Water war between counties heating up

Launce Rake and Cy Ryan

Tuesday, March 12, 2002 | 10:56 a.m.

Water ways

About 90 percent of the water used in the Las Vegas Valley comes from the Colorado River and Lake Mead. The rest comes from groundwater pumped out of wells. But the region is close to the limit it can draw from the river and lake, last year using about 312,000 acre-feet.

In years to come, the Southern Nevada Water Authority hopes to bring more water to the area from wells north of Clark County and through a $2 billion pipeline to the urban area.

The water authority has applications for 180,000 acre-feet per year in Lincoln, White Pine, Nye and Clark counties. That's enough water for almost a million people.

Lincoln County and its partner in water sales for development, Vidler Water Co., are suing the state attorney general and the Clark County district attorney to block consideration of the legality of the county-company partnership.

At stake, say the parties in the debate, are water resources for fast-growing Mesquite in northeast Clark County; a planned water-cooled power plant in Southern Lincoln County; and eventually groundwater earmarked for Las Vegas by the Southern Nevada Water Authority.

The question also threatens the profits that Vidler and Lincoln County's government hoped to make by selling water. The power plant slated for Lincoln County was to be the partnership's first big water-selling plan.

The partners would provide the electrical plant with 7,000 acre-feet a year, enough water for 35,000 people, and would make about $22 million.

Vidler said it has "expended substantial time and money" for the proposed power plant to be built by North Carolina-based Cogentrix.

The suit said if the attorney general finds the Vidler-Lincoln County pact illegal, "The future of the Cogentrix projects, specifically, as well as other projects to be developed within the boundaries of Lincoln County, will be severely jeopardized."

Vidler has hired Mark Fiorentino, an attorney for the well-connected Las Vegas law firm Kummer, Kaempfer, Bonner and Renshaw, to argue its case against the attorney general and the district attorney.

Lincoln, with just about 4,000 residents and one of the poorest counties in Nevada, signed an agreement in 1999 with Vidler to develop water, with the possibility of selling water to Clark County's growing population of 1.5 million. Lincoln County would cover expenses, and Vidler and the county would split profits from development deals.

But is it Lincoln County's water to sell?

The plan to provide Cogentrix with water, announced last summer, immediately raised concerns by Mesquite's water provider, the public Virgin Valley Water District. Hydrologists in Mesquite believe that pumping that amount of water from the Tule Desert in Lincoln County could exhaust underground water reserves needed for Mesquite's future development.

The Virgin Valley Water District asked the district attorney to vet the legality of the Vidler-Lincoln County partnership, a request the district attorney forwarded to the attorney general.

The Vidler-Lincoln County effort to quash the inquiry before a legal opinion is issued is "unprecedented," Senior Deputy Attorney General Wayne Howle said.

Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa also weighed in on the issue.

"Lincoln County and Vidler formed a partnership to develop and sell water for a profit, and the district attorney in Clark County questions whether a county can enter into that kind of venture," she said. "One of the responsibilities of the office of attorney general is to give legal advice to district attorneys.

"In my 12 years in office, this is the first time anyone has ever sued to prevent the issuance of an opinion," she said.

Officials for water agencies in the Las Vegas Valley, meanwhile, are opposed to the long-term plan for the Lincoln-Vidler partnership to profit from water sales to "urban areas."

Though not a party in the lawsuit, the Southern Nevada Water Authority is directly competing with the Vidler-Lincoln County partnership for water rights north of Clark County -- enough water for millions of thirsty consumers.

Hearings are scheduled for May to answer which agency should win the rights to the potentially rich underground water. State Engineer Hugh Ricci must decide who gets the water, and how much can be pumped from the ground without affecting current users.

A court ruling, not just the attorney general's opinion, would be needed to throw out the partnership. But Vidler and Lincoln County officials are concerned that a negative opinion could affect the state engineer's decision later this year.

Vidler President Dorothy Timian-Palmer said the request for the legal opinion is "an end run" by the Virgin Valley Water District and the Southern Nevada Water Authority to stop the development of water resources in Lincoln County to benefit residents.

"It's an attempt to dry up Lincoln County without giving it any benefits," Palmer.

An adverse legal opinion from the state attorney general's office "will destroy the ability to develop water," said the suit, filed Friday.

"Why should Clark County have any interest in a contract between Lincoln County and Vidler?" asked Vidler attorney Fiorentino. "That contract has nothing to do with the people of Clark County.

"I firmly believe in Lincoln County's ability to develop their own resources," he said. "They need economic development. The key to that development is their water resources."

The water war has spilled over into rancor between Lincoln and Clark counties' district attorneys.

In a letter to the attorney general, Lincoln County attorney Philip Dunleavy called the Clark County request for an opinion "unscrupulous and unprofessional," arguing that the Clark County attorneys have no legal standing in an issue between the Vidler-Lincoln partnership and the Virgin Valley Water District. But in the original request for opinion written to the attorney general's office, Clark County Deputy District Attorney Robert Gower directly challenged the legal underpinning of the Vidler-Lincoln partnership.

Gower asked if sections of the 1999 agreement between the company and Lincoln County "illegally abdicate essential government functions to a private entity" and "illegally bind future elected officials in Lincoln County."

Gower said Monday that his office has to ask for a legal opinion from the attorney general. The Virgin Valley Water District, he said, does not have the statutory authority to ask for the judgment.

A hearing is set for Wednesday in district court in Carson City on the suit. Today, Mesquite's water agency and representatives from Vidler-Lincoln County are set to thrash out water resource issues.

Representatives for the Southern Nevada Water Authority will watch both the court action and the meeting closely. David Donnelly, water authority deputy general manager, said his agency's core concern is that Vidler and Lincoln County hope to profit on what is now a public resource -- a resource that, according to the authority's long-range water plans, will one day flow to Clark County.