Warnings made over rural water

Friday, July 7, 2006 | 7:22 a.m.

CARSON CITY - Plans to pump millions of gallons of water to the Las Vegas area from rural Nevada will leave the land scarred, cut the wildlife population and drop the water table by more than 20 feet, an environmental organization claims.

But the Southern Nevada Water Authority maintains there is plenty of water in Spring Valley in White Pine and Lincoln counties and there won't be any environmental damage.

Those opposing positions have been staked out in preliminary filings for a Sept. 11 hearing before state Engineer Tracy Taylor on the authority's application to draw 91,224 acre-feet a year from the valley.

The Water Authority contends that studies show 100,000 acre-feet available annually in Spring Valley. And, it says, it needs the water to serve the growing population of Southern Nevada.

A preliminary estimate of the water's cost is $2 billion, depending on how much water is approved by the state.

The Western Environmental Law Center - which represents several individuals, the Toiyabe Chapter of the Sierra Club, Ely and White Pine County - and the federal government have filed opposition to the Water Authority's application.

John Bredehoeft, a consulting hydrologist for the law center, said the annual water recharge into the valley is 75,000 acre-feet a year. Allowing the authority's pumping could lower the water table by several hundred feet in the southern end of Spring Valley, "dry up springs and have an adverse impact on existing wells."

Following the filings last Friday, law center attorney Matt Kenna said that "there looks to be a significant drawdown of the ground water and the springs and resources in the valley."

"The springs and a lot of the vegetation rely a lot on ground water near the surface; so even a drawdown of several feet would have a significant impact," Kenna said. "In some areas, the drawdown could be hundreds of feet.

"This proposal for the Spring Valley - it's going to have a big impact on the existing springs and the ranchers. Nothing we've seen in the evidence exchange contradicts that."

James Deacon, of the department of environmental studies and biology at UNLV, says the pumping will harm the populations of the Pahrump poolfish and the imperiled relict dace.

"The Bonneville cutthroat trout may be adversely affected," said Deacon in his prepared testimony.

David Charlet, a CCSN biology professor, said the swamp cedar, a unique tree, "will be doomed" two years after the pumping begins and that it will take 100 to 300 years to restore the area's woody vegetation after the pumping, he said.

William Van Liew, a hydrologist for the National Park Service, said permits for 100,000 acre-feet a year already exist in Spring Valley, as do applications predating the authority for another 33,000 acre-feet. He suggests there may be 14,000 acre-feet available.

The Water Authority, however, cities a number of prior studies, including one in 1965 by the U.S. Geological Survey, that estimates 100,000 acre-feet is available per year for use.

Ken Albright, authority resource director, last week unveiled eight binders of information and arguments that the agency delivered to the state engineer. He said the water actually being used in the Spring Valley is now only about 6,100 acre-feet. With the 91,000 acre-feet requested by the Water Authority, the valley would still have a narrow amount above what is naturally recharged into the ground, he argued.

Albright said several studies show that the natural recharge is above 100,000 acre-feet annually, but he admitted that there is one study that shows the natural recharge is just 62,000 acre-feet. He said the scientific consensus, however, backs the Water Authority.

The authority has submitted 171 exhibits to back up its case in the hearing, which is scheduled to last three weeks. The applications for the water were filed 17 years ago.

"I think we make a strong case," Albright said.

Water Authority officials have promised in the past that if negative impacts appear because of the agency's ground water pumping, they would turn off the wells.

Albright said management of the dozens of wells planned in the ground water program, which includes wells in southeast White Pine County and throughout much of Lincoln County, make a commitment to turn off the pumping on a large scale unnecessary.

But the Water Authority is committed to "minimize and mitigate" any impacts on wildlife, Albright said: "We will manage our pumping up to and including turning off a well."

J.C. Davis, a spokesman for the agency, added that wildlife is protected by state and federal law. If significant impacts started to show up in the ground-water pumping area, state or federal agencies could step in to reduce or stop pumping.

"We still could not behave in an irresponsible manner," he said.

The authority says that while opponents are suggesting stricter measures to conserve water in Clark County, it already has adopted water-use reduction plans. The goal is to achieve 25 percent conservation by 2010, and it is advocating there be less grass in parks, schools and government facilities.