Your Water Bill Could Be the Price Nevada Pays for Doing the Right Thing.
Nevada gets the smallest share of Colorado River water of any state that uses it. We always have.
Yet we still got hit with new cuts recently.
Meanwhile California, the state that guzzles more of that river than anyone, keeps growing its water use like nothing's wrong.
If that sounds backwards to you, that's because it is.
The River We All Depend On
The Colorado River isn't some far-off issue. It's the water behind your faucet, your kids' bath, the ice in your drink at dinner.
It supplies drinking water to 40 million people across the Southwest, including all of us here in Southern Nevada.
For more than a century, seven states have split that water under an agreement signed back in 1922.
California got the biggest slice. Nevada got the smallest.
Drought has shrunk the river's flow for years now. Lake Mead sits lower than it's been since the 1950s.
Something had to give. But look at who's actually being asked to give it up.
Nevada Did the Work – And Still Got Punished.
Las Vegas used only about two-thirds of its already-tiny water allocation last year. That's real conservation, not a talking point.
Low-flow toilets, turf removal, water-smart landscaping. Families in this district have done their part for years.
But none of it mattered when the federal government handed down its new cuts this summer.
Nevada is now facing a mandatory cut of 50,000 acre-feet a year, and that number could climb to 210,000 acre-feet in a bad drought year.
That's real water, out of the smallest allocation of any state on the river.
Gov. Joe Lombardo said it plainly: the plan “could have devastating economic and environmental impacts on Nevada.”
He's right. And here's the part that should really make your blood – but not your water! – boil.
California Barely Has to Change a Thing
While Nevada gets squeezed, California keeps drawing the largest share of the river, by far, and its water use keeps climbing instead of shrinking.
And a huge share of that water doesn't even go to California families.
It goes to agriculture – and a big piece of that goes to growing alfalfa and hay, some of it on foreign-owned farms, shipped overseas instead of feeding American families.
Arizona's own former attorney general called that kind of arrangement “outrageous,” accusing foreign companies of using American land and American water to grow crops that never even reach American tables.
Nevada turned off the tap on our own lawns. California is still watering someone else's export crop.
That's not shared sacrifice. That's Nevada being punished for California's excess.
We've Grown the Most and Been Given the Least
Since 1922, Nevada has grown from about 81,000 people to more than 3.2 million.
Every one of those new families still shares the same tiny water allocation Nevada was given a century ago, before Las Vegas even existed the way we know it today.
No other compact state has grown faster. No other compact state is stretching its allocation across more new residents per drop.
We didn't create this shortage. We've been the most disciplined state on the entire river.
And now we're the ones facing the deepest mandatory cuts as a share of what we actually have.
What This Means for Your Family
This isn't an abstract Washington fight.
If these cuts hold, or grow worse in future drought years, it means higher water bills, tighter restrictions on new development, and real pressure on a state that's still trying to grow and build homes for families moving here – many, ironically, from California.
Every family in Assembly District 9 who has already ripped out their grass, fixed a leaky sprinkler head, or watched their water bill creep up deserves to know their sacrifice is being used to bail out states that never had to try.
A Smarter Fix Than More Government Mandates
I don't think the answer is a new pipeline costing taxpayers billions, or Washington drawing up another formula that punishes the state that already conserves the most.
The smarter fix is letting water go to where it's actually needed most. Rewarding the states and families who've already done the hard work of conserving.
And stop treating Nevada the same as states that let their use keep climbing.”
Nevada has already proven what real conservation looks like. We shouldn't be punished for it. We should be the model the rest of the river basin has to catch up to.
If elected in November, I'll be watching this issue closely in Carson City. And I'll make sure Assembly District 9 has a voice in a fight that's about to hit every one of our water bills.
That's what I've tried to do throughout this campaign. Show up on the issues that actually land on your kitchen table.
Like water, traffic, crime, HOA fines, and our neighborhood schools.
Unlike my opponent, who’s a one-trick-pony on the drug addiction issue, I’ll be looking out for all voters on all issues throughout all of our district.
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