There’s no avoiding the truth: This is another Owens Valley experiment

Denys M. Koyle, Baker

Sunday, July 6, 2008 | 2:05 a.m.

Thank you so much for printing Emily Green’s excellent five-part series on quenching Las Vegas’ water thirst.

Part 5, “ ‘Owens Valley is the model of what to expect,’ ” summed up what we here in Snake Valley have known for a long time.

One, the Southern Nevada Water Authority never tells the straight truth. You never know which scenario Ms. Pat Mulroy will present to the public on any given day.

Two, the bottom line is that the extra water in Spring and Snake valleys that the Southern Nevada Water Authority proposes taking is the water that the phreatophytes (we call them greasewoods) are using to hold the soil down.

Three, as Dr. John Bredehoeft maintains, this is a water mining project. Once you mine water, the water table drops, plants and animals die, and you have a dust bowl.

Fourth, the Southern Nevada Water Authority always states that this project would not be another Owens Valley because current Environmental Protection Agency and other agency regulations would not allow it. How can we be so sure when enough political pressure has been put on the Interior Department (National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife, and Bureau of Indian Affairs) to drop their protests, effectively keeping all the knowledge and science that they have gathered in response to the water issue out of the public record at the state engineer hearings?

I have resided in Snake Valley for 31 years. I am not a rancher. I run a family business that sits in the middle of the valley. As I look out over the valley from my home, I see miles and miles of greasewood. I never knew how much I would come to want to protect it because, yes, we will be another Owens Valley if this project is completed.