Bill aims to preserve funding for key solution to Colorado River drought

Alan Halaly, Las Vegas Review-Journal on Nov 20, 2025

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LAS VEGAS — For Las Vegas to keep its taps flowing, Rep. Susie Lee says this one drought measure must survive federal spending purges: water recycling.

Lee, D-Nev., and Rep. Juan Ciscomani, R-Ariz., introduced the Large-Scale Water Recycling Reauthorization Act in Congress on Thursday to reauthorize a federal grant program that will sunset in 2026. While it doesn’t currently add any more money to the program, Lee said it would allow the Bureau of Reclamation to dole out $125 million in unused funds, extending the program to 2031.

“The states that surround the Colorado River — they’re red and blue,” Lee said in a Thursday interview. “But it’s a crisis, and the reason this reauthorization is so important is to make sure we continue to have the authority to use the funding to support these programs.”

Previously, Congress folded Lee’s initial 2021 program proposal into the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law — a law creating a pool of funding that Republicans have tried to claw back. In 2024, a bill to nearly double the amount of funding for the program that Lee helped author stalled and did not get a hearing in committee.

To date, according to Lee’s office, the Bureau of Reclamation’s program has provided more than $125 million to Pure Water Southern California, a water recycling program in California that officials say will produce 150 million gallons of water per day that would have previously been dumped in the Pacific Ocean.

The Southern Nevada Water Authority’s board authorized the agency to give $750 million to the project in 2021. That will likely be in exchange for a transfer of water, where Nevada would be able to pull more water from Lake Mead, agency spokesman Bronson Mack said.

In addition to Pure Water, the Bureau of Reclamation has committed to funding other water recycling projects in California, and one in Utah.

Why recycle water?

Capturing, treating and sending wastewater back into Lake Mead is the single way that modern Las Vegas is able to use more than its small share of the Colorado River amid remarkable population growth.

A 2024 analysis of water recycling in the Colorado River Basin from the University of California, Los Angeles, found that Nevada outperforms on that metric, reusing about 85% of its wastewater.

Other states have yet to begin that journey, including Wyoming and Utah, which respectively only reuse about 3.3% and 1% of their wastewater, according to the study.

Colby Pellegrino, deputy general manager of resources at the water authority, said after a board meeting Thursday that water recycling projects, especially along the Colorado River Basin, are often costly and hard to pull off.

This year, a study backed that up: It can cost up to $2,000 of federal dollars per acre-foot (or about 326,000 gallons) of water saved when it comes to water recycling. That’s in contrast to far less expensive water savings from innovation in agriculture.

The grant program is a big help in getting water recycling projects off the ground, Pellegrino said.

“That was what it was aimed at: Let’s let the federal government have a way in to make a meaningful participation in these big projects,” she said. “Help build resiliency, help build new supplies, reduce the reliance on the Colorado River or whatever other system it is that might be strapped. I think that’s turned out to be a good investment.”