Pipeline corridor passes hurdle

Suzanne Struglinski

Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2004 | 11:10 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- A proposed utility corridor linking Lincoln and Clark counties cleared its first legislative hurdle today -- approval from the House Resources Committee.

The committee also approved an amendment by Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Calif., that removed from the bill three proposed Wilderness Areas in Lincoln County. The amendment made other technical changes to the bill.

Committee Vice Chairman Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., hopes to get the bill to the floor before Congress adjourns for the year. Adjournment is scheduled for Oct. 1.

He said the removal of the Mt. Irish, Big Rocks and East Mormons wilderness designations from the bill were done in the "spirit of compromise." The new version of the bill also removes other wilderness areas from the bill, and that was done to increase the property tax base in Lincoln County, Gibbons said.

Those moves have angered proponents of environmental conservation.

Brian O'Donnell of the Nevada Wilderness Coalition called the bill "a step backwards" because it removed the three areas designated as wilderness, did not add any of the lands the group suggested be protected and continues to release thousands of acres of land for sale.

The coalition wanted to see the Pahranagat Range added as wilderness and could not understand why the three areas were taken out.

John Wallin, of the Nevada Wilderness Project, said land met the criteria set by the chairman but it looks like more work will have to be done. Wallin has taken numerous House Resources Committee staff on tours of the three areas.

"I guess its going to require a few more days of public participation," Wallin said.

O'Donnell hopes the land restrictions will be put back into the bill after some public involvement.

"It has less to do with the land on the ground and largely to do with the philosophy of the chairman," O'Donnell said.

A key provision in the Lincoln County Conservation, Recreation and Development Act is the creation of a 256-mile pipeline corridor for the Southern Nevada Water Authority which also incorporates a 192-mile pipeline corridor for the Lincoln County Water District.

One of the purposes for Southern Nevada Water Authority's corridor is to give the Water Authority the land it would need for a pipeline to transport water from the rural county to the Las Vegas Valley. Gibbons said through the changes to the bill, the Bureau of Land Management will be able to direct where the corridor goes in case the proposed one goes through sensitive land.

In July, Water Authority General Manager Pat Mulroy and Lincoln County Commissioner Ronda Hornbeck had talked to the committee about what they said were the benefits of the bill.

Mulroy wanted to see some slight adjustment to the corridors' location and Rebecca Watson, the department's assistant secretary of Land and Minerals Management wanted to the government to have some say in where the corridor was placed.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee last week conducted a hearing on a version of the bill that had been presented by Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev, and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev.

The bill still needs approvals from the Senate committee, the House and the Senate before it could become law.