Next week there will be hearings on AB104 and AB9, two bills where GBWN has invested significant time on collaboration with water users and stakeholders.
AB104 deals with a management framework for retiring water rights via buybacks. When federal COVID money gushed into the state, there was an attempt in 2023 to pass a law to implement the program, but it failed. Instead, state officials at the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources were able to administer the funds and dole out millions of dollars to water users to retire their water — all in an attempt to bring aquifers back into balance. Now the money is gone and the problem of over-use and drought remain. But there were lessons learned.
This bill implements a framework that comes with the experience and know-how to support the administration of a water rights retirement effort. But it won’t come with the big-ticket money to buy up more water in the nation’s driest state. State and federal money doesn’t exist. But if we build the program, we hope the money will follow.
During the past 1.5 years we have wordsmithed and posed numerous hypotheticals. The big issue: We all want to ensure retired water, especially paid for with any public funding, doesn’t get pumped again.
Easier said than done. But we think we have a solution. We hope that the program can continue receiving funds with bonding measures down the road.
AB9: This legislation expands an existing conservation program GBWN helped create in 2007 to benefit wildlife and agriculture. The effort will expand the duration of temporary fallowing programs to benefit wildlife or limit conflict among water users. With a forthcoming amendment, there will be additional safeguards to prevent bad actors from abusing the program for speculative and profit-driven purposes. This is a small step. But we hope that entities who are seeing declines in their groundwater levels can use the program to improve the quality of flow, habitat for wildlife, and certainty in communities with declining aquifers.
Lastly, we are pushing to get a hearing on AB109, the Water Rights Fairness Act. This legislation would ensure that any use of water by major industries gets a permit. Right now, a loophole in law allows novel mining techniques and geothermal companies to bypass the regulatory review process that cities, farms, hard rock mines and other big users must endure to get a water right. This carveout threatens the public interest, due process rights, and existing water users. Please respectfully tell the Chair of the Assembly Natural Resources Committee that we must have a hearing on this bill. Read our fact sheet here. And send a supportive message to: Natha.Anderson@asm.state.nv.us
