Feds demand compromise on Colorado River while states flounder
54 comments
·December 22, 2025bb88
jameslk
I’m not sure why Nevada is always brought up when mentioning CO river usage but Nevada uses the least amount of water out of all states:
https://www.snwa.com/water-resources/where-water-comes-from/...
For indoor usage in Las Vegas for example, it recycles 99% of it:
Using water in the desert is a problem, but you should point to CA or AZ as poster children of abuse for that
tracerbulletx
Nevada gets 4% of the water in the first place. Almost all of that 4% goes to Ag and mining as you said. The things people use as "the poster child" like fountains and golf courses are rounding errors.
mothballed
The Desert Land Act under which a lot of desert land was claimed (and, the only remaining way I know of state land can still privately be claimed) only gave it to you if you established irrigation and agriculture.
The government basically asked for it, and then made it the only way to get much of the land. And now of course, many heads in government now complaining about the evil private land owner who did the thing the government asked for and precondition.
Tostino
Yay, they own the land. A hundred plus years later, I don't see why the descendants (or corporate owner) should have the same water rights now after things have changed. Don't strip them of the land...but something has to give.
mothballed
Yes that could be done via eminent domain of their water rights. The only note would be that since the value of especially the more rural desert land is tied almost completely to acreage times water rights per acre, it's basically a full buyout of the entire non-residential rural desert due to the takings clause. I don't know how much it'll cost, but it will be a lot.
>A hundred plus years later
I know of people still investing large sums today to claim under the Desert Land Act. It's still active. They need to establish irrigation and usually drill/share a well (maybe hauling could work but you have to show it's economically viable), and establish that over a multi year proof process the viability of the land. Just harder than it used to be. So to be clear it might be someone from yesterday, although it's just less common. I'm not sure if the takings clause would cover them though, as they don't technically own it until the proof process is complete, so for them it'd probably merely just be a total loss.
uoaei
Here's a question, why are we putting all those resources and efforts into farming in a desert?
chneu
Cows mostly.
Like 60-75% of all ag land in the US is to grow feed for cows. Mostly in dry environments. This is because the old water rights were distributed on a "use it or lose it" basis which encourages wasteful use.
bell-cot
Desert land was cheap. Water seemed plentiful and cheap. And back when the system was set up, doing that looked like "Progress".
Hansenq
Water allocation in the American West has been a mess ever since the beginning, when Prior Appropriation was decided as the way to claim water rights. Essentially, the first person to put a claim of water into "beneficial use" gets those rights.
This is why you see California with such a large share of the Colorado River's water rights, even though it "touches" the river the least: they were the earliest fast-growing state to "use" that water. And that's why you see so many water-hungry crops being grown in the West--the owners have the rights already, and to them, if they don't use it, they'll lose it.
So any agreement here needs to make a compromise between states, the federal government, prior settled law, and owners with effectively "free" water that don't want it taken away from them.
It's a complicated issue, but one step would be to force private owners of water rights to list their rights on an open market (right now some owners of water rights, like the Imperial Irrigation District can choose to never sell them). At least that way you can start the conversation somewhere.
(In fact, John Wesley Powell, namesake of Lake Powell, argued strongly against "prior appropriation" before the area was even settled, and instead argued against a collective approach to the limited and volatile amount of freshwater. He did not succeed.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wesley_Powell#Environment...
jandrewrogers
> force private owners of water rights to list their rights on an open market
You don't need to force them, they've done it for decades to the extent it is allowed. I've owned titled water rights in Nevada. They are worth something but not nearly as much as many people likely assume.
Nevada has additional complications due to the structure of the aquifers. It is difficult/impossible to move water from where it is to where it may be needed.
bell-cot
> complicated due to the structure of the aquifers
Guess - you're referring not to the aquifers themselves, but to the shape of the watersheds. Especially to the "water doesn't naturally flow along roller coaster tracks" topography of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basin_and_Range_Province
null
Veserv
You do not even need to force water rights owners to list their rights on the open market. They already want to, it is just illegal for them to sell their water rights (separate from their land) to entitys with more productive uses of the water.
username223
That's not a solution, either. See William Mulholland buying up the water rights in the Owens Valley to feed Los Angles, thus turning Owens Lake into toxic dust that is costing $1 billion and counting to manage. Mulholland is long dead, and we're just getting started paying for that.
Water rights in the West are hard, and we've known that since John Wesley Powell was in charge, as a nearby commenter explained. The Colorado was divided up during an unusually wet year a long time ago, and rising demand and falling supply have only made things worse ever since.
tacomeow
An excellent contemporary book was written about this by Zak Podmore called Life After Deadpool: https://www.torreyhouse.org/life-after-dead-pool
I just finished reading it and can highly recommend it. Zak's writing is enjoyable and refreshing.
almog
Thanks, will add it to my reading list while I'd also recommend the classic on that topic, Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner.
josefritzishere
Maybe farming in the desert isn't a good long-term plan.
kayo_20211030
Spellcheck?
metalman
we can go back to Leonardo Davinci(and further), to how Davinci was promised the income from a certain amount of flow from a river as a payment for services rendered, and as an ongoing retainer and support, but how in his own note books he laments how he had been strung along and never given anything amingst the wranglings of those "better conected". there is nothing more provocative to the mindlessly greedy people in the world than a resource, just, JUST!, LAYING THERE! for which the French created "the argument that ends all discussion"
jmclnx
What make this fun are many chip and data centers have been building plants in those areas, and the plants require lots of water for manufacturing and cooling.
How about building these plants in areas with plenty of water. Many places located to these areas (Arizona) due to their lax labor and environmental laws.
darth_avocado
> How about building these plants in areas with plenty of water
That’s the problem. There aren’t that many areas with plenty of water.
ch4s3
There are in the US, those places just have more hostile legislatures and regulatory regimes that make construction impossible. See the debacle around the Foxconn Wisconsin project which happened under a very industry friendly governor. The great lakes are has nearly infinite water, and cold aim all winter. What they don't have is the ability to build anything.
scheme271
The water in the great lakes is controlled by an international compact that prevents water from being diverted from the Great Lakes to other watersheds. So, water utilization from the Great Lakes is constrained. The Wisconsin Foxconn project was a PR thing on both sides. Foxconn started scaling back it's promises and construction almost immediately after the agreement was signed. Scott Walker needed good PR and promised huge tax credits without much in the way of assurances.
phkahler
>> The great lakes are has nearly infinite water...
No they do not. The flow there is already balanced, and lake levels are lower than usual.
New York already added another tap for electric generation about 12ish years ago, and IMHO it has had an effect.
janice1999
There's a Microsoft datacenter being built on the proposed Foxconn site and it will use 8.4 million gallons of water per year, so I guess industry got its way eventually?
FuriouslyAdrift
As someone in Indiana that is fighting tooth and nail to keep datacenters out (they don't bring jobs, taxes, or revenues and eat up very valuable resources), I say if you want to build here, then move your HQ and 10s thousands of high paid workers here.
Otherwise... go pound sand.
eikenberry
What about building along the ocean coastlines and/or pipe water in from coastlines? If you can't use it unless it is desalinated, then figure out how to desalinate it and what you'll do brine/salt.
RobotToaster
Genuine question: why not build them in Alaska? It has plenty of cold.
scheme271
It's also pretty tough to get good high bandwidth connectivity there and the power infrastructure that can produce enough power to run a datacenter.
nine_zeros
[dead]
If you look at water usage in Nevada, 75% of it goes to agriculture [1]. Agriculture provides a lot of jobs and food. Unfortunately the resources are no longer there. You can eliminate landscaping (yards, golf courses, las vegas fountains, etc), but it still won't make a dent in the water use.
It's not just Nevada, but Nevada is the poster child here for everything that's gone wrong with water use.
So something's gotta give. And it turns out that farming in deserts may not have been the best use of the land (or water).
[1] https://extension.unr.edu/publication.aspx?PubID=4764