Pipeline receives go-ahead

Preparations for the water pipeline to eastern Nevada will continue, and so will opposition to the multibillion-dollar project.

The Southern Nevada Water Authority board Thursday voted unanimously to forge ahead with the permit process for the agency's massive groundwater importation plan, which one day could deliver billions of gallons of groundwater a year to Las Vegas from as far as 300 miles away.

First, though, board members listened to dire warnings from the water authority's management team and counterarguments from critics of the scheme, including rural residents whose land and livelihoods lie in the path of the project.

The discussion lasted about four hours and drew more than 300 people to the board's meeting room in downtown Las Vegas.

The audience filled the room and a nearby overflow area, forcing a handful of people to watch the discussion remotely from the Clark County Government Center about a half mile down the street.

Snake Valley resident Margaret Pense couldn't help but cry as she addressed the board.

"I just wish there was a better way than to take the water from such a fragile community. We're the little guys. We're the Davids versus the Goliaths," she said, her voice breaking. "What's going to happen to me? I can't go anywhere else. I don't have a water right."

Longtime Baker motel owner Denise Coyle introduced the board to her young granddaughters, two from Baker and one from Las Vegas.

Coyle said the pipeline is about more than engineering and economics; it's a "moral and ethical choice."

"You have all of their futures in your hands. It will be them who feel the effects," she said.

Coyle's son, White Pine County Commissioner Gary Perea, read a resolution from the commission opposing the pipeline. Then he delivered a warning of his own: "To the people who support this project, no matter how much you want and need for that water to be there, it doesn't mean that it is."

Mixed in with the opposition were statements of support from developers, gaming executives and other valley business leaders.

The audience also included a large contingent of union construction workers, many of them wearing hard hats and safety vests. Their message to the board: Keep the water flowing, and put us to work on the pipeline.

Board members heard from 44 people in all.

Rancher Cecil Garland approached the podium in overalls and crusty old ball cap and quickly started quoting Shakespeare.

Garland went on to say that he has been working the land along the Nevada-Utah border for decades, and he knows one thing with certainty: "There is no surplus water in Snake Valley."

White Pine County resident Rick Spilsbury said the authority's plans for rural Nevada amount to "modern-day colonialism" and "socialism for the rich."

"I think it's as irresponsible as it can be. It doesn't make any sense to empty a natural basin to fill a man-made lake," said Spilsbury, a Western Shoshone Tribe member who blogs about environmental issues for a Web site called NoShootFoot.com.

"The world is watching," he said. "Maybe people will decide to gamble at an Indian casino rather than go to Las Vegas, which steals water from the Western Shoshone."

Not all of the criticism came from out of town.

Desert fish expert and retired UNLV professor Jim Deacon warned that the damaging effects of large-scale groundwater pumping could be felt in as many as 80 basins in Nevada, Utah and California, far beyond the network of monitoring wells the authority plans to set up.

Henderson green living consultant Steve Rypka said the water situation seems to be treated as an emergency when it comes to the pipeline but not when it comes to conservation.

"I see water waste everyday," he said. "It's just running down the gutter. It's insane."

The discussion began with a 45-minute presentation by water authority officials on the purpose and the history of the pipeline, which was born in the late 1980s when the Las Vegas Valley Water District filed for unappropriated groundwater across much of eastern and central Nevada.

In the almost two decades since, the project's scope has narrowed to six basins in Clark, Lincoln and White Pine counties.

The justification for building it also has changed. First it was about securing water to supply rapid growth in the Las Vegas Valley. Now authority officials consider it a safety net for the community, which gets 90 percent of its drinking water from the drought-stricken Colorado River.

Water authority Deputy General Manager Kay Brothers said if the drought continues at its current pace, Lake Mead could sink low enough to shut down one of the authority's two water intakes by 2013. The other intake could be in jeopardy just two years after that, she said.

The board voted 6-0 to proceed with preparations for the pipeline. County Commissioner Tom Collins left the meeting early and did not cast a vote.

This was not the board's final word on the pipeline. After obtaining all of the necessary federal permits and environmental clearances, the authority plans to put the project "on the shelf" for when the community needs it. When that day comes, it will be up to board members to decide whether to proceed with design and construction.

Water authority General Manager Pat Mulroy said she was "delighted" by the outcome of Thursday's vote, which she requested to reaffirm the board's support for the project.

"The meeting went extremely well. Everyone expressed their feelings and concerns in a polite and respectful way," Mulroy said.

Opponents were not surprised by the board's decision.

Bob Fulkerson is executive director of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, a liberal advocacy group that has come out against the pipeline. He called the effort to sway the vote "an exercise in futility" but said it was important for them to be there and be heard.

Asked what he thought of Thursday's meeting, Snake Valley rancher Dean Baker just smiled a little and shrugged.

"It was fine," he said, but it didn't really change anything. The work on the pipeline will keep going, and the people fighting it will keep on fighting. "We have to," Baker said.

Contact reporter Henry Brean at hbrean@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0350.