Rulings against wells not enough to derail billion-dollar project

Launce Rake, Las Vegas Sun

Wednesday, June 28, 2006 | 7:23 a.m.

The Southern Nevada Water Authority's plans to develop dozens of wells and hundreds of miles of pipeline to bring rural water to urban Las Vegas took hits from state and federal agencies this month, but the authority - which supplies nearly all of Clark County's 1.8 million residents - isn't abandoning its multibillion-dollar effort.

Two weeks ago, the Nevada state engineer - arbitrator of water use within the state - ruled that the Water Authority cannot move wells that were approved in one part of south-central Nevada to other spots closer to Las Vegas.

That same week, the U.S. Geological Survey, with the cooperation of the National Park Service, released a study that said wells proposed for White Pine County in northeast Nevada could hurt springs and ranches in and around the Great Basin National Park.

Opponents say the two findings spell trouble for a key element in the Water Authority's long-range plan to satisfy the urban area's growing thirst - at least 125,000 acre-feet of water to come from wells and pipelines stretching hundreds of miles into the heart of the state.

"The decision is a real wake-up call for Southern Nevadans who really need to pay close attention to the Water Authority's plans," says Rose Strickland, water campaign coordinator for the Sierra Club and one of the state's leaders who oppose the agency's plans. "These are enormously expensive projects, and the amounts of water are very questionable."

Water Authority Deputy General Manager Kay Brothers, however, believes the $2 billion project is still on track.

The ground water resource, Brothers and other system administrators argue, is a crucial addition to the 300,000 acre-feet annually that the authority now pulls from the Colorado River to satisfy most of the urban demand. While the population continues to grow, the allocation from the Colorado River is almost maxed out.

Brothers says that despite the decision from outgoing State Engineer Hugh Ricci, who retired after making the ruling, the authority can take another swing later at moving the wells, or "points of diversion."

"There are a lot of potential ways that we could skin this cat," she says.

The ruling does not inherently bar the Water Authority from pumping water from the Tikipoo and Three Lakes valleys, Brothers notes, but it would make the authority's job more difficult. It has the right to almost 9,000 acre-feet from the valleys, at least on paper, but three-quarters of that water could be inaccessible because it would come from wells deep in federal land in Clark and Lincoln counties.

Ricci, in his ruling, said the novel effort by the authority was among the most important considered by his office. Ultimately, however, the Water Authority "did not provide the confidence necessary to protect the public interest and to protect existing water rights, and because of access restrictions on federally managed public lands, sufficient data may never be available to support the applicant's analysis of local ground water flows and impacts on existing rights," he said.

Brothers says the Water Authority will attempt to regroup, continue to collect data and could ultimately repeat its request to the state engineer with better information to bolster its argument. Alternatively, the Water Authority could go to the federal agencies that control the land and ask for permission to drill wells.

"We still have our permits, and we're planning to access those permits in some way," she says.

Ann Brauer, chairwoman of a land-use advisory group in Indian Springs, says she hopes that if and when the Water Authority develops those ground water rights, they do so away from her home. Brauer testified against the Water Authority plans, and she fears that the agency's wells could affect wells serving Indian Springs' 1,500 residents.

The state engineer's decision "means that there won't be deep wells right on the boundary of Indian Springs' (water) basin," Brauer says. "Also, the state engineer is saying you need good science before you start doing things."

But Brothers says uncertainties cited by the state engineer - basic questions of ground water flow and quantity - can be overcome with monitoring wells on a regional basis. Likewise, Brothers says, her agency can overcome the Geological Survey's conclusion that pumping from two dozen wells in and around Nevada's only national park would affect the local environment. The Geological Survey's paper did not quantify how much water would have to be pumped out to affect surface water, but said that such an outcome could hurt wildlife in and around the park.

"We are committed to developing the resource in a way that would not impact" the wildlife, Brothers says.

Hal Rothman, a UNLV historian and Sun columnist, has been observing the Water Authority and commenting on water issues for years. He says it would take a lot to derail the powerful water provider.

"This is such a large and complicated endeavor that any individual piece of negative news is simply that: one small piece of an enormous puzzle," Rothman says.

Of the two issues, the national park is potentially more important, he says. In a 1975 ruling that led to the protection of water supplies for the endangered Devils Hole pupfish in Nevada's Amargosa Valley, the U.S. Supreme Court held that natural resources can have an "implied water right" with preeminence over subsequent rights.

"That kind of right could throw a wrench in the plans, but we are currently a long way from there," Rothman says.

Brothers says her agency is committed to protecting the natural resources within the entire range of its pumping plan. The critical element, she says, will be test wells that can show any adverse effects on existing water levels: "That is the real protection, having the monitoring program in place."

The Water Authority will have another opportunity to gauge the winds of state regulators and its monitoring program when its applications for more than a dozen wells in the Spring Valley of White Pine County come up for a public hearing in September.

Brauer, who is also active in the Sierra Club, says she does not have a lot of faith in the Water Authority's monitoring program. She puts more faith in Ricci's fundamentally conservative approach to ground water withdrawals, and hopes new State Engineer Tracy Taylor will continue that pattern.

"It might just be a speed bump for the Water Authority, but I'm hoping it's a signal - don't rob the rest of the state of its resources."