LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — They discussed it behind closed doors at the Western Governors' Association meeting in Utah.
They've been trading ideas and proposals among experts.
They've blown one big deadline, and another is fast approaching.
And since the West is facing yet another hot, dry summer, time is of the essence in finding a solution to the long-running Colorado River crisis.
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"Well, it's very clear that they're on the clock and that they really need to get something together because the federal government is going to release its own plans by the end of this month, and the current agreements between the states over the Colorado River, they expire in October," said Ben Winslow, a reporter for our sister station Fox13 in Salt Lake City. "Everyone's on the clock. They all agreed to keep talking, but so far we just haven't seen a lot of movement."
It's not surprising, as the seven Colorado River states have often been at odds over who gets to use how much of the river and who needs to take cuts when snowfall isn't up to expectations.
That's exactly what's happening this year, said Colby Pellegrino, deputy general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority.
"Conditions on the Colorado River are terrible and this last year has been extremely bad," Pellegrino said in an interview with Channel 13. "We have only 3.5 million acre-feet of runoff coming into the Colorado River system this year, with about 11 million acre-feet of use, so an incredibly bad year."
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An acre foot of water is 325,851 gallons, enough to supply about two families for a year.
Pellegrino said issues boil down to how much water is released from upstream reservoirs to fill Lake Powell; how much to release from Lake Powell into Lake Mead; how much in cuts will be borne by the "lower-basin" states of Nevada, Arizona and California; and the use of Lake Mead to store water saved through conservation.
If states can agree by the time the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation releases its preliminary environmental document as soon as this month (a final version is expected by September), the federal government would accept it, Pellegrino said.
"Almost certainly, if there was a seven-state agreement, the federal government would accept it," she said. "I think we're highly unlikely to have the holistic seven-state agreement that we had in 2007, but I think it's likely that we will get some support from all of the states for the key components that overlap, in particular the release from Lake Powell to Lake Mead."
Nevada famously has the smallest allocation of Colorado River water at just 300,000 acre feet, but under an aggressive conservation and recycling program, the state gets credit for the water it treats and puts back into the lake. So even a cut as large as 50,000 acre feet wouldn't affect Las Vegas' water use.
"The reality is, everyone's going to use less, and when we look at what's happening in the lower basin, from Lake Mead down again, that's California, Arizona, Nevada and Mexico, we're 4% of the allocated water, and the law says everybody shares in shortage."
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The only water that Southern Nevada actually loses is water used to irrigate turf, which has led to programs encouraging people to give up grass and replace it with desert landscaping, as well as laws banning "non-functional" turf.
Other water that doesn't get recycled is that used in evaporative cooling, which is being phased out in the area.
Septic systems that aren't connected to sewers are also water losers, which has led to a controversial push to replace those systems and instead connect homes to the valley's sewer system. That push has been controversial, however, given the high cost of hooking up to a municipal system.
Although there are many thorny issues that remain outstanding — especially between upper basin states like Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico and their lower basin counterparts — Pellegrino said she's optimistic that a deal can be reached before the federal environmental process is done.
"I feel more hopeful now than I have in a very long time," she said. "We've been exchanging some terms about what's acceptable, and really, there's not a lot of options at this point."
Added Pellegrino: "One of the things that I think is really hard, and particularly hard about this set of negotiations, is figuring out how much you have to give up for how long, but what I've found and what I've seen across the basin that gives me hope is when we're faced with a really serious problem head on, after we know the snow pack, we're able to come to an agreement on what makes sense."
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