Two weeks before a state hearing on its massive groundwater pipeline project, the Southern Nevada Water Authority has launched an advertising campaign touting its efforts to protect the environment.

The $150,000 print and radio campaign kicked off Sunday with an advertisement in the Review-Journal.

The ad focused on water authority biologist Zane Marshall and the agency's efforts to protect the Moapa dace, a finger-length endangered fish only found near the headwaters of the Muddy River. The tag line reads: "So when we say we're going to protect Nevada's environment as we bring an important new water supply to our community, we have the expertise and track record to back it up."

Future print and radio ads will highlight other environmental initiatives by the authority and its member utilities, said Scott Huntley, public information manager for the water authority.

The six-month media blitz is meant to counter recent public criticism leveled at the agency by opponents of its plans to pipe groundwater to Las Vegas from across Eastern Nevada, Huntley said. "We are very cognizant of our role in environmental stewardship. It's important to remind people of that."

Huntley said these advertisements are similar to a series of ads launched last November with the theme "sustainable Nevada." That campaign also ran for six months and cost about $150,000.

The new advertisements will appear in several publications in Las Vegas and Reno. They also will be published in Carson City, site of next month's hearing on the water authority's groundwater applications in Spring Valley, 250 miles north of Las Vegas.

The 1 million acre watershed in White Pine County is expected to supply almost half of the water that could one day fill the authority's $2 billion pipeline network.

Huntley said the new ad campaign is not meant to influence the Sept. 11 hearing in Carson City, nor is it "aimed specifically at White Pine County," though the Review-Journal is distributed there.

But environmentalists in Southern Nevada question both the timing of the ads and their content.

"It does seem to be quite a coincidence," said Rose Strickland, who monitors water issues for the Sierra Club's Toiyabe Chapter.

"I sort of look at it as propaganda," said John Hiatt, conservation chairman for the Red Rock Audubon Society. "Clearly, this is the marketing department at work. This is about improving their image and showing they're good guys."

Hiatt served on the water authority's Integrated Water Planning Advisory Committee, which included the pipeline project among 22 recommendations it made last year for meeting the community's water needs through 2035.

Water authority officials insist the pipeline project can be developed without harming the environment in White Pine County, but Hiatt said there is "tremendous skepticism about their ability to live up to that promise."

He said the authority would be better off spending its marketing budget encouraging water conservation in the Las Vegas Valley.

The agency's $555 million budget for the current fiscal year includes up to $2 million for advertising. Huntley said the bulk of that money would go to print and television spots reminding residents about assigned watering days and other conservation measures imposed during the region's record drought.

"One thing SNWA's got a lot of is money," the Sierra Club's Strickland said. "But an ad campaign is not the same thing as being an environmental steward. People need to look closely at what they (water authority officials) are saying and ask hard questions. That's what I'm trying to do."