Utah turns spigot off for Nevada

Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2007 | 7:08 a.m.

Utah lawmakers have, at least for now, pinched the straw that Southern Nevada water officials had hoped to use to syphon billions of gallons of rural underground water to sustain Las Vegas.

The Utah Legislature on Monday unanimously declared that Utah needs to gather all of the facts before signing away rights to ground water in Snake Valley on the Nevada/Utah border.

The legislative resolution, which is nonbinding but has the support of Gov. John Huntsman Jr., culminates more than two years of efforts by so-called Western Desert residents - primarily beef cattle ranchers - to protect their ground water from being drilled, pumped and piped to Las Vegas. The resolution may have the effect of delaying the pipeline project.

Southern Nevada water officials are downplaying the significance of the passage of the resolution. They say it is intended to give direction to Huntsman and should not affect ongoing pipeline negotiations between the Nevada state engineer and the Utah Natural Resources Department.

At stake is the long-term residential and commercial growth of Las Vegas at the expense of agriculture and natural resources in rural Nevada and Utah.

Under federal law, Utah officials must sign off on the application for 50,000 acre-feet of water annually - more than 16 billion gallons - from Snake Valley before the Southern Nevada Water Authority can build the infrastructure to deliver it to metropolitan Clark County.

The Snake Valley aquifer is the smaller of two components of the Water Authority's plan to build a massive pipeline that also would pump ground water from Spring Valley in eastern Nevada to Las Vegas.

Spring Valley could produce 100,000 acre-feet per year for Las Vegas, officials say.

While Utah has no authority over the larger phase of the project, which is situated entirely in Nevada, its action Monday could throw a wrench into the works. Southern Nevada water officials have said that the Snake Valley spur is vital to building the whole project.

The Utah legislation calls for Huntsman to refrain from approving any water-sharing agreement with Nevada until studies by the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Geological Survey are finished. That is not expected to happen until next year.

Ranchers and others have feared that an interstate water agreement would be inked before those federal studies were completed.

The resolution does not mandate that Huntsman nix a pact with Nevada before the studies are complete. The governor has told ranchers he would protect Snake Valley water rights.

Launce Rake, spokesman for the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, a coalition of groups working on similar environmental and economic issues, heralded Monday's vote as significant.

"The Water Authority needs to justify the need to build its pipeline," Rake said. The organization "hopes to see other Utah legislation that will require the Nevada government to answer critically important questions before any scheme to drill and pump the Snake Valley goes forward," he said.

Water Authority spokesman Scott Huntley noted that Southern Nevadans use 18 percent of the state's water yet account for 75 percent of its population. "We use very little water overall, and we are the engine that keeps the entire state going," he said.

The agency does not know how Monday's legislative action will affect the project.

"We certainly hope it does not set it back," he said.

Snake Valley cattle rancher Cecil Garland, an 81-year-old former Las Vegas craps dealer, said Utah's resolution sends a strong message to Nevada's leadership that rural Utah does not have water to spare.

"We've had years of drought and have lost 25 springs in the Snake Valley area," he said. "The unanimous stand by our lawmakers demonstrates that the entire state rejects the concept that Southern Nevada has a right to our water.

"We still have a long battle on our hands," he said.