BOILING OVER

Wednesday, April 4, 2007 | 7:17 a.m.

Two things move water in the West: gravity and politics. This week, both things felt a downward pull.

A draft bill before the Nevada Legislature that was intended to quiet environmentalists in the debate over water allocations had them in full cry even as the author of the bill was speechless.

Senate Bill 405, introduced two weeks ago by Sen. Mark Amodei, R-Carson City, sought to streamline the often exhaustive public hearing process over water appropriations and diversions and to concentrate decision-making powers with State Engineer Tracy Taylor.

Yet as a not-quite gutted bill approaches its second public hearing in the Natural Resources committee today , the environmentalists are emphasizing Amodei's association with a leading Nevada water company, and the senator is at home unable to comment because of laryngitis.

Argument over who should be heard in the debate over water allocations got too shrill too fast to be strictly about a two-week - old bill with little better than a farmed salmon's chance of making the long uphill swim through the Senate, Assembly and countless committees before landing on the governor's desk.

As initially composed by policy wonks, the draft bill would have dramatically consolidated power with the state engineer in deciding how much water may be pulled from wherever to slake Nevada's growing cities. The revised draft admits the public, but in a way that leaves the door only partly ajar to those directly affected by water being taken or wealthy enough to pay for independent scientific reports. To critics of the bill, it's inside water and conjures up Dick Cheney in private session with Big Energy.

Seen by environmentalists, the bill is a naked bid to hit the mute buttons on critics of the White Pines water project, a proposed pipeline to deliver 200,000 acre-feet of water a year to Southern Nevada to augment drought-stricken supplies from the Colorado River.

The Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, one of the leading opponents of the water project, immediately issued an "action alert" over SB405, urging citizens to vocalize now to protect their right to vocalize later. Tucked in the call was a reminder that Amodei is a former partner in the law firm for the Vilder Water Co., a utility serving the urban developers who would benefit from the bill.

Vilder's corporate counsel, Stephen D. Hartman, professed confidence the senator was acting in a way that "forwards the best interests of the state."

So, no doubt, were those wielding the red pens - and yellow, blue and green to boot - as the bill became crisscrossed with amendments Monday. Amodei was quick to stress his flexibility and democratic intent.

What was left of it has Susan Lynn, a Reno-based coordinator for the Great Basin Water Network, wondering about a bill that she says serves mainly to reassert the state engineer's existing powers.

"I don't see the need for it," she says.

The man at the center of the bill, State Engineer Tracy Taylor, says he was not involved in drafting it but has been working with the senator to clarify water terms, such as "consumptive use."

To the state engineer, SB405 boils down to the need to strike a couple of good definitions of terms to best describe water.

Which, with two aspirin, should allow Amodei to feel better in the morning.

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