State ruling helps southern water users

Tuesday, Dec. 28, 2004 | 11:25 a.m.

The Nevada State Engineer's Office last week issued a ruling on water use in the Las Vegas Valley that helps several local water agencies, and the office could soon issue another ruling that could bring enough water for thousands from wells in northern Clark County and southern Lincoln County.

State Engineer Hugh Ricci said Thursday that the Southern Nevada Water Authority, the city of North Las Vegas and the Las Vegas Valley Water District, which provides water to the city of Las Vegas and most of urban, unincorporated Clark County, could hold over their rights to unused groundwater from year to year.

The water authority is permitted to take up to 40,000 acre-feet annually from Clark County, which is juggled with its 300,000 acre-feet annual take from Lake Mead and the Colorado River. The ruling allows the agency to more efficiently use the water from both sites, Ricci and water authority officials said.

"If we don't use all our groundwater in a given year, it still keeps them (the right to take the water from the ground) on the books," said Ken Albright, water authority resource director.

The water authority has successfully employed a conservation program that has trimmed its use of Colorado River water below the 300,000 acre-feet level for the past two years. The agency also has fallen below its full use of its existing groundwater rights by a few thousand acre-feet, Albright and Ricci said.

"It gives us flexibility to choose between the two," groundwater and Lake Mead, Albright said.

The water authority is the water wholesaler for the area, and it serves North Las Vegas and the Las Vegas Valley Water District with water. One acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons, or enough to supply one and a half families with water for a year.

Ricci and water authority officials said the actual juggling of the different water accounts -- river versus groundwater -- is complex, but the end result is a decision that appears to benefit all those dependent on both resources.

Ricci noted that if groundwater rights are carried over a year, his decision would require the water agencies to leave 15 percent of the total in the ground. That is, if the water authority did not use 5,000 acre-feet in a calendar year, it could only take 4,250 acre-feet more the next. That would leave 750 acre-feet in the ground for any other users.

"It helps the Las Vegas Valley Water District and North Las Vegas maximize the efficiency of their distribution systems," Ricci said. "It helps the water authority and other users use the full 300,000 (acre-feet) and it will leave some additional water in the ground for other users."

Ricci said he expects his office to rule on the water authority's request to take 17,000 acre-feet from the Tikiboo and Three Lakes valleys in northern Clark County and southern Lincoln County in the next few weeks.

Water authority officials argued for the approval of its request at a March hearing by the state engineer. Environmentalists joined the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park Services and the Bureau of Land Management to argue at the hearing that the request could dry up springs important to wildlife in the area.

Kay Brothers, water authority deputy general manager, estimated that it would cost $213 million to pipe all of the water sought in the applications. She said the first phase might include a pipeline along U.S. 95 to bring 5,000 acre-feet from Three Lakes Valley to the northwest part of the Las Vegas Valley at a cost of $35 million to $40 million.

The 17,000 acre-feet, Brothers said, was a "small but important part" of the authority's plan to deal with the future growth of the Las Vegas Valley. Brothers testified that the 17,000 acre-feet in the two valleys was the perennial yield that was available without drying up the areas.

Witnesses for the federal agencies suggested that Ricci, in making his decision, not rely on perennial yields because those figures can vary widely.

Ricci did not indicate how he would rule on the request, part of a larger application to take as much as 42,000 acre-feet from the area of four interconnected aquifers. In similar situations in the past several years, Ricci has granted a portion of the request with a provision that those taking the water monitor the area's existing wells or springs for signs of significant impact.

If the request is partially or completely granted, Albright's job is just beginning. The water authority then would have to do an environmental assessment of the potential impacts of wells and pipelines on the area, which is on federal land.

Albright even with said it could take about three years before water is pumped from the Tikiboo and Three Lakes valleys to consumers in Las Vegas.