Rancher faces two probes

Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2005 | 8:14 a.m.

A Moapa Valley rancher at the heart of a state and federal probe into his diversion of a river in Lincoln County last week took similar action in Clark County last year, residents and a county official said Tuesday.

Clark County Commissioner Tom Collins said county and federal agencies are still looking into "cuts" made into the banks of the Muddy River in Overton more than a year after Moapa Valley rancher Bob Lewis allegedly changed the river channel at the site, sending water through formerly dry private property.

Neighbors at the Overton site said Lewis did the work in the summer of 2004, and initially promised to correct the problem that sent water flooding through their yards. The problem, however, remains, they said.

In last week's case, state and federal agencies are investigating a remote Meadow Valley site in Lincoln County where Lewis built and filled several lagoons with water from the Meadow Valley Wash.

The state engineer's office, the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the state Wildlife Department are interested in determining what happened in the wash.

Lewis, who has a state permit to bring water from Meadow Valley Wash, insists he was within his rights to reconstruct structures destroyed in last winter's heavy floods.

But the various state and federal agencies are concerned that Lewis did not receive permission from any of them for the work. And environmentalists and wildlife officials are worried that the work could have killed legally protected fish, particularly the tiny Meadow Valley sucker.

"There's a couple of concerns," said Jon Sjoberg, supervising biologist for the Wildlife Department. "One is the fish mortality. ... The other issue is whether he has a legal diversion or not. By the end of this week, we'll have some direction and we'll proceed from there."

Sjoberg said the BLM will make its own decisions on whether Lewis' unauthorized work on public land broke any laws.

"They have to take the lead on the land issues," he said.

BLM spokesman Chris Hanefeld said his agency also is waiting for the state engineer's report.

Neighbors living near Lewis' land, though, do not need a report to tell them about the issue.

Jim Vallet, an Overton schoolteacher, said the combination of Lewis' channeling work and last winter's floods have seriously damaged his property.

"Last Dec. 29 we went out in the back yard to go out to our Jacuzzi, and we heard flowing water," Vallet said. "We couldn't believe it. The big flood happened Jan. 11, so this was two weeks before then."

Vallet said Lewis' work has turned Lewis' property "into a huge swampland" and a breeding ground for mosquitoes.

"The damage to our property is huge," he said. The damage continues every time it rains, Vallet added.

A neighbor, Bobbi Watkins, said her once-dry property also now is regularly inundated. She, too, blames Lewis' work for the problem.

"It was the summer before last, he was back there with heavy equipment," she said. "All of a sudden we had water flowing through our yard. It was completely flooded.

"Our poor cow was standing in knee-deep water."

At the time, Lewis said he was clearing the land to build a trailer park, a project which failed to win land-use approval from Clark County, Watkins said. She said Lewis told her that the problem with the river channel would be repaired.

"He told me he was going to fix it," she said. "He never did."

But Lewis said Tuesday that he has never talked to Watkins or Vallet. He contends his neighbors' water problems spring from the winter floods.

"I've never diverted in Overton," he said. "I've never diverted whatsoever the water in the Muddy River. ... The only thing I ever did was clean out some of the debris and stuff so the water would go through cleaner.

"When the flood came down, it did horrendous damage there in Overton, and there's not even a channel left there because of the sedimentation that came down.

"I didn't do it. Mother Nature did it."

In last winter's floods -- the same floods that Lewis said made it necessary for him to do the work in the Meadow Valley, about 160 miles north of Overton -- Watkins' neighborhood was largely washed out.

"I couldn't even get in my house for over two weeks," she said.

Vallet, Watkins and Collins said that Lewis is powerful in rural northeast Clark County.

"Everybody said you can't fight Bobby Lewis," Watkins said. "I said, 'I don't care. He doesn't have the right to destroy my property.' "

Vallet agreed.

"We really don't want to sue," he said. "We just don't want it to happen again."

Collins, who does not represent the area in Overton but is trying to help resolve the flooding problem, said Lewis has promised to help find a solution.

"He said he'd sure look into seeing what he could do," Collins said. "He is a very intelligent man who comes off as this hick farmboy who is just trying to get along. He just does things different out in the country."

Launce Rake can be reached at 259-4127 or at lrake@lasvegassun.com.