Monday, June 21, 2004 | 9:46 a.m.
A new citizens group has been tapped to find ways to keep the water flowing to Las Vegas in a sustainable way.
The board of the Southern Nevada Water Authority last week named 23 people to the new Integrated Water Planning Advisory Committee, representing developers, businesses, environmental groups and government agencies. The Water Authority also invited the county commissions of Lincoln, White Pine and Nye counties and the Virgin Valley Water District, of Mesquite, and the Moapa Valley Water District from rural Clark County to appoint members to the committee.
The group could begin meeting in August.
Among the members named last week are Bob Nard, director of the building trades union, Las Vegas conservationist John Hiatt, MGM MIRAGE general counsel Mark Russell, developer John Ritter and Nevada State Bank president Bill Martin.
The group is charged with finding long-term, sustainable ways to provide water to urban Clark County. The Water Authority has an ambitious and controversial program to drill wells throughout Lincoln, White Pine, Nye and rural Clark counties and bring the water to Las Vegas in hundreds of miles of pipelines.
The timeline for the rural water program has accelerated as the Water Authority faces a drought on the Colorado River that threatens Lake Mead's supply, which provides 90 percent of the drinking water to the urban area.
Nevada's congressional delegation proposed federal legislation last week that would grant the rights-of-way in Lincoln County for the pipelines, which still must pass environmental reviews. The state engineer also must approve the actual water draws from the well sites, a process that will include public hearings.
Nonetheless, ranchers and environmentalists from rural areas have expressed concerns -- verging on fear and loathing -- about the plan, which they believe could jeopardize springs and wells throughout the east-central part of the state.
Water Authority officials say it is essential to have rural parts of the state, where some opposition to the plan is brewing, on the committee.
"Our goal was to get a very diverse group of individuals, representing different backgrounds, to provide input to the process," said Vince Alberta, Water Authority spokesman. "We think we've done that."
He said the Water Authority is still waiting for the rural counties to appoint representatives and for the governor to appoint a representative to the committee.
Alberta said the committee will have to look beyond the Water Authority's plans for rural "in-state resources" and look at the financing of the plan, conservation issues and future water resources.
"It will look at everything," he said, "all the different components for a sustainable water supply for Southern Nevada. It is much broader than our traditional annual resource plan."
Terry Murphy, a committee member and president of Strategic Solutions, a Las Vegas consulting firm for businesses dealing with government, said the goal is a permanent, sustainable water supply. That would mean the entire state, not just urban Clark County, is on board, she said.
"If people have fears about that project (to develop wells throughout the state), we need to listen to them and make sure everyone comes away feeling all right," she said. "We have to consider the best interests of the state of Nevada."
She noted that Las Vegas drives the state's economic engine, but the perspectives of people living in Nevada's vast rural areas must be considered.
"Water is a state resource and we have to look at it from a statewide perspective," Murphy said.
Peggy Maze Johnson, also a committee member and executive director of Citizen Alert, a statewide environmental advocacy group, said the environmental concerns associated with the Water Authority's resource plan have to be balanced by the need to keep the Las Vegas economy rolling.
"What I hope to accomplish is to make people understand that our growth has been exponential, but also that we can't just say, 'Let's stop this,' " Johnson said. "It's about managing the growth.
"A lot of the rhetoric is pitting rural against urban, north against south," she said. "This is a state problem. Now we as a state have to say, OK, how are we going to fix this?"
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