Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Water hearing off to a good start

An 11th-hour agreement on the eve of hearings in Carson City will make the Southern Nevada Water Authority's effort to bring rural ground water to Las Vegas easier - but it won't close the deal.

The authority and Interior Department agencies reached the agreement Sunday after six months of negotiations. The authority must monitor rural White Pine County for environmental effects from planned wells pumping water to Las Vegas, and would have to mitigate "unreasonable" effects in that county's Spring Valley.

The authority, wholesaler for all of Clark County's urban areas, also promises to avoid any impact on the Great Basin National Park, the 48,000-acre national park in the mountain range between the valleys.

The 18-page agreement will make the authority's job somewhat easier because it will not have to counter protests from the federal agencies. It still must counter opposition from environmentalists, some local governments and area ranchers, however, who could be affected by the ground water withdrawal.

Bob Williams, Nevada director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said monitoring of environmental effects from the pumping and management of the multiple wells proposed by the authority will protect the region's resources.

"All the parties are going to work together to identify what is an unreasonable negative effect outside the park," he said.

The federal agencies could still come back to block the program if federal land or water resources were affected, he said. "Nobody has given up their rights. Fish and Wildlife and the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) have not given up their rights to go to court to stop the pumping I hope it never gets to that point."

The National Park Service and Bureau of Indian Affairs, also Interior Department agencies, are the other parties to the agreement.

Both the Water Authority and its remaining opponents said the agreement would not substantially affect the arguments they will present in Carson City over the next several weeks. With the agreement, however, the federal government will take its opposition off the table, which could shorten the three weeks scheduled for the state hearings by a week or so.

Bob Conrad, a spokesman for State Engineer Tracy Taylor, whose office is conducting the hearings and will determine how much water, if any, the authority can take, said altering the schedule has yet to be decided.

J.C. Davis, Water Authority spokesman, said from Carson City that the agreement doesn't change his agency's arguments: that there is a beneficial need to supply growing demand and provide a buffer from further drought; that the Water Authority has the ability to pay for the $2 billion project; and that there is unused water in Spring Valley that can go to Las Vegas.

The agreement came Sunday, a day before the start of the hearings on the authority's controversial plan to take 91,000 acre-feet, almost 33 million gallons, annually from that valley. The authority has long insisted that it could minimize environmental impacts from taking the ground water.

Matt Kenna, a lawyer for the Western Environmental Law Center, a nonprofit group representing the coalition of ranchers and environmentalists protesting the ground water plan, said his strategy will not change much.

"It would have been nice for the state engineer to see that the feds were in agreement with us," Kenna said. "It doesn't change their scientific opinion of what is going to happen."

Kenna tried to enter administrative reports from the federal government that showed falling ground water tables if the Water Authority's applications were approved, but Hearing Officer Susan Joseph-Taylor denied the request.

He has entered reports from hydrologists that suggest the same result, and he said that the federal reports can still be entered into the record during the public-comment section.

Another report, from the U.S. Geological Survey, is also part of the evidence already submitted to the state. The Geological Survey reports warn of potential negative impacts on the Great Basin National Park in White Pine County.

During the hearing, Kenna said that there will be impacts throughout Spring Valley: "The Water Authority knows there will be a drawdown of hundreds of feet in this valley Drawdowns of even a 10th of what we are talking about would have devastating impacts."

But Monday's witnesses for the authority's applications disagreed. Those testifying on behalf of the Las Vegas agency included Pat Mulroy, authority general manager; Kay Brothers, Mulroy's deputy; and the leadership of Southern Nevada's municipalities: Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson, North Las Vegas Mayor Michael Montandon and Clark County Commission Chairman Rory Reid.

All agreed that the economic future of Southern Nevada depends on getting the ground water.

Mulroy said that it is possible to have growth and diversity of water sources for Southern Nevada while maintaining a healthy rural lifestyle. Cooperation should replace confrontation in managing the state's water resources, she said: "These kinds of confrontations are not what is going to get the West through the difficult times we are facing, especially given the climate change we are going through We are convinced and committed to preserving a healthy lifestyle in the Spring Valley."

Bob Fulkerson, director of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada and a leader of the opposition to the plan, said the federal agreement will not tip the scales in favor of the Water Authority.

"We think we have a very strong case without the federal agencies," he said. "However, we're incredibly disappointed for them abrogating their responsibilities to the environment of this state.

"They were under an incredible amount of pressure."

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