Monday, March 15, 2004 | 10:56 a.m.
Las Vegas water agencies are preparing to defend their application for water rights in Clark and Lincoln counties in what would be one of the first tests of their efforts to bring large volumes of groundwater into the municipal system.
The Las Vegas Valley Water District is scheduled to go before state Engineer Hugh Ricci for up to five days of discussion on the matter, March 22 through March 26. Ricci has the final say on how much water can be drawn from new wells in the Three Lakes and Tikaboo valleys, north of Las Vegas. The water district hopes to draw about 17,000 acre-feet a year, enough water for perhaps 85,000 people, from wells in that area.
The water district filed the applications for the right to draw the water in 1989, but the pressure to bring more groundwater into the municipal system has grown as five years of drought and growing demand have pushed the water district and its sister agency, the Southern Nevada Water Authority, to seek alternatives to Lake Mead. The lake is the source of 90 percent of Las Vegas' drinking water.
The applications to be debated this month in Carson City are among the first steps in bringing what the water agencies believe could be enough water to support twice the existing Las Vegas population. That water would come from throughout Clark, Lincoln and White Pine counties. This plan could be a harbinger of things to come.
As the drought worsens and as Las Vegas' population continues to boom, the water authority has been forced to look for other options. This plan could be the first of other such moves, including a more ambitious project planned to pipe water down from the Virgin and Muddy rivers.
Such plans could soon become a reality.
Kay Brothers, water district deputy general manager, said that with Ricci's approval, the agency could begin drawing water from the Three Lakes Valley in 2007. Wells to the east and north in the adjacent Tikaboo Valley could come online in 2011.
The source has several advantages for Las Vegas, she said. The wells are only about 15 miles from the northwest part of the municipal water system, so pipelines are much shorter than the hundreds of miles envisioned for the larger, in-state system that the agencies ultimately expect to build.
Instead of billions of dollars, the cost to bring the water from the Three Lakes and Tikaboo valleys could be $30 million to $40 million, although Brothers warned that is a very preliminary estimate.
The water district is looking for an initial draw of 5,000 to 7,000 acre-feet a year from the Three Lakes Valley, and about 10,000 acre-feet a year from Tikaboo Valley. One acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons, or about enough water for a typical family for one year.
Brothers said the initial request, although a significant amount of water, is a test -- the water district could go back and ask for more if the area can handle the extraction of that amount it impacting the environment or other water users.
But for 15 years, water users in Nevada and California have been concerned that the water district's wells could affect their supplies. Protesters of the water district's application include the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, Nye County, White Pine County, the Moapa Band of Paiute Indians, Ely Shoshone Tribe and towns throughout the region.
Protests have come in from 250 miles north to 250 miles west of Las Vegas.
The central concern shared by the protesters is that the draw down of water, including the deep rock aquifer called carbonate, will ultimately affect water resources throughout this huge territory.
"We protested these applications back when they were filed because of the fear that pumping out of the regional carbonate aquifer would affect the eastern side of Inyo County," home to Death Valley, said Greg James, Inyo County, Calif., Water Department director.
He said groundwater models prepared by some hydrologists have shown that "indeed, the pumping could well have an impact on Inyo."
"Importantly, if there were an impact, by the time it was detected, it would be impossible to reverse," James said.
Protracted battles over water are not new for Inyo County, which has battled thirsty Los Angeles over water supplies in California's Owens Valley for a century. Springs have now dried up as the water is carried to Southern California's urban sprawl, James said.
"You can understand why we're a little cautious," he said.
John Hiatt, conservation chairman of the Red Rock Audubon Society, also is concerned that Southern Nevada's wells could impact that natural environment over a huge area.
"You could pull a lot of water out before you suddenly see a collapse everywhere," he said. "The impacts may not be immediately apparent. It may be decades before they are apparent."
But the impacts could eventually be significant for the environment, he said. Most of the wells are in the middle of the 1.5 million-acre Desert National Wildlife Refuge complex, a place prized by conservationists such as Hiatt.
"Clearly the potential impacts on the game range in that area are significant, but we won't know about it for a long time," Hiatt said. Like others concerned about the water district's plans, Hiatt fears that even if damage to the natural system shows up years down the road, the water would continue flowing to Las Vegas.
"The percentage change you would see in the first five years would be trivial," he said. "But once you establish a population's dependence on the water, the political ability to shut it down is almost nonexistent."
Richard Birger, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service project leader for the wildlife refuge, said his agency is concerned about the ultimate impact on the environment. He said his agency is trying to determine how compatible the water district's plans will be with the mandate to protect fish and wildlife throughout the refuge.
"One of the things that's important for folks to understand is that wildlife refuges aren't like other federal land," Birger said. "We have a specific purpose, for wildlife conservation. What that means is when a use is sought or proposed, we are required to examine the effects that the proposed use would have."
Birger said his agency is talking to the water district and water authority to "to get some idea of what they are looking at, what their request is."
James said he is frustrated that more details are not available about the possible pumping of water from the wells in the region.
"I don't think anyone has seen a full plan for how this would unfold," he said. "We haven't see a clear project. ... As it is, we're forced to speculate to some degree on what Las Vegas plans on doing."
And James and others want the big picture, not just details of the seven wells contested this month.
"We want a cumulative assessment, rather than piecemeal," James said.
Brothers said the water district has no intention of harming the environment of the water users in Nevada or California.
"We don't want to dry up anything," she said. "Monitoring the system is the whole key to this. We know that we are going to have to manage the system. We'd manage it to the point that we wouldn't impact anything."
She said the tapping of the groundwater supplies will be done in increments to gauge the impact on the natural environment, so the full cumulative impact can't now be firmly stated.
Ricci, in Carson City, said he knows that a lot of attention will be paid to how he and his staff handle the decision on the water issue. The evidence presented by the Las Vegas water agencies and the protesters will guide that decision, he said.
"What is important for me is testimony and evidence to determine what decision I should make," he said. "I need solid evidence, to the best of my ability, to go through that information to determine what is available and what will not be detrimental to anyone."
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