Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Special session could address water rights ruling

Gov. Jim Gibbons is considering placing on the agenda for this month's special session legislation to change state water law and counter the impact a Nevada Supreme Court ruling that could affect thousands of water rights, including those needed for the Southern Nevada Water Authority's pipeline project.

"We are considering adding it to the call," said Lynn Hettrick, the governor's deputy chief of staff. The special session, to start Feb. 23, is limited in what it can consider to the items listed by the governor.

Hettrick said Allen Biaggi, director of the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, has proposed that the law be changed so as many as 10,000 water rights granted by the state will not be affected. Some of those water rights approved by the state would impact big developments, Hettrick said.

Last month the Nevada Supreme Court ruled that state Engineer Tracy Taylor violated the law in 2007 when he approved rights for the Water Authority to withdraw 40,000 acre feet a year from Spring Valley in Eastern Nevada.

The court ordered District Judge Norman Robison to determine whether the authority is required to file new applications or if Taylor must only reopen the protest period and the hearings related to the authority's application.

Both the state Attorney General's Office and the Water Authority are going to ask the Supreme Court to reconsider its decision and to clarify it.

The court decided that Taylor failed to rule on the applications within a year as required by law. Hettrick and others say this could affect water rights granted back to 1947 since they were not approved or rejected within one year.

The same day the court issued its ruling, the authority refiled applications for hundreds of water rights across rural Nevada with plans to pump the water to Clark County.

The applications by the water authority were filed in 1989 but not acted upon until 2007.

Gibbons is still working on an agenda of issues he will present to the special session. However, the primary task before lawmakers will be filling an $881 million hole in the state government.

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