Grounds for concern

Friday, June 3, 2005 | 4:35 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION

June 4-5, 2005

In the wide-open spaces north of Las Vegas, the Great Basin National Park is home to 13,000-foot Mount Wheeler, the famous Lehman Caves and thousands of deer, antelope, elk and other animals.

It also is home to the best-tasting drinking water in Nevada, according to the results of a competition in March sponsored by the Nevada Rural Water Association.

The water is not just good tasting, but plentiful.

Plentiful enough that the Southern Nevada Water Authority sees the area as a water source for Las Vegas, about 250 miles to the south.

Under the authority's ambitious plans, wells will be drilled in Lincoln and White Pine counties, including in areas near the national park, and by 2015 the authority could be piping enough water to Las Vegas to sustain a million people.

The prospect and scale of the project -- it's estimated to cost between $2 billion and $3 billion -- have alarmed conservationists, ranchers and farmers in the area, and those concerns have spilled over to those who view the Great Basin National Park as an often-overlooked jewel in Nevada's crown.

"To me, this is something that should not happen," said 80-year-old Marge Sill, who worked for decades for the establishment of the national park that was dedicated in 1987.

Water authority officials say their plans won't affect the park, but their claims haven't given residents much solace.

Both sides of the plan are looking for more information on what the pumping could do to regional water supplies. Two key issues are what areas would be affected by pumping and how much water can be taken without a significant impact.

The U.S. Geological Survey is conducting two studies that are expected to provide some answers. One due this summer is expected to show what areas would be affected. The other, due in June 2007, is expected to indicate how much water could be pumped without a significant impact.

Those studies will be used by State Engineer Hugh Ricci, who will eventually determine how much water can be drawn for Las Vegas.

Sill, a Reno resident, said there could be important effects on the national park from pumping.

"Springs and streams could be very much affected by taking of ground water," she said. "Those springs and streams are extremely important not just to wildlife, but to all the values of the Great Basin National Park."

She believes that if the Water Authority's wells come into the Spring Valley to the west and the Snake Valley to the east, the aquifers -- the underground sources of water -- will dry up.

The Water Authority has insisted its plans will not damage existing habitats or water-rights users in any rural area targeted in eastern Nevada, from Clark County to White Pine County.

That applies especially to the national park, said Vince Alberta, Water Authority spokesman.

"We believe the ground water resources can be developed in a responsible manner, which can benefit Southern Nevada while respecting the environment and the current water users in that area," Alberta said. "We will continue to work with all the stakeholders throughout this process to ensure that occurs."

The Water Authority's plan might work for Lincoln County, where the County Commission has a pact with the Water Authority for ground water development, but not in White Pine County, where residents, ranchers and conservationists are generally opposed to the plan, Sill said.

Dan Bright, a Geological Survey hydrologist, said one study, in its final reviews, will discuss how surface and spring water flow through the park, and should show what areas of the park would be most sensitive to pumping in the Snake and Spring valleys.

The study, four years in the making and due by the end of summer, is based on data "as far back as we have records," Bright said.

Bright, based in Las Vegas, is working on a congressionally mandated study on White Pine County and the national park. The study will examine the effect of ground water development on the county.

Congress, when it approved the Lincoln County Land Act last year that opened the way for wells and pipelines in rural Nevada for the Water Authority, included the study as a requirement. It will look at how much water is in the region's aquifers and the water flow in and out of them.

Bill Van Liew, a hydrologist with the National Park Service working out of Fort Collins, Colo., said the four-year study on the impact to the park will not answer all the questions.

The study will point to where the impact might be, but not how big it will be.

Van Liew, who is working with the Geological Survey on the study, said there is intense interest throughout the state in what the impacts will be.

"Our thought process in doing this study was that this is a first step," Van Liew said. "It is a study on which more quantitative studies could be built."

The key issue is how much water can be removed on a sustainable basis, Van Liew said. The study that is expected to show that is supposed to be delivered to Congress in June 2007.

Ricci has promised to take all of the evidence into account before he decides anything.

Van Liew said Ricci has a tough job and will need all of the scientific evidence he can muster.

"It's not whether or not there will be an impact," he said. "It's the magnitude. When someone drills a well, the water is going to come from somewhere. The question is how great that impact will be."

Van Liew said that while the Geological Survey studies will not be the final answers, they should provide some information to help Ricci and his staff.

Cindy Nielsen, Great Basin National Park superintendent, said she and her staff are eager to look at the studies. She noted that the Bureau of Land Management recently completed a series of hearings to get public comment for an environmental impact statement on the Water Authority's plans.

The BLM, Geological Survey and Park Service are working together to assess the potential impact of the Water Authority's plans and provide comment for the environmental impact statement, Nielsen said.

"We'll be compiling those comments for a joint response," she said. "Questions that we have here have to do with both construction impacts and also some of the unknowns and issues with the hydrological impacts ... We're interested in the effects of ground water development as well as construction on those species that move up and down the slope (of Mount Wheeler)."

Such species include mule deer, elk and bighorn sheep.

Nielsen, like her colleagues in federal and local governments, is eager to see the studies' final results.

Expressing doubts

Sill, who is a member of the Sierra Club, expresses some doubts about the studies.

"If you dried up the creeks, and I'm not a hydrologist, but that might take years or decades to appear," Sill said. "I think the USGS will do a good job. They're trained scientists. But I feel the timeline is such that they would have a problem in assessing the long-range detriment."

Sill said she will carefully review the studies. She said she is taking the lead on Great Basin National Park issues for the Sierra Club in Nevada.

"I expect to have my hands full with the water issues," she said. "It's going to have an effect on practically everything we're working on out there."

Others concerned about the impact of the Water Authority's wells include many people who work in and near Baker, the park's gateway.

Nomi Sheppard is a co-owner of the cafe concession in the park's visitors center and a Baker resident.

"My main concern has been that people who have worked the land for generations are saying the water is not here," Sheppard said, echoing a common lament among farmers and ranchers near the proposed White Pine County wells.

Sheppard, like her neighbors, is aware of a recent Utah Geological Survey study that suggested the Water Authority wells could drop water tables in the Snake Valley by 100 feet or more.

Scientists, she said, could disagree on what the impacts will be.

"It sounds like it is going to be a battle of science," Sheppard said. "I don't know. It's about whose science do you believe."

Wildlife worries

Sheppard is worried that the water that sustains the thousand-year-old bristlecone pines, carved Lehman Caves and the varied wildlife will be affected.

Great Basin National Park has supporters in Southern Nevada, as well. Robert Ferraro, Boulder City mayor, is vice chairman of the Great Basin National Park Foundation, a nonprofit group dedicated to assisting the park and raising funds to support park activities. He is on a board that includes former Sen. Richard Bryan and his wife, Bonnie Bryan, Nevada Power President Pat Shalmy, and a who's who of other influential Nevadans.

Understanding concerns

Ferraro said he understands the concerns of those who fear the Water Authority's plans, but he doesn't agree that those plans threaten the park.

"As far as I know, the plan that has been drawn up will not harm the Great Basin National Park whatsoever," he said. "I have great feelings for the Great Basin National Park. It is our only national park in the state of Nevada, and it's a great facility and it's one that needs to be protected.

"I'm committed to protecting that park, but everything I understand is that the Water Authority's wells will not harm it."

Ferraro acknowledged that there is a lot of concern about the Water Authority's plan and said the agency needs to do a better job communicating that point to people in White Pine County.

"There has to be a lot of work that needs to be done by the Water Authority to show the people that the fears are totally unfounded," he said. "There are people in White Pine County that are afraid of losing the greenness and richness of their county."

Alberta said many of his Water Authority colleagues understand the value of the park because they visit it.

"We recognize the park as an environmental and recreational resource," he said. "We don't want to to anything to jeopardize that."

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