AN INTERVIEW WITH RICK HOLMES
Managing Scarcity
"Most of the reliable water supplies in the West are already allocated. The issue now
is how scarcity is to be shared."
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Q: In Southern Nevada, what major impacts is climate change having on water resources and what do you expect
looking ahead?
A: Ninety percent of our water comes from the Colorado River. Climate change has created a huge expansion of
uncertainty about future conditions in the Colorado Basin, and that system was already highly variable. Climate change
compounds the existing variability. Current estimates tell us that we should expect 5-20% reduction in flows by 2050.
Meanwhile, it is our responsibility to provide a safe and reliable water supply to two million residents, and we are
expecting more. We need to be prepared for a warmer and dryer Colorado River Basin and more frequent and more severe
water shortages due to climate change.
Q: What made you realize that this situation was new and that existing water management practices and
policies were not going to be adequate to meet it?
A: The drought conditions that started in 1999 were a wake up call for all water managers in the Colorado
River Basin. In the years 2000-2004 we had the lowest five-year runoff in recorded history, and those measurements
had been going on since early 1900s. Inflows to Lake Powell averaged 50% of normal.
Faced with rapidly declining inflow and storage in Lake Powell and Lake Mead, the Secretary of the Interior called
together water managers in the seven Basin states to examine how reservoirs were managed and operated in this
record-breaking drought period. By 2007, a number of new agreements were finalized for river operations, interstate
water banking, apportionment of lower basin shortages, and conservation and other forms of intentionally created
surplus (the Colorado River Accord of 2007).
That drought is continuing, and we are still seeing declines in Lake Mead. We're looking at a variety of new options
and agreements. When and if the lake goes twenty feet below where it is now, we will hit a trigger point set by the
Accord, that sets various measures in motion. If we drop to the third trigger point, we basically need to get back
together and meet again.
We're spending hundreds of millions of dollars driven by climate change. We have an aggressive conservation program,
and we're constructing
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facilities so we will still have the ability to deliver water at
lower lake levels. A third, lower intake is now being constructed. We're working to diversify water resources and
taking short-term measures such as water banking in Arizona.
Q: We're also talking this month to Steve Whitney, who looks as water issues from the perspective of the
Pacific Northwest.How would you compare your issues to those of that region?
A: When you compare us to the Pacific Northwest, on the surface, we have a different water resource picture.
We're dealing with water shortages, they will be dealing with issues such as sea level rise, but there are more
similarities than differences. Most regions are very much concerned about the impacts of climate change. As members
of the Water Utility Climate Alliance, large utilities throughout the west are working to improve the science of
global climate modeling, accelerate climate-change research, and to develop climate-change adaptation strategies.
Q: The Southern Nevada Water Authority has participated actively in the Carpe Diem Project. What is the value
of Carpe Diem to the SNWA?
A: Our General Manager, Pat Mulroy, has been very outspoken about the need for collaboration in dealing with
water management issues. It's not new to us.
It's safe to say that most of the reliable water supplies in the West are already allocated, and as we take a look
now, the issue is how scarcity is to be shared. The old model of competition will result in conflicts, competition,
stalemate. We have to highlight that the important goal is to increase cooperation and collaboration. Carpe Diem is an
opportunity to collaborate and address difficult climate change and water management issues in the West.
RICK HOLMES serves as Director of Environmental Resources for the Southern Nevada Water Authority. He was
formerly Vice President of Community Development for Focus Property Group and has also served as Assistant County
Manager for Clark County, Nevada. Rick has Bachelor of Science Degrees in Economics and in Civil Engineering,
and a Masters Degree in Urban Planning from the University of Arizona. He is a past President of the National
Association of County Planning Directors, and the National Association of County Administrators. Rick served for
several years as Chairman of the State Advisory Board on Water Planning and Development, and he is a former member
of the Desert Research Institute's Advisory Committee on Water Resources Research.
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