Authority’s plan sparks concerns

Monday, May 2, 2005 | 11 a.m.

The Bureau of Land Management will hold a hearing on the environmental impacts of its groundwater project Wednesday at the Alexis Park Hotel, 375 East Harmon Ave., from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. The meeting is one of nine scheduled for Nevada and Utah.

While the Southern Nevada Water Authority is in the process of defending its plans to build wells and pipelines to draw water from as far as White Pine County to Las Vegas, scientists with the state of Utah are warning that the plans could spell disaster for farmers in the Beehive State.

Stefan Kirby and Hugh Hurlow, scientists with the Utah Geological Survey, published the study in January, but it received little notice outside a group of activists who are concerned that plans to pump out as much as 142,000 acre-feet of water from White Pine County in Nevada could impact regional water supplies in rural Nevada and Utah.

The Water Authority is now working with the federal Bureau of Land Management to prepare an environmental impact statement that will look at potential effects of pumping the water and building pipelines to bring it to Las Vegas. The agency, which supplies nearly all of the drinking water used in Clark County, has said the ground water project will not threaten existing water users.

The impact statement is only one of several ongoing and parallel studies the agency is doing as part of the effort.

The Water Authority leadership argues that it needs the ground water to supplement the 300,000 acre-feet it now takes from the Colorado River to satisfy 90 percent of urban Clark County's water needs. While the project has the political support of Lincoln County leadership, it has sparked political and popular opposition in White Pine County and neighboring Millard County in Utah.

The Water Authority has proposed a system of 146 wells in south-central and southeastern Nevada. Nine of the wells with a potential total withdrawal of 25,000 acre-feet are located along the eastern flank of the Snake Mountain Range in eastern White Pine County within 5 miles of the Nevada-Utah state line. The wells could start to produce water for Las Vegas as soon as 2007.

"Numeric models show a potential ground water decline from the proposed wells of greater than 100 feet in westernmost Millard County," the study said. "This magnitude of drawdown would adversely affect both existing and future spring, surface and ground water uses in Utah."

Kirby said the study is based on a "compendium of existing research," and is focused on the nine wells located near the Utah state line. He said the study indicates a good probability, but not a certainty, that the wells planned by the Water Authority would have the impact.

"There's some pretty complex geology there," he said. "We basically did this to access the potential impacts on water resources, particularly on westernmost Millard County ... They (the Water Authority) would be drawing a significant amount of water.

"The big potential effect is the decline in the local water table."

The potential has farmers in western Utah increasingly concerned.

"The impact of a drawdown like that is more than just significant, it is catastrophic," said Jerald Anderson, a farmer with the communal Christian religious group House of Aaron. Many of the group members live in a small community in Eskdale, just 5 miles east of the Utah state line.

Most wells providing critical irrigation water for farms in the area are only 100 to 200 feet deep. A water-table drop of 100 feet or more would require farmers to re-drill wells at least, and some families might not be able to do so, Anderson said.

"These wells were never built to handle a drawdown like that," he said. "Our wells would simply not be functional. This is a crisis point for families in this area. If you lose the water, then not only are you out of business, but your family is out of business ... This is about extinction."

Utah officials, among them those who approved the study last year, said the wells are an increasingly important issue.

"Frankly, the state of Utah is concerned about potential impacts posed by the ground water export project on Utah water resources and the environment supported by this resource," said Joseph Demma, chief of staff for Utah Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert. In Utah, water issues are handled by the lieutenant governor.

"Utah's understanding of the project as presently proposed and existing studies of the area suggest there is a connection between the Nevada ground water aquifer from which some of the water is to be withdrawn and aquifers in Utah," Demma said.

Demma said Utah would participate in upcoming studies, among them:

The study authorized by last year's Lincoln County land act that established rights-of-way for the ground water project in Lincoln County. The legislation requires that Nevada and Utah agree on a division of shared ground water resources, Demma noted.

Utah is also participating in the ongoing BLM hearings on the environmental impact of the ground water project in White Pine, Lincoln and Clark counties, he said.

Utah also could participate in as-yet unscheduled hearings by the Nevada state engineer on the proposals to take ground water from the Snake and Spring valleys in rural, eastern Nevada.

"Utah and Nevada have a good working relationship in dealing with issues of common interest," Demma said. "The proposed project has a number of federal, state and local permits to obtain in order for the project to move forward ... I'm confident that we can work with Nevada officials to ensure that Utah's rights are protected."

Like Demma, the water authority has publicly vowed that they want people, even those strongly opposed to the project, to get involved in the several regulatory processes that are going forward. The water authority has promised that its wells will not go forward, or will be shut down, if the water drawdown has a significant impact on existing wells or natural springs in rural areas.

Vince Alberta, Water Authority spokesman, said the Utah study does not accurately characterize the complex hydrology of the targeted region.

"This particular model was not built for the use of specific quantifying purposes," he said. "The model essentially was built to assess natural ground water flows for a vast region from the Great Salt Lake all the way to Death Valley. To use this general tool and apply this application to quantify the drawdown effects of a specific basin is a misapplication of the tool."

Alberta said like its critics, the Water Authority is eager to have more information on the impact its new wells would have on existing wells and springs of the Great Basin's rural center. To that end, however, the Water Authority suggests a technique that some of those in rural areas have rejected -- test wells to begin pumping water from the Snake or Spring valleys.

"Ultimately you will never know until you test pump, which is why it is so important," Alberta said. "That will give you the most clear and most precise impacts or potential impacts to a specific ground water basin."