Bush signs Lincoln County bill into law

Suzanne Struglinski

Wednesday, Dec. 1, 2004 | 11:06 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Clark County has moved closer to getting a new water pipeline to bring water in from Lincoln County.

President Bush signed the Lincoln County Lands bill Tuesday night, finalizing a plan to a establish 299-mile utility corridor on federal land between the two counties. The bill will allow the Southern Nevada Water Authority to move forward with its environmental studies on building a water pipeline in the corridor.

Also through the new law, the Bureau of Land Management will get 85 percent of the money from federal land sales in the county; 5 percent will go to the state's general education fund and Lincoln County will get 10 percent. The law also allows Lincoln County to tap into money from federal land sales in Clark County.

The bill, consistently called a "compromise" by members of the congressional delegation, creates 14 wilderness areas totalling about 768,000 acres.

Nevada Sens. Harry Reid, a Democrat, and John Ensign, a Republican, along with Nevada Reps. Jim Gibbons and Jon Porter, both Republicans, and Shelley Berkley, a Democrat, all supported the bill.