LV Water District in suit over Apex water

Grace Leong

Thursday, Oct. 11, 2001 | 11 a.m.

A Las Vegas water provider for Apex Industrial Park Inc. sued to stop the Las Vegas Valley Water District from selling water drawn from Hidden Valley to several planned power plants in Apex, saying it violated an alleged agreement to give the company superior claims to the water.

Located 15 miles northeast of Las Vegas on Interstate 15, Apex is a 21,000-acre chunk of desert land that hosts chemical factories and other industrial operations considered undesirable in residential locations.

Dry Lake Water LLC sued the water district, State Engineer Hugh Ricci and former State Engineer Michael Turnipseed in Clark County District Court, alleging they conspired to stop Apex from getting the ground water, which it said is a limited resource and crucial to its development.

This is the second lawsuit filed since April by Dry Lake over the water rights dispute. The first suit was filed to force Ricci to approve Dry Lake's application to draw water from Hidden Valley. Ricci's motion to dismiss was denied on Aug. 30.

Dry Lake, in its latest lawsuit, wants to stop the water district from interfering with an alleged agreement to sell land and provide water to Mirant Corp., which intends to build a 1,100-megawatt power plant at Apex.

Dry Lake wants to stop the water district from entering agreements to sell ground water from Hidden Valley, northeast of Las Vegas, and Garnet Valley, south of Hidden Valley, to other power companies including Duke Energy Corp. and Pinnacle West Capital Corp.

Dry Lake accused the water district of violating an agreement in 1999 to give it a priority claim on Hidden Valley ground water after it invested more than $2 million in exploration efforts to determine the ground water's availability and characteristics.

The suit accused the water district -- which filed its application in 1989 to appropriate 7,239 acre feet of ground water from Hidden Valley -- of abusing its power when it allegedly secretly requested approval of its application for water on March 5, one day before it was scheduled to negotiate power plant construction plans at Apex with Dry Lake.

But the water district disputed the allegations, saying it had asked Ricci, on March 5, to "act expeditiously in light of power shortages and rolling blackouts in California."

J.C. Davis, a water district spokesman, said: "The water district isn't selling the water, but allowing several power plants (in Apex) to use the water on condition that they offer 25 percent of their energy output to Southern Nevada, and that they use water efficient dry-cooling technology, which uses 90 percent less water to cool the plant than water cooling technology."

Dry Lake also accused Ricci of reneging on alleged promises to grant its application to draw water from Hidden Valley -- if the data generated by Apex and Dry Lake showed ground water was available -- when Ricci granted the water district's application on March 20.

But Ricci disputed the accusations, saying the alleged 1999 agreement between the water district and Dry Lake isn't binding on him.

"Nevada water law is governed by procedures of Nevada's water code. The water code provides a procedure that we must follow to determine whether to grant or deny an application, i.e. whether unappropriated water is available for application, whether granting the application will harm existing rights and whether it's detrimental to public interest."