Controversial ground water plan an option, panel says

Tuesday, April 26, 2005 | 11:13 a.m.

A citizens group continued to take a look Monday at the hard choices ahead for Las Vegas' growing need for water, and appeared to reach a majority consensus that even controversial options for new water sources have to be pursued.

The general agreement by the Integrated Water Planning Advisory Committee included the option to develop wells and pipelines to bring ground water from White Pine and Lincoln counties to Las Vegas, a proposal that has generated concern and opposition in the Nevada counties north of the city and from environmentalists elsewhere. At least one committee member, White Pine rancher and committee member Dean Baker, indicated he would continue to oppose the ground water development plans.

The Southern Nevada Water Authority, the water wholesaler for Las Vegas and the surrounding urban area, figures it will run out of sufficient water for the region's growing population by the end of this decade unless it can find additional sources. Absent that, by 2035 the deficit will be 320,000 acre-feet of water, or more than the entire region takes from the Colorado River today.

Almost all of Clark County's 1.7 million people depend on the 300,000 acre-feet that the Water Authority is entitled to take out of Lake Mead, the river's primary reservoir. One acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons, or enough for one or two families for a year.

The discussion by the Water Authority's advisory committee Monday followed recent meetings in Northern Nevada. One of those who attended the meetings was former Boulder City councilman and Water Authority board member Bryan Nix.

Nix noted that there is significant opposition to the ground water development plans both in Nevada and in neighboring Utah, which shares ground water basins.

"The public has some very serious concerns about this, of course," Nix said. "There were a lot of comparisons to Owens Valley," the notorious example from California in which Los Angeles' water users turned an upstate valley into a virtual dust bowl.

Nix said the Water Authority representatives attempted to ease those concerns.

"They (the residents) need to be reassured that whatever happens is not going to destroy their lives and their livelihoods," he said.

Baker, the White Pine rancher, said residents fear that the development plans will crush the local economy and environment. Generations of families have lived on both the Nevada and Utah sides of the state line, and have depended on scarce ground water for survival.

"Water has always been the limiting factor in their lives," Baker said. "They feel they are being invaded."

But Richard Bunker, a committee member and chairman of the Colorado River Commission, a sister agency to the Water Authority, echoed some of his colleagues on the committee when he said the Las Vegas agencies have few alternatives.

"We have no choice," Bunker said. "We have to look at everything that is on the table," including the rural water development plans.

Pat Mulroy, Water Authority general manager, said her agency will talk to counterparts in Utah over the ground water issue -- and there are other areas in which the two states will have to work out how to share the resource. The two states are divided over how to share Colorado River water on some issues, and the southwest Utah town of St. George also uses ground water that is from a common water basin with Clark County, she said.

"It's going to be one big discussion," she said.

Uncertainties, such as the amount of water Southern Nevada could save through more aggressive conservation measures, remain, and that frustrated some committee members. Nix suggested that more information could at least give the committee an idea of what to prioritize in terms of future development, a goal of the group.

Observers also expressed some concern about the direction of the committee. Mark Bird, a Community College of Southern Nevada instructor who has suggested that the Water Authority could get essentially no-cost drinking water from the ocean, criticized the committee leadership for not giving him a chance to explain his theories in detail.

"I would suggest this is a non-democratic forum," Bird said.

Bird also said the water authority should try more aggressively to take water away from other users along the Colorado River, including the agricultural users in California. Those users, who consume 10 times what Southern Nevada takes from the river and have the legal and historical first rights to the river water, have not been eager to surrender those rights.

Gerald Anderson, a Utah farmer, also had taken the five-hour drive to Las Vegas to present his opposition to the rural water proposal. Anderson told the committee that a potential problem is that technical information is all coming from Water Authority staffers, potentially denying the committee members independent perspectives on the issue.

Anderson echoed earlier discussions in suggesting that the population growth forecasts that the Water Authority have used for both Las Vegas and other parts of Nevada are probably far short of what the region will actually see.

"Now is the time to make the hard choices for Las Vegas ... Uncontrolled growth is a major component of the problem at hand."