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StumbleWater lawsuit claims ruling will hurt development efforts
Wednesday, July 22, 2009 | 12:38 p.m.
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Lincoln County's water district and its partner in water resource development, Vidler Water Co., charge in a new lawsuit that the state engineer's office was biased against them with a ruling potentially thwarting their development plans for desert land north of Mesquite.
In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court Tuesday, the water district north of Las Vegas and the company complain that State Engineer Tracy Taylor and Acting State Engineer Jason King violated their constitutional rights to due process with an April ruling.
Taylor, who runs the state Division of Water Resources, said Wednesday he couldn't comment on the specifics of the litigation.
"But I do support what our office has done in these cases," he said.
The state engineer's office in the April ruling granted the county and Vidler another 396 acre feet of water annually from the Tule Desert some 30 miles northwest of Mesquite.
Combined with 2,100 acre feet already granted, the state has now allocated to Lincoln County and Vidler far less than the 14,480 acre feet they sought from the Tule Desert in applications dating to 1998.
In the April ruling, the state engineer's office noted scientific uncertainties about how much water flows underground through the desert. The office noted it can't allow excessive pumping of groundwater that would degrade the environment and hurt other water users.
In their lawsuit, Lincoln County and Vidler complained they had spent $13.4 million drilling test wells and studying the hydrology of the area -- but that much of their data was not fairly considered by the engineer's office.
The applicants complained that personnel changes in the engineer's office have prejudiced them.
For instance, the engineer in a previous ruling retired; and Taylor took medical leave and his duties for a time were taken over by King, the suit said. In addition, new technical staff have been involved in the cases and one staff member previously precluded from involvement because of a conflict of interest nevertheless has been involved recently, the suit charges.
During meetings in 2007 and 2008, the suit says, staff of the engineer's office said the previous engineer had awarded the applicants too much water. The engineer's office now believes groundwater doesn't flow through the Tule Desert, according to the suit.
"These comments and similar comments directed toward Lincoln/Vidler evidence a pattern of bad faith, bias and predisposition of State Engineer Taylor, Acting State Engineer King and other staff toward Lincoln/Vidler, and a gross abuse of governmental authority," the suit charges.
The engineer's office also is accused of basing its rulings on nonpublic calculations of water flow -- information that should be made public, the suit charges.
"Acting State Engineer King disregarded the uncontroverted, scientific evidence Lincoln/Vidler developed and presented, arbitrarily and irrationally determined perennial (water) yield for the Tule Desert Groundwater Basin ... and demonstrated bad faith, bias and predisposition in his dealings with Lincoln/Vidler, all of which constitute a gross abuse of governmental authority and deprived Lincoln/Vidler of their vested rights without due process of law," the suit charges.
Wade Poulsen, manager of the Lincoln County Water District, said in an interview Wednesday that the water allocated from the Tule Desert so far is inadequate for long-term development of 13,300 acres north of Mesquite auctioned off by the federal government in 2005.
"Twenty-five hundred acre-feet is not going to cut it," Poulsen said.
He said that development of the land has been stalled by the recession, but that over several decades the area could include commercial projects and some 44,000 homes.
"We do need more water," he said.
Poulsen said some of the water is needed for Sithe Global Power LLC's planned Toquop Energy Project, a coal-fired power plant proposed for a site northwest of Mesquite.
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"We do need more water"
. . . don't we all . . .
Just because a ruling might "thwart" development plans doesn't mean it was illegal. Limiting development might be intended, legal, and a wise move.
According to Wikipedia, Lincoln County has 4,165 residents. They are planning on 44,000 homes? Crazy talk. I guess they don't like being a fly on the a$$ of America, but I doubt they are going to grow that fast.
Take the water from the coal plant. NV Energy is has already stopped plans for their 2 proposed coal plants. At least those plants would have been used to power Nevada. Sithe plans to sell its power to the highest bidder--which will not likely be Nevada. That means we lose out on the water, gain tons of additional pollution, and see the profits leave the state.
At some point, water will run out since it's a limited resource. What will Lincoln County and others do then? Is it only the limit of the resource that will determine their growth or can they make reasonable decisions before then on what growth is really appropriate? Building the Toquop coal plant to satisfy their short-term desire for jobs now may mean they grow more than is reasonable for their sustainable future not to mention putting problems off on others like the citizens in Mesquite who will have to deal with the coal plant emissions.