Arizona House backs water pact

PHOENIX — The Arizona House on Monday endorsed a proposed multistate agreement that allows Arizona, California and Nevada to each retain the rights to the water that each adds through conservation or other means to the supply in the Colorado River.

The House unanimously approved a resolution authorizing state officials to sign the agreement being negotiated by the three lower Colorado River Basin states to help regulate withdrawals from river reservoirs.

Under the agreement, each of the three states would waive its rights to shares of "surplus" water that one state adds through conservation, efficiency projects or importation of water.

Instead, rights to nearly all that water would stay with the state that created it. That state then would be entitled to draw that much additional water from Lake Mead.

For example, Nevada could collect credits for rural Nevada groundwater that Las Vegas' water authority plans to ship through a pipeline and release back into Lake Mead as treated wastewater.

The surplus agreement is part of a package of measures being negotiated by officials of the seven Colorado River Basin states to settle water supply issues, particularly when river water stored in Lake Mead and Lake Powell is short.

The Arizona Department of Water Resources said the surplus forbearance agreement is vital for the state's water supply, partly because it reduces the probability of shortages in Lake Mead.

"The agreement will have no negative impact on any Arizona water user," the department said in a summary of the legislation. "This new limitation will keep more Colorado River water in storage and increase shortage protection for Arizona."

The House resolution's sponsor, House Speaker Jim Weiers, said the agreement means the states will have crafted their own solution to the issue, rather than having one imposed by the federal Department of the Interior.

"It takes away from Washington and puts it back at the local level," Weiers said. "We'll be able to retain a lot more of that water for the future of Arizona."

Weiers, R-Phoenix, said the Department of Water Resources asked him to sponsor the resolution. "They just didn't want it dinked around with. They wanted it fast-tracked," Weiers said.

The House's 58-0 vote for Weiers' resolution (HJR2001) sent it to the Senate, where an identical measure sponsored by the Senate president and other lawmakers awaits a committee hearing this week.

Besides Arizona, California and Nevada, the other basin states are Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.