Letter: Effects of water exportation must be evaluated

Wednesday, Sept. 8, 2004 | 9 a.m.

The Lincoln County Conservation, Recreation & Development Act of 2004 (H.R. 4593 and S. 25320) creates hundreds of miles of pipeline rights-of-way across public lands to export Lincoln County groundwater to Las Vegas. It provides for no funded, independent study of the carbonate aquifer. It disposes up to 87,000 acres of public lands without a public review process and orders the BLM to dispose of an additional 13,000 acres of public lands within 75 days.

It creates an off-road vehicle trail of more than 200 miles without requiring that the vehicles remain on designated roughes to protect resources. The wilderness designations it includes leave out important lands and include some serious "road" intrusions.

This bill is on fast track through Congress.

We need a hydrologic study of the carbonate aquifer in eastern and southern Nevada to determine whether any groundwater is available for export.

A federally funded study is needed to help determine how to prevent water exportation from harming existing rural water users as well as plants and wildlife dependent on natural springs.

Urban residents, who will suffer from continued explosive growth from the water exportation project, and rural residents, whose futures are in jeopardy from loss of water essential to rural economies, deserve more credible and independent information on the impacts of water exportation.

EDWARD DENAUT