Opponents of water plan take trip to make point

Monday, May 24, 2004 | 11:05 a.m.

A caravan of conservationists set off Friday from Las Vegas on a cross-state tour to take a firsthand look at the proposed use of rural ground water to slake thirsts in urban Southern Nevada.

Along the way, they hoped to pick up some allies in their effort to at least blunt the impact they fear from wells and pipelines that would bring water from east-central Nevada to the Las Vegas metropolitan area.

"It's mostly a way of showing people that there are special places and that these are unique resources," said Rose Strickland, an organizer of the environmental-minded Nevada Ad-Hoc Water Network. Strickland is a Reno resident who is active in the Sierra Club and other groups.

She met with some of her fellow activists from Northern Nevada and Las Vegas early Friday morning. The group of about 20 people, including Democratic Assemblywomen Peggy Pierce from Las Vegas and Sheila Leslie from Reno, readied their vehicles, kids, dogs and camping gear in a gas-station parking lot near the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

They covered about 600 miles over the next three days. The tour took them to the Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge, Crystal Springs, Ash Springs, the White River Valley, ranches near Lund, the Duckwater Shoshone Reservation, Ely, Pioche, Baker and the Great Basin National Park -- in short, the rare Nevada areas where the deserts and mountains meet wetlands.

Some of those springs and wetlands areas hold rare or unique species. Others are dramatic, isolated habitats for migratory birds. Others are the key to rural farming.

"Our goal is to show people who have never had the opportunity what there is out there," Strickland said. "We want people to understand our perspective. ... There's a lot of fear in eastern Nevada that springs and wells will decline or dry up. There's a whole suite of endangered species that depend on this water."

The perspective shared by most on the tour is that the wells proposed by the water authority and by the Vidler Water Co., a private company interested in fueling development through water sales, could result in the destruction of some of those environmental resources.

Not everyone is as skeptical of the water authority plans. Two staff members from the agency traveled with the conservationists. Strickland said all perspectives were welcome in the ongoing dialogue of what could or should be done with groundwater resources in the state.

Zane Marshall, a water authority biologist, said he would travel with the caravan "to provide technical information and learn what their (the conservationists') perspective is."

The water authority has said that its plans to divert water from rural Clark, Lincoln, White Pine and Nye counties will not hurt existing water users or the environment. The agency, which is working to reduce Las Vegas' heavy dependence on the drought-depleted Colorado River as a source of drinking water, has identified up to 250,000 acre-feet of water it could use throughout the rural areas.

The agency has formally requested from the Nevada State Engineer or already controls rights to about 50,000 acre-feet. An acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons, or enough water for a typical family of five for a year. The water authority's planned wells and pipelines could eventually provide water for more than 1 million new residents of the Las Vegas metropolitan area.

Tom Myers, a hydrologist, consultant and environmental activist, said those plans could spell trouble for rural Nevada. The way the water flows into and through the deep rock fractures targeted by the water authority is poorly understood, he said.

Natural springs or wells many miles from a new well site could eventually be affected by the water draw, Myers said. How the "recharge" of rainwater into the ground happens isn't well known, nor the rate of discharge when the water leaves the ground, he said.

Myers said he does not doubt, for example, that springs in the Death Valley area will be affected by proposed water authority wells in Indian Springs. The wells would tap a water basin that extends to Clark, Lincoln and Nye counties and into eastern California.

"There is no question that there is an effect," he said. "The question is how long does it take to see it.

"The uncertainty is more than what we know," Myers said.

Pierce, the Las Vegas assemblywoman and a former activist in the Southern Nevada branch of the Sierra Club, said she needs more information on what is happening on and in the ground to make public policy.

"I want to learn more about the ecology of water, how it works, the possible environmental impacts of taking large amounts out of the ground, how it will affect ranchers," she said Friday.

"This is the most important issue in Southern Nevada," Pierce told the conservationists as they prepared to head out on their trek. "We're making it the most important issue in a couple of other counties."

Her friend Jan Gilbert, Northern Nevada coordinator for the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, said Monday the trip had a powerful impact on the group.

"It convinced most of us more than ever that this (the water authority's plan) is not the best solution to Las Vegas' water problems," Gilbert said. "Transferring it from basin to basin is not the way."

She said the water transfers would irreparably damage eco-systems throughout the rural east-central part of the state.

Bob Fulkerson, the statewide director of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, said following the tour that it worked both to strengthen opposition among the urban conservationists and helped forge alliances with rural residents.

"We succeeded in deepening and broadening the opposition to plans to export water from Northern Nevada," said Fulkerson, whose group was the primary sponsor of the tour. "We also succeeded in building deeper ties with people from Lincoln and Nye and White Pine counties, people who the environmental community haven't traditionally gotten along with.

"We realize we have so much more in common than we have issues that divide us," Fulkerson said of the ranchers and farmers in the rural areas. "I thought I knew and loved rural Nevada before this trip, but after spending so much time on this trip, I came back much more resolute.

"We are really going to give them a run for the money on this water grab," he said.