River compact needs re-evaluation

We live in Boulder City, the city that built Hoover Dam. The Boulder Canyon Project Act was the legislation creating Boulder City as well as Boulder Dam. It is located in Black Canyon adjacent to Boulder City, Nevada. The dam is now called Hoover Dam. Life is like that, isn’t it? We have our desires along with reality, don’t we?

The achievement of 1922 was the Colorado River Compact, which preceded the Boulder Canyon Project Act. Even though the compact was a construct of representatives of the seven basin states of the Colorado River, it has been proven not to reflect reality, hasn’t it? Policy decisions are best constructed from a present reality, aren’t they? Otherwise, the end result can be a disaster, can’t it?

The disaster for the West and the seven basin states is only beginning to unfold with the issue of water. The river is governed by a series of laws, court decisions, rules, compacts and treaties, collectively known as the “Law of the River.”

I am an individual who is mature second ray consciousness with a gift to read the consciousness of human beings in order to provide a clearer understanding of humankind. The audience for my work is mostly the second ray of consciousness since it is the predominate understanding of the United States of America as well as the world. Since I work from my understanding of consciousness, I will state that it is a system of belief, not reality. Our beliefs create our realities, don’t they? This supposition has been present for all of humankind’s history.

As I matured, my soul kept questioning the reality of the world’s belief systems since I could not find any belief system that demonstrated what I could observe as truth concerning consciousness. That is one of the signs of a mature soul of the second ray of consciousness. It is the ray of resistance since it is always looking for its own point of view in the world. Reality, nevertheless, remains the best basis for decision making, as it did when I was a City Council member and mayor.

Did the Colorado River Compact establish reality-based objectives for the seven basin states? Even though policymakers realized that there was likely never going to be 15 million acre-feet of water available on an annual basis, they, nevertheless, divided the river with the optimistic annual expected flow of 15 million acre-feet. Conservatively, it was closer to 12 million, but politically, much easier to divide 15 million acre-feet. An acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons. It appears approximately like a football field with one foot of water.

The 3,600-acre Desert Sunlight project in Riverside County, California, estimated during the course of its environmental assessment that it would be using one-fifth of an acre-foot a year to wash its solar panels once construction was complete. Using this analogous example to estimate the water use for Boulder City’s 12,000 acres of solar development results in a water requirement of less than one acre-foot of water a year.

Now imagine, if you will, the Eldorado Valley developed in totality with residential development. Conservatively, using the figure of 200 gallons per capita per day and increasing the population seven times what it currently is, we would have 115,000 new residents using 23 million gallons per day, resulting in 25,000 acre-feet per year.

Originally, the Colorado River Commission anticipated that developing the Eldorado Valley’s 167 square miles would require 100,000 acre-feet of water. From today’s conservation-applied figures, that has likely been reduced to 25,000 acre-feet per year. It is clear that Boulder City’s conservative attitude toward growth has spared the Southern Nevada Water Authority the need for another 25,000 acre-feet of water, isn’t it?

Out of 15 million acre-feet, Nevada was allotted 300,000 acre-feet in the Colorado River Compact. When the Southern Nevada Water Authority was formed, Boulder City received 18,000 acre-feet of water for the original city area of 31 square miles. Following the purchase of the Eldorado Valley in 1995, the city did not receive an additional allocation of water from the SNWA.

Where will the water for Nevada and the West come from? Both of those questions and the resolution of those questions are best understood by understanding the second ray of consciousness. It is also looking for and expecting an improved situation arising from its decision making. Isn’t that also likely what the seven basin state representatives were doing in 1922 with the Colorado River Compact? With the current reality of the water supply of the Colorado, isn’t it time to re-evaluate the water allotments for the Colorado River Basin?

The opinions expressed above belong solely to the author and do not represent the views of the Boulder City Review. They have been edited solely for grammar, spelling and style, and have not been checked for accuracy of the viewpoints.

Eric Lundgaard is president of the Aquarian Theosophy Foundation and former mayor of Boulder City.