Well into the future
Looking at a groundwater rights retirement pilot program.
From the Invisible Waters newsletter, a Happy Friday to all! Not all that much water-related to report on this off-year election week, except I did see Texas passed Proposition 4, which authorizes up to $20 billion over 20 years to fund water, wastewater and flood projects.
The overallocation and overuse of water is a problem that exists across the globe, but can be especially pronounced in arid places. The context and causes for how it came to be that there were more legal rights to use water than water to go around vary from place to place. But the bottom line is, in a lot of places, there is a need to reduce use.
So the question becomes, how do you do that? And perhaps as importantly, how do you manage the associated cropland transition costs that come with reduced use, particularly in agricultural settings (this is a big topic right now in California)?
In a piece for KNPR’s Desert Companion magazine and The Daily Yonder that came out this week, I explored a pilot program in Nevada to buy back state-issued groundwater rights — with a goal of retiring them and reducing overall use in overtapped aquifers.
A few things to note: Nevada manages its groundwater using an appropriative system with “first in time, first in right” rules. Groundwater law varies in other states. Also, the story focused on a pilot program; the Legislature has since passed laws potentially enabling more water retirements in the future (it has yet to be funded).
While I didn’t get to it in the piece, a team at the Desert Research Institute and the state prepared an interesting analysis looking at historic groundwater pumping (wet water use) to show irrigators who benefited from the program were not always using the full “paper water” allocations acquired through the program. The gap between wet water and paper water was, on average, was about 47%. In reality, dealing with this gap is more complex because of how water permits are structured and how the law treats them in statute and in practice. One could make a pretty strong argument there is still a lot of value in retiring full water right permits, even if unused for years.
Final thing I want to highlight: The numbers indicate that there was clearly high demand for this program, especially in areas that are experiencing shortages or face the threat of potential regulatory action. Talking to irrigators who have participated showed that interest in selling groundwater rights — and allowing the state water officials permanently retire them — varied greatly depending on specific contexts.
I won’t spoil more…
Except a major shout out to the Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources, which funded the field reporting for this. Excerpt from the story and links to keep reading.
Steven Fulstone knows what it means to move water on and off farmland. It’s September, nearing the end of the irrigation season for the Walker River, and the sixth-generation rancher is driving his blue truck around Smith Valley. Fulstone describes the bright green alfalfa field in front of us as the valley’s “heartland,” with good soils that he wants to keep in production. “I had enough surface water rights to transfer it onto this property,” he says.
But over the past year, he’s participated in transactions that have gone in the other direction. On the other side of the valley, Fulstone stops in front of a parcel covered in golden-hued vegetation. Take water away from an irrigated field, and you see a dramatic change. “You’re looking at 116 acres of land where the primary underground water rights were relinquished,” he tells me.
The patchwork of irrigated and fallow land foreshadows a difficult future for agricultural valleys across Nevada and the West, where policymakers and irrigators are looking for new ways to address water overuse. For decades, irrigators in Smith Valley and elsewhere have pumped groundwater far faster than it could be replenished, causing declines in water storage and depletion of river flows.
Across the state, the declines have prompted officials to threaten shutting off wells — and farmers and communities to engage in costly legal battles. They’ve also given rise to locally based efforts to conserve and test once-unthinkable ideas as solutions to use less water.
It’s one of the main reasons Fulstone, with generational ties to farming in the valley, participated in a pilot program to reduce the amount of groundwater that could be pumped in Smith Valley.
“You don’t want to mine water,” he says. “Number one, we’re in the business for sustainability, and regenerative, sustainable practices mean you want to be able to sustain that aquifer.”
SMITH VALLEY SITS at the western edge of Nevada and the Great Basin, where rivers such as the narrow Walker drain into closed “terminal” lakes. Farming here already faces water stress from a legacy of overuse that has pushed Walker Lake to the ecological brink. Water demand is not only coming from agriculture. Housing and industrial development have created new pressures, too.
Beneath it all are the cumulative effects of groundwater pumping.
Groundwater is what some scientists call a blind resource, making it difficult to manage. With advancements in drilling technology and the proliferation of rural electricity after World War II, groundwater pumping increased dramatically across Nevada and the rural West in the 1950s and ’60s. Facing political and economic pressure, Nevada water officials issued more rights to pump groundwater than was sustainable in many parts of the state. The effects of groundwater overuse were evident even a few years later, but Nevada regulators often avoided taking action to curtail use.
In 2023, the state tried a new approach. It used federal funds to launch a $25 million pilot program to facilitate the purchase and retirement of water rights. It was seen as a win-win, and the demand exceeded expectations. Irrigators, including Fulstone, received compensation for voluntarily giving up groundwater rights — an asset more valuable than land for many farmers — while state water officials achieved a pressing goal of reducing groundwater overuse.
The Walker Basin Conservancy received $4 million to retire groundwater in Smith Valley. The remaining funds went to pilot programs in the Humboldt River Basin, Central Nevada, and Southern Nevada, all areas where conflict over groundwater aquifers has simmered for years.
Where once Fulstone held a permit to apply groundwater to the dry land he showed me, it is now marked on the state’s water rights ledger with the simple abbreviation “RET,” for RETIRED.
Keep reading at KNPR or the Daily Yonder.
Until next time, stay safe and be well. Feedback is always welcome.
Cheers,
Daniel