The candidates have filed for the 2022 elections.

We'll look at the key races in June's primary and beyond.

Plus, water is a vital but scarce resource in Southern Nevada.

How its availability could influence efforts to diversify and develop the local economy.

♪♪♪ Support for Nevada Week is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt and additional supporting sponsors.

Welcome to Nevada Week; I'm Amber Renee Dixon.

We'll get to water and its potential impact on development in a moment, but first, filing for the 2022 election ended on March 18, so next up in the election cycle is the June primary.

Joining us to break down the key races in our state is Colton Lochhead, political reporter for the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Colton, welcome.

Let's start with the race for governor.

You have the Democratic incumbent Steve Sisolak.

First off, does he face any real challenge in the primary?

(Colton Lochhead) Tom Collins, a former county commissioner, filed to challenge him in the primary but I don't think many people view him as a legitimate challenger for Governor Sisolak.

Last time Tom ran for office, I believe it was 2017 for North Las Vegas City Council, he came in fourth in that race so, you know, not likely.

-Okay.

So then let's move ahead to the general election, and once Governor Steve Sisolak faces a Republican, how difficult is his path to reelection?

-I mean, what we're seeing right now, there's a lot of talk about Republican headwinds right now especially with what's happening with inflation and gas prices.

There's a lot of talk about, you know, a potential red wave across the board, across the country, but what we've seen in Nevada over the years is the governor race can kind of go the opposite direction or just kind of do its own thing.

I think about even 2010 with I think it was U.S.

Senator Harry Reid winning the election that year, same year that Brian Sandoval won the governor's race.

So Nevada has tended and has never been shy of splitting the ticket effectively.

So I think he's got some headwinds, but he's got a huge cash haul.

He's got, you know, going into the year, he's got over $8 million in his war chest which is far and above any Republican challenger at this point, and without really any serious primary challenger, he'll be able to kind of keep building that while Republicans are going to have to start spending money through this primary challenge.

-And let's talk about the Republican primary for governor.

Of the many candidates that are in that race, who is pulling ahead, in your opinion and in the polls?

-I think in the polls, we've seen Lombardo, Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo, has had kind of the name recognition.

He's got the money lead right now, a pretty significant money lead compared to the other candidates, raised over $3 million last year and has a little over $2.5, $2.6 million cash on hand.

Other candidates are quite a ways behind that.

But former U.S.

Senator Dean Heller is still in that race.

You've got North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee and you've got Joey Gilbert, an attorney from Reno, that are kind of in the polls kind of in that between 8 and 10, maybe 8 and 15% that are kind of starting to close the gap.

The polls have kind of been all over the place a little bit too, but we've seen Lombardo really sitting in that front runner position for a while now.

And he's been-- as I think we'll see more advertising, we'll see more political ads, I think you'll start seeing his name recognition, especially up north where he's less known, you'll start seeing him maybe get a little bit more support up there.

He's clearly got the money.

The question for him, and it's what a lot of his challengers are going to be trying to paint him as, they're painting him as being less conservative than them.

And in the primary, people are running further and further to the fringes, so we're seeing in the Republican primary he's going to have to really run as being as conservative as he can and at the same time he's running against people that are very conservative themselves.

Dean Heller is running on a very conservative platform this time.

Joey Gilbert is a very conservative attorney up from Reno.

So at this point, I think most people would still probably lay or if they were betting-- not that you can bet on elections here-- but Joe Lombardo still seems to have that lead.

-Okay.

And you mentioned he is just a little bit more moderate than some of the other candidates.

One, for example he acknowledges that Joe Biden's election to the presidency was legitimate.

That may alienate him from Trump supporters.

So what does he do in order to seal the deal with the primary if he's not leaning in that direction?

-I think that's going to be the really interesting thing to watch in that race, especially compared to some of the other races.

The Senate race, I think you'll see the 2020 election be a very kind of prime topic in that race, whereas I think what you're seeing in Joe Lombardo's case, he's trying to kind of not talk about that as much, and he's banking on the fact that-- I think he's banking on the idea that there are people that are looking to move beyond the 2020 election, you know, moderate Republicans that are looking to talk about other issues, economy, inflation, gas prices right now, which we're seeing, other kind of bread-and-butter conservative issues over the years.

-So voters may want to move on from the 2020 election, but coronavirus is very fresh on the minds of everybody, and that is something that Sisolak's Republican opponents are criticizing him heavily for not getting the economy, not opening up the economy soon enough, the long mask mandate.

How much disdain do you think is present among voters currently surrounding COVID?

-I think that's going to be a hard one to gauge, especially in terms of the economy, and the economy and its impact and the coronavirus' impact on the economy because I think if you were to go back, you know, six months ago or so when the economy was really booming, we started to see kind of a dip in that before omicron, the economy was really thriving.

We've even seen on the gaming side, you know, we just hit 12 months straight of a billion dollars in gaming wins.

So certain aspects of the economy are still moving, but it's the small businesses that seem to be struggling still.

Now we have the disruptions, especially the shipping disruptions.

I think those things are going to play into it and, you know, something I think six months ago, the economy may have been-- Democrats might have seen that as kind of a benefit for them with how good the economy is bouncing back here and the unemployment rate was starting to drop quite a bit.

Now with inflation, now with gas prices, things like that, I think you're starting to see kind of the tables turn on that.

You're starting to see Democrats kind of having to play defense on the economy, and Republicans are really going to start hammering that.

And that's always been something that they've been very effective at messaging on is the economy.

Something that has always been kind of their-- I said this a little bit ago, it's kind of one of their bread-and-butter topics.

-And perhaps that all changes when we get to November.

Maybe the outlook is a little bit different at that time.

How important are independent voters going to be in this race for governor?

-They're going to be very important, especially as we get closer and closer to November because these are the voters that while they do tend to lean either left or right in some form, they're not as partisan.

They're not as politically tied to any party or candidate.

They're the ones that you can swing one way or the other.

We do see, especially here in this state, we do tend to see the nonpartisans kind of swing a little bit more than, you know, anything else, especially in those general elections, those statewide tickets.

We start to see a few points here, a few points there, and in a state like us where we typically see the statewide races decided by somewhere between two and four points, it's a big deal.

-Oh, that's what makes it so fun.

Elections in Nevada, right?

To the U.S. Senate now.

Nevada Democratic Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, expected to face Adam Laxalt in November.

The Cook Political Report, which is a nonpartisan newsletter, rates this race as a toss-up.

Do you agree?

-I think so.

It's hard to see any statewide race in this state, just from what we've seen over the last decade, a statewide race where you know that you don't have to worry about redistricting.

It's just, you know, every voter in the state.

With our political makeup, our partisan makeup and our voting history here in the state, yes, every statewide race basically is within the grasp of either party.

You know, when Laxalt ran in 2018 for governor, it was a four-point loss, and then Trump in 2020, it was about two points, a little over two points.

So it's well within striking range for Republicans, even with Democrats having a registration advantage.

But absolutely, it's one of the most competitive races in the country.

It's one of three seats that Democrats are really trying to defend between this, Arizona and Georgia, and two other open seats that are in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

But basically it's going to be one of the five most important Senate races in the entire country, and really at this point it could be Adam, it could be Catherine, it could be-- it just depends on, you know, what happens with voters and what happens with these issues over the next six or seven months.

-Laxalt, a former Nevada attorney general, is on that side of calling the 2020 presidential election rigged.

We'll see how that plays out for him.

Congressional District 1, Democrat Dina Titus is the incumbent.

She is facing redistricting, and she is not happy about who her new consituents are.

She thinks she's going to have a tougher time getting reelected.

How big of a deal is it for her, do you think?

-I think it's substantial just because it was the safest Democratic district by a longshot.

You know, it was the Democratic equivalent of what we have up in Northern Nevada with District 2 where Dina never really faced a significant challenger.

Now it's much more competitive.

The partisan registration is much closer.

Her district now includes-- where it was very centralized to an urban district, it now includes rural districts in like Boulder City and parts of Henderson.

Henderson is not rural but, you know, more suburban too.

She's represented parts of these before in the state senate so she's familiar with these constituents, but it's very different and it's going to make it a little bit more difficult for her especially now that she's running against somebody like Crescent Hardy or, you know, that's one of the candidates running in that race who is very familiar-- it's not his old district, but he is very familiar with speaking to kind of the rural suburban voters.

It was something that, you know, when he represented Congressional District 4, that was part-- he represented parts of eastern Nevada and parts of North Las Vegas, so he was very comfortable with those types of voters.

-We move from campaigns to construction now.

There's more progress to report at the Apex Industrial Park in North Las Vegas.

The 18,000-acre industrial space is attracting new developers and companies as work continues to expand crucial infrastructure in the area like water and power, and that work, city officials say, could get fast-tracked if Southern Nevada wins certain federal dollars.

On a windy dusty day in North Las Vegas, the city's mayor, John Lee, met with Nevada Week at the lower end of Apex Industrial Park where the hydrogen plant, Air Liquide, is approaching completion.

(John Lee) This is a state-of-the-art company, and if somebody like this, an international company like that is coming, the rest of the world can rest assured that North Las Vegas can fill their needs too.

But those needs for utilities like water and electricity weren't always available at this remote park off Interstate 15 at U.S. Highway 93.

Still, electric car manufacturer Faraday Future was willing to take a chance.

In 2016 the company broke ground on a 3.4 million square-foot plant only to pull out of the project the very next year amid financial struggles.

In 2019 Faraday sold its property at Apex Industrial Park altogether for less than half the asking price, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Mayor Lee's outlook?

-You know, that was probably the greatest thing that ever happened in North Las Vegas.

I couldn't get people to understand what Apex could be.

It was well, if you have power and sewer out there, we'll come out and we'll build, but they wouldn't-- water and power wouldn't come until somebody came and built.

So that was the conundrum I was in.

Faraday put Apex on the map.

The whole world started realizing what is happening in Southern Nevada?

Exclusively, what is happening in North Las Vegas, and tell me about that real estate out there.

And that interest in Apex Industrial Park real estate remains high, says Jared Luke, director of government affairs and economic development for the City of North Las Vegas.

(Jared Luke) Real estate prices in the industrial sector in L.A. and other surrounding areas have skyrocketed and so has ours, you know.

But our prices here are still roughly a third if not a quarter of those prices there.

So we're seeing a constant migration of companies looking for suitable land where they can build logistics, industrial and advanced manufacturing in an area that their bottom line, they can actually maybe see a profit someday because it's not being eaten up by land costs but still has the proximity to ports in L.A., Phoenix and Utah.

But those companies will still need access to water, and if they're located in the lower part of Apex Industrial Park, Luke says they will already have it.

We do have our own city water line that comes up through the center of Apex.

Right now we've got lower Apex where we were just at earlier.

You've got Air Liquide, Ball Corporation and Kroger, that water line is already in place.

It was a public-private partnership oversize agreement with local developers and landowners out here in Apex.

We're working on phase two of that line right now that will wrap around what we call Solo Mountain which will be central Apex, and that line is in production now.

Luke says that city line will eventually reach the north part of Apex Industrial Park, a process he says will be sped up if Southern Nevada wins the Build Back Better Regional Challenge Grant created with American Rescue Plan dollars meant to boost economic recovery from the pandemic.

To Luke and Mayor Lee, Southern Nevada's economic recovery depends in part upon diversifying its economy with less reliance on gaming and tourism.

-The importance of that grant, if we were to win it, is that not just Apex but other regions throughout all of Southern Nevada can put shovels in the ground on projects that are going to immediately kickstart industrial and other types of diversification of the economy.

-We're getting major manufacturing, not just manufacturing, major manufacturing companies here.

Life-changing companies to go to work for good retirements, good benefits, good opportunities so you're both not a gaming-tourism-hospitality, that you've diversified the incomes of your families also in North Las Vegas.

-Infrastructure at Apex Industrial Park also stands to see further improvements thanks to federal dollars from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that Congress passed last year.

Luke says the city is in communication with the state on how specifically that money is going to be spent.

As we mentioned the City of North Las Vegas has its own water pipeline into Apex that ultimately is going to link up with a Southern Nevada Water Authority pipeline, which will then allow the water to be carried to and from Apex.

Joining us now from the Southern Nevada Water Authority is its general manager, John Entsminger.

John, thanks so much for joining us.

One more question-- well, a couple more about Apex.

That City of North Las Vegas water line up to Apex now, it's not ideal in terms of water conservation, correct?

(John Entsminger) Well, on its own it's not but the SNWA has now agreed not only to build a second water line to take care of the northern end of Apex, we're also building the wastewater infrastructure so that all the wastewater will come back from Apex, be treated and put back in Lake Mead like all the wastewater here in the valley.

-How is that going to be paid for, and when do you expect it to be in place?

-Well, the rate structure for SNWA's capital improvement plan has already been approved by our board.

It's funded largely through connection charges of new businesses coming into town, and it should be fully operational in the next five to six years.

-And it's important when we talk about being able to bring the water to and bring it back in terms of recycling, can you explain why Nevada is leading the pack in this area and why having that system is so important.

-Right.

Well, one of the main water resource advantages we have here in Southern Nevada is that we're upstream of Hoover Dam.

So every drop of water that hits a drain in the Las Vegas Valley is treated, put back into Lake Mead, and we can take that exact same amount of water back out.

So it's imperative as we begin to build outside of the valley, both for Apex, down south towards Sloan and possibly the new airport at Ivanpah, all of that water has to be brought back and put back into the lake so we can extend our resources.

-You've got to tout that a little bit more.

I mean, that's pretty special compared to several other states, right?

-Right.

Well, I think we might talk about it a little later but most of Southern California, for example right now if you flush the toilet, you take a shower, that water is treated but then it's discharged into the Pacific Ocean and is lost forever as a resource.

-All right.

Nonetheless, we are in a drought that is more than two decades long, and when I asked Mayor Lee of North Las Vegas, you know, are you concerned that we're in a drought but you're still using water for development?

He said well, I think you should ask the Southern Nevada Water Authority.

But then he went on to say quote, We're actually in great shape.

We're not even using the allowance that we have out of the Colorado River right now.

We're water banking in Arizona, we're putting water in their aquifer.

We're not letting it flow down the river and let California use it for free.

Of every state on the system, Nevada is doing the best at conservation so we're very cognizant of how important water is for our growth.

Is his assessment correct?

-I think it is.

We have been a world leader in urban water conservation.

The pause I would add though is we need to do more.

We have over the last 20 years, you know, led the world in urban water conservation, but this is no time to be resting on our laurels.

We need to continue to lead the world in order to be able to accommodate the economic diversification that all of the member agencies of the Southern Nevada Water Authority want to have.

-And I think that is kind of where people get confused.

The Bureau of Reclamation declared its first-ever federal shortage for the Colorado River Basin last year, but then we hear we have more water than we need.

We're storing up water.

So how would you get that message home?

-Well, it is complicated but what I try to, you know, emphasize to people is shortage is a legal definition.

It doesn't mean you actually don't have enough water, it means your legal entitlement to Colorado River water is reduced this year from 300,000 acre feet to 279,000 acre feet.

Well, last year our community used 242,000 acre feet.

So the explanation is shortage means we have less extra water, at least for this year.

-And when we talk about those water cuts that happened as a result of the shortage being declared, farmers in Arizona were talked about as being some that would suffer.

How has that worked out from what you've gathered?

-Well, because Arizona is in a situation where they were using almost all of their legal entitlements, the shortage fell on them as actually having to reduce existing uses, where for us it did not.

-Okay.

I mean, big consequences as a result, from what you're hearing at least?

-I haven't seen it, you know, too bad, yet.

I was on the phone with my partners in Arizona just this morning, and it seems like they're adapting to the realities of the hydrology.

-All right.

They have to, and follow Nevada's lead, correct?

So Tina Quigley, she is the new CEO of the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance, at a recent state of the economy breakfast that she was in charge of, she talked about water being detrimental to the ability of Southern Nevada to develop economically, and we had her explain that a little bit more in a follow-up interview; take a listen to that.

(Tina Quigley) One of the things I think that economic development agencies in Southern Nevada need to be thinking about is what types of businesses are we trying to attract here?

What types of businesses are we offering tax incentives to, because we want to make sure they are aligned with the natural resources and the inventory of natural resources that we realistically have.

-What is the reality of the natural resource of water that we have here in Southern Nevada?

-The reality is we have enough water for more economic expansion, but we have to be very smart and judicious about the types of industries we're trying to attract, and I'll give you an example.

A bottling plant that would locate here would use the amount of water equivalent to two new golf courses in exchange for a relatively small number of well-paying jobs.

That's not the type of economic development that we want to try to be attracting.

So we are working with Tina and the LVGEA.

We are working with the Governor's Office of Economic Development to look at those metrics.

You know, some people are referring to it as jobs per gallon or return on water instead of return on investment.

That's the kind of thinking that we need to be making so that we use our finite resources, you know, as well as we possibly can.

-So then if that company you were talking about, the bottling company, comes to the state of Nevada and says we want to locate here, relocate here, are they coming to you then and asking, is this feasible for them to be here?

-Well, not the companies directly, but as I said, Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance and the Governor's Office of Economic Development, they're working very closely with us to get those kinds of metrics into our decision-making so that, you know, we can all make the decisions for the future generations of Southern Nevadans.

-Have you turned any companies away as a result of their potential water use?

-I don't know if they've outright been turned away, but certainly I think whether or not they're given tax abatements and things of that nature, those types of decisions are starting to be made.

-All right.

And as far as the Southern Nevada Water Authority having a regulatory type of role, is that already set in stone, or is it being discussed?

Quigley had said "percolating conversations," but that didn't sound like it's established.

-I guess my hope would be that the Southern Nevada Water Authority never becomes a true regulatory agency.

I view our role as explaining to the community what your choices are.

If you grow this way, you know, this is how much of that you can do.

If you grow a different way, you can do a lot more than that.

But working through the local jurisdictions, working through the cities, through Clark County and through these agencies like LVGEA and GOED to get a uniform, comprehensive water plan that the whole community is supporting.

-One way that maybe people could perceive that regulatory role already being in place is with the passage of Assembly Bill 356, the removal of ornamental turf, which is grass that's not being used and we see this when we drive around in housing complexes and it's decorative.

It's not being used for anything recreationally.

You're not taking people's grass from their own yards.

That has to be done though by 2027.

How do you go about enforcing that?

Who's going to go around and say, get that grass out or else?

-Well, that AB 356 also established a citizens committee that met from about September to December and actually came up with again, community-supported definitions of what constitutes non-functional turf, so now that that committee made its recommendations, the board of the Southern Nevada Water Authority accepted those recommendations.

But again, now that has to be put into the service rules of the Las Vegas Valley Water District, into the city codes for North Las Vegas, Henderson, Boulder City and into Clark County's code so the enforcement regulatory mechanism will be at that local jurisdiction level, not at the regional water authority level.

-So John Entsminger isn't going to be showing up to people's businesses and saying-- -I will not.

-Okay.

The last thing, we talked with Congresswoman Dina Titus earlier this year, and she was talking about the infrastructure package and the money that is coming here.

Part of that money is going to be used for Nevada to teach California a couple things about water recycling, correct?

-Well, I wouldn't put it that way.

Actually, we have a tremendous partnership with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.

This is a big agency that has wholesale water responsibility from Santa Barbara to San Diego, right?

So 19 million people, and they have a project, a $3 to $4 billion project to take that wastewater that's currently being discharged into the Pacific, treat it, inject it into the aquifers in Southern California, and in exchange for us participating financially, they'll then leave a portion of their Colorado River water in Lake Mead for our use.

So it's actually a great regional partnership.

-John, thank you for clarifying that, and thank you for your time.

And thank you as always for joining us this week on Nevada Week.

For any of the resources discussed on this show, please visit our website at vegaspbs.org/nevadaweek.

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