Friday, July 28, 2006 | 7:46 a.m.
Great Basin National Park has antelope, elk, rare trout and spectacular limestone caves. What it doesn't have is water rights, according to attorneys for the Southern Nevada Water Authority.
The argument came in the Water Authority's 44-page motion seeking to quash various protests against the agency's plans to pump water to Las Vegas from rural White Pine County, which is home to the national park.
The agency made 16 arguments against claims from those opposed to the plan - among them the National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, White Pine County, the Nevada chapter of the Sierra Club and commercial ranches and individuals living near the targeted area.
An attorney for the opponents called the Water Authority's motion, which is in preparation for the agency's hearings before the Nevada state engineer in September, an effort to limit examination of environmental issues.
"They're doing an interesting, really outrageous thing," said Matt Kenna, a lawyer with the Western Environmental Law Center, which is representing the Sierra Club and several other protesters. "They're saying that the state engineer should not even consider evidence of environmental impacts They've realized the problems with the facts and the laws that they will have to overcome with their plan.
"I don't think they can win when this thing is opened up to the light of day. They are trying to close it down as much as possible."
Nevada State Engineer Tracy Taylor must decide whether to approve the 91,000 acre-feet the Water Authority has asked to pump annually from White Pine's Spring Valley. Water Authority officials say the water is needed to diversify the agency's resource portfolio, now made up almost entirely of 300,000 acre-feet annually from the drought-struck Colorado River.
The Water Authority provides wholesale drinking water to nearly all users in Las Vegas and its suburbs.
The motion to the state engineer from Water Authority lawyers Paul Taggart and Michael Van Zandt argues that none of the protesters has provided evidence that existing water rights would be threatened by the ground water plan.
But a study from the U.S. Geological Survey last month said the ground water pumping program could have significant impacts on the Great Basin National Park, the nation's newest and Nevada's only national park. Four streams with more than nine miles of stream habitat, 18 wetland areas, 25 year-round springs and 23 cave systems - including the showcase Lehman Caves, a network of limestone caves carved by water - could be affected by the pumping, the federal agency said in its report.
Water Authority attorneys argue that the Spring Valley requests are 10 miles away from the park and that National Park Service has no water rights to defend.
Claims to the contrary by the federal government are based on "a speculative, unquantified, and nonexistent right," and should be rejected by the state engineer, the Water Authority argues.
National Park Service employees declined to comment Thursday, but a recent issue of the Great Basin National Park's quarterly newsletter discusses the U.S. Geological Survey in detail. Diana Weigman, recently appointed to be the Interior Department's liaison to the Water Authority on the ground water issues, did not return phone calls Thursday.
But in its formal response to the Water Authority request, the National Park Service acknowledged that there would be no direct effects from ground water pumping in Spring Valley, which is on the west side of the park's towering Mount Wheeler. Nearby springs outside the park could be affected, however, and the Water Authority's plans to pump water from the east side of the mountain could have impacts within the park boundaries, the Park Service said.
Rose Strickland, a Sierra Club activist in Reno and coordinator of the group's opposition to the Water Authority plans, said the ground water pumping could harm rare wildlife in the park.
"The loss of water to the Great Basin National Park from ground water pumping would affect critical park resources," she said, noting that the Lehman Caves are formed by water. "The other obvious impacts are on fishing, on creeks, on springs and streams that provide habitat for wildlife and recreation for people who visit the park."
Strickland said the Water Authority's goal is "to disqualify the vast majority of protesters and throw out the scientific studies."
The motion asks the state engineer to refrain from doing "a detailed environmental analysis," arguing that a separate, independent environmental impact study under way by the Bureau of Land Management would suffice. Although the BLM impact study could take another two years or more to complete, the Water Authority also argues that the state engineer should not postpone making his decision until that report is completed.
"Since other agencies are already deciding whether the project is environmentally sound, no duplicative environmental analysis is required by the state engineer," the motion argues.
Kenna, with the Western Environmental Law Center, said in his counter-motion filed this week that the argument is "a glaring misstatement of the law." He said the protesters will show evidence of "devastating impacts on Spring Valley" if the plans go forward. The Water Authority's chances of success in the September hearing, Kenna added, "hinges on the state engineer ignoring such impacts."
J.C. Davis, a Water Authority spokesman, said his agency wants only to avoid an unnecessary and potentially time-consuming duplication of efforts. The federal study will look at the impact to the Spring Valley, he said.
Even if the state engineer ultimately approves the Water Authority's request to take the water from Spring Valley, it does not mean the agency could build pipelines to bring the water to Las Vegas, Davis said. That would depend on the findings of the federal environmental study.
Kenna, however, said the fact that the federal government is studying the issue "does not relieve the state engineer of his statutory duty to consider evidence presented by protesters at the hearing and to base his decision on all the evidence presented."
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