Jon Ralston on the water decision and the shrewdness of Pat Mulroy

Wednesday, April 18, 2007 | 7:12 a.m.

In the end, Pat Mulroy won. Doesn't she always?

In the end, gamers and developers won. Don't they always?

In the end, growth won. Doesn't it always?

Other potential winners of the now-approved rural water importation project - the South milking the cow counties, top coyote Harvey Whittemore howling with delight - will be heard from, too. Some obvious losers, especially the voices of environmentalism and slower growth, must be content with "it could have been worse" mutterings.

Indeed, State Engineer Tracy Taylor could have granted the entire 91,000 acre-foot request from the Southern Nevada Water Authority instead of less than half that amount - with one-third more possible in 10 years, assuming no adverse effects occur. But Mulroy, the water czar who has pushed this since the late 1980s, is no wet-behind-the-ears negotiator. The woman who has forged pacts with other states and could probably cite the Colorado River Compact word for word surely thought of asking for more than she needed, so she could get what she wanted and still give the state engineer room to look Solomonic.

It doesn't matter if you think of Mulroy as the devil incarnate, selling the soul of the state to keep the Southern growth inferno burning, or a nonpareil leader, setting a course nearly 20 years ago to assure the valley's future and following it through. What's inarguable is that her grit and determination, her knowledge and savvy were instrumental in securing Monday's approval.

If there has been a more effective leader of a public agency in valley history, I'd like to know who it is. It's no wonder she has been solicited, like clockwork, to run for important offices every even-numbered year for at least the past decade.

"We would have preferred to have a little bit more, to be honest with you," Mulroy said Tuesday on "Face to Face," without a hint of a smile. Scot Rutledge, executive director of the Nevada Conservation League, said on the same program : "We still don't feel those acre-feet are there, that the water's there. I think the first 10 years will show that. Ultimately what we've got is a very expensive pilot project on our hands."

But this pilot, if this decision is a harbinger, is about to take off. I can't help but make an analogy to the Yucca Mountain project. After billions have been spent erecting a nuclear waste dump or a 285-mile pipeline, what are the odds it will be torn down? And the pipeline opponents don't have Harry Reid controlling a house of Congress to help slow the project.

Taylor's 56-page report is quite compelling, and he clearly took pains to be fair and reasoned, considering the political, economic and environmental stakes. He neatly dissected most of the protests, including the ones about Las Vegas already being large enough. To that claim, Taylor essentially said: Take that up with the Clark County Commission and other local governments who approve zoning and building requests.

And, of course, he's right. People can say Mulroy is a tool of the same interests that are often caricatured as puppet masters of local government officials. But the need for the water down the road would not be nearly so acute if Las Vegas were more like Boulder City - and how exactly would you do that anyhow?

As much as Taylor can defend his actions as proper within his narrow purview and as meticulously as he tossed aside most of the protests, his clarity and precision failed him when he summed up the potential effects. As with Yucca Mountain, it's hard to say because it's never been done before.

Check out this marvel of murkiness: "The state engineer finds that due to the great uncertainty, and no party's ability to quantify impacts with any degree of certainty, caution is warranted as it cannot definitively be said that there will or will not be unreasonable impacts, if those impacts would continue for an unreasonable period of time if pumping were ceased or if any impacts, reasonable or unreasonable, are environmentally sound."

That's a keeper, whatever language it may be.

Translation: Yes, Mulroy and the growth-first crowd are the big winners this week. But when it comes to what the consequences of those victories could mean, the state engineer has a simple answer in that Faulknerian sentence: He has no idea.