U.S. Water News Online
CARSON CITY, Nev. -- A Southern Nevada Water Authority executive said the agency would cut back on pumping groundwater in remote areas of Clark and Lincoln counties if the pumping threatened to dry up the outlying areas.
Kay Brothers, deputy director of the water authority that's seeking more water to meet growing Las Vegas demands, made the pledge during a state engineer's hearing on applications to pump some 17,000 acre feetof water annually from the Tikaboo and Three Lakes valleys north of Las Vegas.
Farmers, local government officials, Indian tribal groups, environmentalists and several federal agencies have expressed concern about the pumping plan that would require a huge pipeline system costing about $213 million.
The seven applications being reviewed by state Engineer Hugh Ricci are part of a 1989 water grab by the Las Vegas Valley Water District. The applications were later turned over to the regional water authority.
Brothers said the water authority has Colorado River water and other ``banked'' water resources and is developing Virgin River water use plus additional banked supplies, and the Tikaboo-Three Lakes water would augment those other sources.
``We have many other resources that we will continue to augment and implement,'' Brothers said.
``Because we have this large amount of water ... we would be able to reduce and mitigate (Tikaboo-Three Lakes) pumpage if we did see impacts that were adverse,'' she added.
Concerns aired by federal agencies that have challenged the pumping plan have focused on areas such as Devil's Hole, a deep, 10-by-30-foot cave of hot, fresh water that's home to the rare Devil's Hole Pupfish.
But Charles Pettee of the U.S. Park Service said a monitoring plan to ensure safety of the pupfish, which has survived in part because of a 1976 federal court ruling later affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court, might prompt the Park Service to drop its protest.
Besides Devil's Hole, there's concern about the pumping impact on the Desert National Wildlife Range, the Ash Meadows and Pahranagat national wildlife refuges, and the Moapa Valley refuge.
Other agencies pressing for close monitoring of the water pumping include the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the federal Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Geologic Survey.
Ricci expects to issue a decision before the end of the year -- and that decision could lead to a court appeal no matter how he rules.
The battle over rural water rights has gone on for years, and has picked up in response to a five-year drought in southern Nevada. The seven applications now up for review were among nearly 150 filed in late 1989.
If the SNWA can get Ricci's approval, it will pump water from the Three Lakes Valley first, bringing up to 7,000 acre feet of water a year to the Las Vegas water system by 2007. The Three Lakes project alone would cost up to $40 million, with the rest of the $213 million cost being incurred as the pumping expands farther north. Water could be drawn from the Tikaboo Valley beginning in 2011.
The pumping plan is seen as the first step in a long-range plan that could involve a $1 billion pipeline system capable of drawing water from farther north in Lincoln County and into White Pine County.
The 17,000 acre feet the water authority hydrologists estimate can be taken without adverse effects from the valleys would be enough water for 85,000 people.
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