Bill puts strings on rural water going to LV

Thursday, March 18, 1999 | 11:47 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- The Senate Committee on Natural Resources Wednesday approved a bill to add more hurdles for Southern Nevada to jump over in seeking to pump water from the rural counties.

Senate Bill 108 says the state engineer cannot approve any inter-basin transfer of ground water if it will unduly limit future development and growth in the county from which the water is being drawn.

Sen. Dean Rhoads, chairman of the committee, said the intent of the bill is to protect the water in rural Nevada.

"Who knows 20 years from now what opportunities might shape up out there?" Rhoads asked. "There could be a big boom in some agricultural crop or maybe some major development that would require the water to stay in place."

The bill was initially opposed by Southern Nevada interests. But a compromise was hammered out by representatives of White Pine, Lincoln and Nye counties and the Southern Nevada Water Authority.

Steve Bradhurst, representing the rural counties, said the bill will provide the added protection to those counties.

Applications were filed more than 10 years ago by Southern Nevada to pump water from the three counties to supply the fast growing Las Vegas. But they have been dormant.

The original bill by the three counties would have allowed local residents to submit water applications that would have superseded the ones from Southern Nevada if there had been no action in five years. That section has been deleted.

While Southern Nevada has set its sights on the Colorado River to obtain more water, it wants these applications for water in rural Nevada as backups.

Bradhurst said the Southern Nevada Water Authority is working with the three counties toward a formula that may allow release of some of the water applications. He said something should be worked out in about two weeks.

The compromise bill requires the state engineer, who approves water rights, to consider several issues before allowing any transfer of water between counties. The applicant for the water must have a conservation plan in effect, the project must be environmentally sound and the siphoning of the water must not "unduly limit future development and growth in the area-of-origin."

State Engineer Mike Turnipseed testified at an earlier hearing that he always considered the economic development issue when ruling on water rights. But rural representatives want it in the law.

Rhoads, R-Tuscarora, said, "This issue has been around for about five years. We have studied it and studied it and it's been before my committee on public lands almost every meeting, almost everywhere we go, whether it's Pahrump, Tonopah or Elko or Winnemucca.

"It's an issue out there and we hope this bill will put the fire out."

The bill should come up for final passage in the Senate early next week.