who love them have been urgently stressing how vital their industry is to national security. That emphasis, almost always accompanied by saying “China” a few times, helps put the “critical” in “critical minerals.”

After House passage of his bill this week, Amodei didn’t disappoint. “Securing our domestic mineral supply chain is not only critical to our nation’s economic success, but to our national security,” he said.

When touting the Senate version of the legislation last year, Cortez Masto said “we must produce minerals in the United States and not solely rely on foreign sources, some of whom threaten our national security…All of this means we must address the complications created by the Rosemont decision.”

And on multiple occasions, Cortez Masto has warned that the Rosemont decision will “upend” the mining industry.

Evidence suggests otherwise: The same mineral deposits at the heart of the terrible horrible no good very bad Rosemont decision – the example Cortez Masto refers to when she says the decision will “upend” mining – are included in an Arizona mining complex currently being developed by the same Canadian corporation that was developing the Rosemont mine. Except now the project is bigger. And instead of Rosemont, it’s called “Copper World.”

If enacted, the Amodei-Cortez Masto legislative effort to reverse the Rosemont decision, like a call from Cortez Masto and Rosen to allow lithium mining corporations to get tax credits against extraction costs, may help Nevada’s nascent lithium industry and other newly developing “critical mineral” mines save a buck or two and pass those savings on to shareholders the world over.

But whether the Rosemont decision is left intact will have no impact whatsoever on the certainty or scale of future mineral production. That will be determined by the price of the mineral. Period.

That doesn’t mean the legislation is meaningless. 

It could potentially enhance returns for mining corporation shareholders. 

It could provide Rosen yet another opportunity to make a campaign ad celebrating how much she loves to stand up to Democrats and vote with Republicans.

It confirms yet again that there is a contingent of Nevada Democratic politicians who believe Nevada should remain a mining colony.

And, most consequentially, it would assure massive hills of mining waste where they don’t belong, on public lands that aren’t even being mined, doing what massive hills of mining waste always do: contaminating soil, water, and air, far into the foreseeable future.

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Lake Tahoe on April 22, 2024. (Photo: Jeff Anderson/ USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

Nevada can expect a healthy water year — with some caveats — thanks to a hardy winter snowpack and generous spring showers. 

As snow melts through the summer, most key reservoirs in northern Nevada and the Sierra are expected to reach full volume this spring, according to the Natural Resource Conservation Services’ May water supply outlook report.

Across the state, winter snowpack peaked above the historical median after strong storms in January, February and March. 

Snowpacks in Nevada also remained above normal in May, despite a dry April and areas of record snowmelt, according to the report. The month started off strong, after a cold storm brought up to 2 feet of snow at the highest elevations across northern Nevada, adding up to 1.5 inches of water equivalent.

Lake Tahoe is expected to see some of the largest benefits from Nevada’s second straight year of favorable winter snowpack. 

Forecasts predict spring snowmelt will likely be enough to fill Lake Tahoe for the first time since June 2019. Once full, the water stored in Lake Tahoe could supply water demand in northern Nevada for three years, even if future winter snowpacks are below normal.

With the glaring exception of Lake Mead, nearly all major Nevada reservoirs have hit at least 80% storage capacity. Lake Mead is only at 36% capacity.

Abundant precipitation in Nevada has left most of the state drought free as of May — except for a small portion of southern Nevada — after rain and snowmelt removed abnormally dry conditions in western Nevada. In fact, the Humboldt basin in northwestern Nevada saw the highest precipitation percentage in the western United States outside of Alaska, receiving 23.7 inches of precipitation so far, according to the report. 

Above normal snowpack this year, combined with good soil moisture is also expected to improve runoff this spring as less snowmelt is soaked up by the soil. Higher soil moisture is also a good sign for fire mitigation, as the state heads into wildfire season. 

Favorable weather in southern Nevada and slightly above normal rainfall in early spring helped snowpack in the Spring Mountains near Las Vegas stay intact nearly three weeks later than usual, resulting in some extended snow capped mountains in the lower half of the state.

But mild weather in Las Vegas is likely coming to an end. According to the National Weather Services’ summer weather predictions, Las Vegas is forecast to have above normal temperatures and below normal precipitation from June to August. 

In the Upper Colorado Basin, a major water source for Lake Mead, May snowpack is at 91%, slightly below the historical median. However, high temperatures across the Upper Colorado Basin have accelerated snow melt, thus melting a significant amount of snow before it’s most needed in the summer. 

Between April and May, several monitoring stations in the Upper Colorado Basin recorded record or near record snow melt. Eastern Sierra and the Great Basin also experienced record or near record snow melt during that time, according to the report. 

Despite some concerns, federal resource managers said Nevada’s 2024 water year is “well on its way to receiving an A on its final report card,” according to the report. 

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Earthworks in preparation for major construction of Thacker Pass scheduled to begin in the second half of 2024. (Photo: Lithium Americas corporate presentation, May 2024)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

Nevada’s mining industry may soon get a reprieve after the Republican-controlled U.S. House passed industry-friendly legislation Wednesday, undoing a consequential court decision that restricted mining companies’ use of federal lands.

The Mining Regulatory Clarity Act of 2024 — introduced by Nevada Republican Rep. Mark Amodei — passed on a 216-195 vote, reversing a vote last week to return the bill to committee.

The bill would allow mining companies to conduct mining support operations on federal lands without valuable mineral deposits, including road maintenance, transmission lines, pipelines, and the construction of any other support facility needed at a mining site.

“Securing our domestic mineral supply chain is not only critical to our nation’s economic success, but to our national security. Now more than ever, we must ensure we are doing all that we can to increase domestic mineral production and protect the ability to conduct responsible mining activities on federal lands,” said Amodei in a statement.

Mining developers in Nevada have had to grapple with the aftermath of a 2022 federal appeals court ruling that imposed a stricter interpretation of the 150-year-old General Mining Law, restricting mining companies from using federal lands without valuable mineral deposits for mining related purposes.

Prior to the federal appeals court decision, mining companies used neighboring federal lands without valuable mineral deposits for mining related purposes – such as waste rock disposal or running power lines – without issue for decades.

The ruling — known as the “Rosemont decision” — blocked an Arizona mining project from dumping waste rock on U.S. Forest Service land. The court ruled that while federal mining law allows companies to mine on federal land where economically valuable minerals are present, they are not guaranteed the right to use federal land without valuable minerals as a dumping site.

Despite support from Arkansas Republican and House Natural Resource Committee Chairman Bruce Westerman, the bill faced some hurdles last week when six members of Amodei’s own party joined Democrats to block a bill.

Lawmakers did not make changes to the bill between the May 1 vote and Wednesday, but the presence of several Republicans who were absent last week allowed the measure to pass on the second attempt.

Rep. Pete Stauber of Minnesota, who chairs the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources and led Republican floor debate Wednesday, called the bill a benefit to domestic mining interests and a correction of the Rosemont decision.

 “This is a simple fix,” Stauber said. “We believe the court erred, so it’s our job to legislate.”

During floor debate Wednesday, New Mexico Democrat Melanie Stansbury called the bill a giveaway to mining companies, including those based in China and other countries.

“Why the heck are we back on the House floor one week after we voted on a bipartisan basis to send this bad bill back to committee?” Stansbury said on the House floor.

Not all Democrats in Congress oppose Amodei’s bill, which opponents have described as a corporate giveaway. While Nevada Democratic Reps. Dina Titus and Susie Lee voted against the measure, Nevada Democratic Rep. Steven Horsford was one of eight Democrats who voted for the legislation.

And Nevada Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto Wednesday praised House approval of the the bill, and called for the Senate to move quickly on companion  legislation she and Idaho Republican Sen. Jim Risch introduced in the Senate. Nevada Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen is also a cosponsor of the Senate companion bill, along with Senate Republicans Mike Crapo of Idaho and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.

“Without a fix, the Rosemont decision could upend existing and future mining projects, threatening thousands of jobs in Nevada and across the West. I’ll continue to stand up for our communities and for our clean energy future,” said Cortez Masto in a statement.

Cortez Masto has argued that restricting mining companies from using public land that does not contain economically valuable minerals for waste storage or processing is “misguided.”

Some conservation groups warned that the broad scope of the legislation is alarming and could make room for speculative mining claims on public lands without a documented mineral deposit.

“This bill would create a free-for-all on public lands, with speculators able to file claims even when there are no valuable minerals present,” said Patrick Donnelly, Great Basin director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Nevada is at the epicenter of a huge mining boom right now, and our public lands need strengthened protections. Instead this bill aims to unleash the mining industry, with devastating consequences for Nevada’s wildlife and communities.”

In Nevada, the Rosemont decision has proved consequential to the mining industry, which enjoys broad use of public lands under the 150-year-old General Mining Law, unlike other extractive industries. 

In the case of a planned molybdenum mine by Nevada-based developer Eureka Moly LLC, a district court judge vacated the 2019 Bureau of Land Management’s approval of the project after ruling the developer did not have the right to dump waste rock on federal land without valuable mineral deposits.

The new stricter interpretation of the 150-year-old General Mining Law under the federal appeals court ruling also affects what may potentially become the largest lithium mine in the United States, the Thacker Pass project south of the Nevada-Oregon border. Last year, a district judge cited the Arizona ruling when determining that federal land managers violated federal law when they approved the mine developer’s plan to bury 1,300 acres of public land under waste rock.

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Landscape view of Bahsahwahbee from Rose Guano Mountain. (Photo: Monte Sanford)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

Monday marked the anniversary of a violent massacre in Nevada’s Spring Valley by federal soldiers, who in 1863 targeted Native men, women, and children gathered for a religious ceremony in a sacred stand of Rocky Mountain junipers.

For decades, tribal members have fought to protect the unique grove of Rocky Mountain junipers growing on the valley floor, where hundreds of Native people were massacred in the 1800s by settlers and the federal government to pave the way for western expansion.

The region known to tribal members in Nevada as Bahsahwahbee — Shoshoni for “Sacred Water Valley” — is where the spirits of their ancestors killed during those massacres live on in the trees that grew in their place.

The Ely Shoshone, Duckwater Shoshone, and the Confederated Tribes of the Goshute Reservation — a coalition representing about 1,500 enrolled tribal members — commemorated the anniversary of the May 6, 1863 massacre by calling on the Biden administration to designate Bahsahwahbee, locally known as the Swamp Cedars, as a National Monument within the National Park System.

“Bahsahwabee links our past to our future, and it’s time for the federal government and officials to center our tribes and get our proposal across the finish line,” said Alvin Marques, chairman of the Ely Shoshone Tribe. “This monument in the National Park System gives us the comfort that our culture will be preserved, for our slain ancestors, our elders, and the generations to come.”

Currently, about 3,200 acres of Bahsahwahbee are designated as an area of critical environmental concern under the Bureau of Land Management, but those protections are limited and only apply to a portion of the much larger cultural area. 

Most of the Swamp Cedars 14,175 acres remain largely unprotected against threats from climate change, drought, and over-pumping of groundwater. If Bahsahwahbee became a monument, the land would transfer to the National Park Service, where it could be managed in cooperation with the tribes.

There are two ways national monuments can be designated: either by Congress through legislation, or by the president through the Antiquities Act of 1906. A large portion of Bahsahwahbee is already listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and the proposal to designate the site as a national monument enjoys broad support throughout Nevada.

In 2021, the Nevada Legislature passed a resolution urging Congress to designate Bahsahwahbee as a national monument. A year later, lawmakers in White Pine County — home of the future monument — approved a final letter of support for the designation.

Democratic U.S. Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen said they plan to introduce a bill in Congress that would designate the 25,000 acre sacred site as a national monument within the National Park System. Last year, both senators also began lobbying Interior Secretary Deb Haaland in support of the Bahsahwahbee National Monument.

That support has only grown in recent months, including from regional conservation groups, energy companies, and even Patagonia — a popular clothes retailer. 

“That so many organizations across Nevada and the Nation are supporting our Tribes’ effort to designate Bahsahwahbee as a National Monument within the National Park System means a great deal to us as Native Americans. Too often, Tribes are isolated in our work to heal our traumas from the past, to tell our stories, and to move forward in a good and inclusive way on such a monumentally significant initiative like this monument effort,” said Amos Murphy, chairman of the Confederated Tribes of the Goshute Reservation, on Monday.

“We could not do this without their help. And for that, we are incredibly grateful.”

For tribes, the area serves as a living memorial of three separate massacres between 1850 and 1900, one of them a military attack in 1859 that killed an estimated 500 to 700 Native people in one of the largest massacres of Native people in U.S. history. The site still remains a place of healing and mourning for Indigenous Peoples across the Great Basin, who continue to visit the site to connect with their ancestors, offer prayers, and hold healing ceremonies.

“Bahasahwahbee has been the Tribes’ ceremonial gathering area for millennia,” said Monte Sanford, the tribes’ National Monument Campaign Director. “We hope this year will be a turning point for the Tribes, after more than 161 years, to finally have a voice in the future of Bahsahwahbee.”

Last month, representatives for the Ely Shoshone, Duckwater Shoshone, and the Confederated Tribes of the Goshute Reservation met with senior White House officials and top personnel within the Department of Interior to discuss the Bahsahwahbee National Monument. Monte said supporters of the monument came away from the meeting optimistic about the monument’s future.

“We feel good that President Biden will see Bahsahwahbee National Monument within the National Park System as important and good for the nation, and will designate it sometime this year,” Monte said. 

If successful, Bahsahwahbee would also join Avi Kwa Ame — a biologically significant landscape in southern Nevada — as the fifth national monument in Nevada. Nevada’s Avi Kwa Ame was one of five national monuments President Joe Biden created in 2023, using his authority under the Antiquities Act of 1906.

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