WATER POLITICS

In Nevada’s Walker Basin, overpumping is threatening future crops, and drying up rivers and streams.

That’s why the Walker Basin Conservancy is using state funds to pay farmers to cut back. The conservation group recently paid a hay and livestock producer to retire 500 acre-feet of groundwater, which is enough water to fill about 250 Olympic-size swimming pools.

“We’re retiring groundwater, but really we’re investing in future water resources,” said Peter Stanton, executive director of the Walker Basin Conservancy. “And ensuring that we’ve got resilient water supplies for our agricultural communities, as well as for domestic water users, municipal water users in the region.”

Nevada has $25 million in federal pandemic aid earmarked for retiring water rights. Farmers and ranchers’ interest in the pilot program has surpassed the available funding, said Brandon Bishop, manger of the Nevada Water Conservation and Infrastructure Initiative, which allocates the funds.

“A lot of groundwater right holders have seen some of the struggle through kind of our drought, and then wet cycles and then back to drought,” Bishop said. “It makes for a difficult struggle for those producers.”

Bishop said some farmers are coming to the table to use the program to transition to other industries. Others are trying to reduce their water use across their operation to allow the basin groundwater to recharge.

In all, the program is set up to retire more than 15,000 acre-feet of groundwater, the equivalent of nearly 7,500 Olympic-size pools. Notably, Nevada has roughly 2 million acre-feet of available groundwater, but the state has committed water rights for nearly twice that amount, according to the Nevada Legislative Counsel Bureau’s Research Division.

In Colorado, a similar groundwater retirement program is set to pay farmers in the Upper Rio Grande Basin as much as $30 million. According to officials, interest from farmers has nearly exceeded the available funding.