Sunday, Jan. 1, 2006 | 8:01 a.m.
The state engineer will bring together two sharply opposed camps Thursday in Carson City for a meeting that will set the stage for future arguments over the issue of rural water for urban Las Vegas.
The Southern Nevada Water Authority wants to bring nearly 200,000 acre-feet of water annually from rural Nevada to Las Vegas, most of that from southeastern White Pine County. Lincoln County has signed off on the plans, but ranchers and conservationists are opposed.
One acre-foot of water is 326,000 gallons, or about enough for one or two families a year. The Water Authority now takes 300,000 acre-feet annually from Lake Mead to sustain the urban population of Clark County. That amount is stretched by recycling treated waste water through the lake.
The Water Authority hopes to bring the rural water to Las Vegas by 2015 at a cost of $2 billion or more, transporting it via a 250-mile network of pipelines.
The decision on the plan rests with state Engineer Hugh Ricci, who a year ago approved withdrawal of about 8,900 acre-feet of water annually from the Three Lakes and Tikiboo valleys in northwest Clark County and southwest Lincoln County. The total was half of what the Water Authority had requested.
In November, Ricci heard the Water Authority's contentious request to move the wells to an area near Indian Springs in northwest Clark County.
Tom Myers, a hydrologist working with the Great Basin Water Network in opposition to the Water Authority's plans, said he expects Ricci will ultimately approve some portions of the agency's request for water from Lincoln and White Pine counties.
He said opponents want to ensure that they get to see the technical modeling that the Water Authority will use to justify taking the water from White Pine and Lincoln counties. The agency has said its information shows that the water can be taken out of the ground without significant harm to wildlife or ranching interests. But Water Authority officials, citing the ongoing opposition, have not opened their analysis to public scrutiny.
"We want to find out what type of information they have," Myers said. "We basically need to argue that they need to provide us with a model. It has to be publicly available."
Tracy Bower, a Water Authority spokeswoman, emphasized that no decision on the application to take the water will come from Thursday's meeting. "It's really an outline for how we will proceed," she said.
Launce Rake can be reached at 259-4127 or at [email protected].
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