U.S. Water News Online
LAS VEGAS -- Three weeks of hearings have begun into a $2 billion plan to take billions of gallons of groundwater from wells in the rural, east-central part of Nevada and deliver them more than 200 miles south to the Las Vegas Valley.
The plan pits advocates of the economic survival of Las Vegas against proponents of farms, ranches and wildlife in rural White Pine County.
Nevada State Engineer Tracy Taylor will hear arguments in Carson City for and against the Southern Nevada Water Authority's plan to draw water from the deep aquifer beneath White Pine County's Spring Valley.
Half of the 180,000 acre feet -- nearly 33 billion gallons -- the Water Authority wants would come from this valley.
For the water authority, approval is critical.
It would provide an alternative to the drought-stricken Colorado River, which now provides nearly all of southern Nevada's water.
Kay Brothers, the water authority's deputy general manager, said the water in Spring Valley is not currently being used.
Authority officials also say the growth of Las Vegas is a beneficial use as defined by state law.
"The groundwater is absolutely critical to (the Las Vegas) valley," Brothers said.
Opponents said they did not trust the water authority's promises to mitigate and limit environmental and property damage.
They compare the program to the notorious Los Angeles purchase and exploitation of water rights in the Owens Valley, 200 miles north in the Sierra Nevada. That engineering effort, completed in 1913, provided the water to fuel the California city's early boom but turned the Owens Valley into a dust bowl.
"These hearings are about the largest water grab in the last 100 years, since Los Angeles turned the Owens Valley from a thriving agricultural community to an ecological wasteland," says Bob Fulkerson, director of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, a group that has become an outspoken opponent of the groundwater plan.
Fulkerson compares Water Authority General Manager Pat Mulroy to William Mulholland, the man who built Los Angeles' water system.
"Neither Mulroy nor Mulholland said they wanted to do damage, but there will be damage, just as there was in the Owens Valley," Fulkerson says. "There's no getting around that."
Water authority officials say careful management of multiple wells will keep eastern Nevada from going dry. They said there will be localized effects, but no large-scale significant impacts.
The agency is buying two ranches in the Spring Valley with 8,500 acres, and water rights used to irrigate crops and meadows for cattle: a total of almost 17,000 acre feet annually, or almost 5.5 billion gallons.
Return to the U.S. Water News Archives page Or Return to the U.S. Water News Homepage
Editor@uswaternews.com
*Your Name:
*Your Email:
*Friend's Email:
Use a comma to separate e-mail addresses:
*Your Comments:
Hi, I thought you might like to read this article.
*Required Fields