Senator calls for investigation of water use at Fallon NAS

Scott Sonner

Friday, April 30, 1999 | 3:45 a.m.

RENO, Nev. - Sen. Harry Reid wants a congressional investigation to determine if Fallon Naval Air Station is violating a federal water-use agreement with farmers and tribal leaders.

"I want to find out why they haven't met their original commitment," Reid, D-Nev., told The Associated Press Friday.

Reid, who already is at odds with the Navy over plans to expand Fallon NAS, believes the Navy has failed to cut back on water use as required under the 1990 water agreement.

He suspects the base where Top Gun pilots train also is out of compliance with a memo of understanding the Navy signed with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service regarding water use.

Reid, the Senate minority whip, said he's especially concerned about the irrigation of greenbelts on the base he says are supposed to be reverting to traditional high desert land.

He asked the General Accounting Office to "perform an audit to investigate whether the U.S. Department of Defense, specifically the U.S. Navy, is currently in compliance" with laws governing water use at the Naval Air Station.

"This issue is of paramount concern in a desert state like Nevada, in which water is a precious and rare resource," he said in a letter to the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress.

Anne McMillin, Fallon NAS public affairs officer, said Friday the Navy has taken a number of steps to conserve water, including lining ditches and using lasers to level fields.

"We welcome the opportunity for any GAO study or analysis to prove we are effectively and efficiently using the resources we have," she told AP.

GAO officials will decide in the coming weeks or months whether to launch a formal investigation and will notify Reid privately of their decision.

Under the Truckee-Carson-Pyramid Lake Water Rights Settlement Act of 1990, the Navy was required to cut back on the amount of surface water it uses to irrigate farm and pasture land in and around Fallon NAS, about 60 miles east of Reno.

Much of that land is leased to local farmers, who use it to grow alfalfa and graze livestock.

The grassy areas the Navy planted and water as buffer strips along aircraft runways are supposed to be returning to their "previous ecologically appropriate dryland condition," under the 1990 agreement, Reid said.

The Navy earlier agreed "it would be willing to give up water," he said in a telephone interview from Washington. "They have given up some but not enough."

"Last year I was concerned about the slowness in which they were moving to give up their water, so I put language in an appropriations bill for them to do it," said Reid, a senior member of the Appropriations Committee.

"I still haven't seen (the amount of water that) was in the original agreement," he said.

McMillin said all military air bases, and commercial airports to some extent, are required to create buffer zones to guard against fires and prevent foreign objects from "blowing with the wind out on the airfield and getting sucked up into an engine.

"It could be anything from a paper cup to a bolt to a weed," she said.

Therefore, Fallon NAS plants "or lets go or encourage the growth of grass, trees, weeds, so we don't have stuff blowing around on the bare dirt," McMillin said.

"Obviously, in Nevada, in order to encourage growth of green things you have to water it," she said.

Reid said he was aware the Navy needs the buffer zones between the desert and the runways.

"But the experts said you don't need to plant alfalfa to do that," the senator said.

McMillin said the alfalfa keeps the fire hazard down.

"It's a lot harder to burn green alfalfa that has been watered than it is dry sagebrush," she said.

The water usage could come into play as Reid fights the Naval Air Station's proposed expansion of about 127,000 acres.

Reid told a Senate panel earlier this month he opposed the expansion unless the Navy or the Bureau of Land Management traded off a like amount of land or water rights to Nevada.

"I said I wanted something in return and everybody said there is no land to give up," he said. "The water is something they have to give up."