Wednesday, January 05, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
Plan to pipe rural water approved
CORRECTION -- 01/06/05 -- Wednesday's story about the Southern Nevada Water Authority's plans to tap groundwater resources in rural Nevada contained an incorrect timeline for test pumping in northern Clark County. The water authority expects to start construction later this year of a pipeline from a well at Coyote Springs to the Moapa Valley water system, which will receive the water from the test. The test pumping itself is slated to begin in 2007.
By HENRY BREAN
REVIEW-JOURNAL
Groundwater from rural Nevada could flow out of Las Vegas faucets for the first time in 2007 after a ruling Tuesday by the head of the Nevada Division of Water Resources.
State Engineer Hugh Ricci's ruling clears the way for the Southern Nevada Water Authority to pull a total of 8,905 acre-feet of groundwater a year from four basins in rural Clark and Lincoln counties.
If stretched through reuse, the new water rights should be enough to supply more than 20,000 households in the Las Vegas Valley.
The water authority had sought almost twice as much water as Ricci granted.
"He's taking a very conservative but a fair and balanced approach," Water Authority General Manager Pat Mulroy said.
"I think it's a positive ruling," said Kay Brothers, the authority's deputy general manager. "Now we can start developing this water and the monitoring program."
Before any groundwater is pumped, Ricci's ruling requires the water authority to implement a monitoring plan to gauge any effect the pumping might have on wells and natural springs in the area.
"I wanted to be sure that no impact occurred," Ricci said.
During hearings on the groundwater applications last year, opponents of the water authority's plans argued that too little was known about the basins and their connections to approve large-scale pumping there.
Ricci said that pumping is the only way to learn more about the basins.
"You actually try to stress the system," he said. "Otherwise, it's just mere speculation on all parts to say, `Yes, the water is there,' or, `No, it isn't there.' "
If the effects of groundwater development do show up in surrounding resources, Ricci said, the authority could be required to reduce pumping or stop altogether.
But conservationists and others are worried that any order to that effect could come too late to save more delicate water resources and the species that depend on them.
"I don't have any faith in that kind of system," said Jane Feldman, conservation chair for the Sierra Club in Southern Nevada. "There aren't a lot of streams in the Mojave Desert but there are isolated springs. That's where our biodiversity is. That's where plants and animals thrive."
Ricci said the water authority would also be required to mitigate any damage it causes either with a monetary settlement or by replacing the water lost from a nearby well or spring.
Water authority officials plan to develop the rural groundwater closest to Las Vegas first.
That will require a $55 million pipeline, which would most likely be built along U.S. Highway 95 to connect the new wells to the Las Vegas water system in the northwest valley.
Water authority officials have put the cost of developing all of the water rights issued Tuesday at about $213 million.
The only treatment the water would require is chlorination, Brothers said.
This is the first ruling on an SNWA application since March 2002, when Ricci ordered the authority to conduct two years of test pumping before tapping groundwater at Coyote Springs, at the northern edge Clark County.
Brothers said test pumping there should begin late this year, once the water authority constructs a $31 million pipeline from a well at Coyote Springs to the Moapa Valley water system, which will receive the water from the test.
Water from Coyote Springs and from the northernmost areas approved for use on Tuesday is unlikely to reach Las Vegas until 2011, Brothers said.
Ricci's ruling identifies another 1,700 acre-feet a year in unappropriated water that the agency could secure through one of its remaining applications in northwestern Clark County.
An acre-foot equals about 326,000 gallons. The average Las Vegas Valley household uses slightly more than two-thirds of an acre-foot of water each year.
Those opposing Ricci's ruling have 30 days to challenge it in state court.
Nye County Chief Deputy District Attorney Ron Kent said officials there are reviewing the document and have not decided whether to appeal.
The Sierra Club also is weighing its options.
"Our position is pretty strong and pretty straightforward," Feldman said. "Any move to take rural water and export it is dangerous."
Kent fears Ricci's ruling could set a precedent for the water authority's remaining applications for groundwater in rural Nevada, including those in Nye. "This is just the tip of the iceberg. There's a lot more to come," he said.
The water authority has long planned to tap groundwater in rural Nevada to supply future demand in the Las Vegas Valley and reduce the area's dependence on the Colorado River.
Those plans were accelerated last year in response to the region's record drought, now in its sixth year.
The seven applications partially granted Tuesday were among 147 filed by the Las Vegas Valley Water District in 1989 and 1990, during a sweeping grab for unappropriated water in rural Nevada.
The water authority took over those applications after its formation in 1991.
Since then, 49 of the applications have been abandoned. So has much of the official opposition.
Of the 79 protests filed in 1990 on the seven applications approved Tuesday, only seven testified during last year's hearing. State law does not allow new protests to be lodged after the original filing period, nor does it allow existing protests to be amended.
