Pipeline plans

Final pipeline decision not expected for months

Water authority’s pipeline plans headed back to Carson City

For the third time since 2008, Nevada’s top water regulator will convene a hearing in Carson City that could decide the fate of the Southern Nevada Water Authority’s plans to siphon groundwater from four rural valleys in eastern Nevada.

Starting at 8:30 a.m. Monday, State Engineer Jason King is slated to hear two weeks of testimony for and against the controversial, multibillion-dollar project.

The hearing on 25 groundwater applications could decide how much the authority would be allowed to pump from Cave, Dry Lake and Delamar valleys in Lincoln County and Spring Valley in White Pine County.

Water authority spokesman Bronson Mack called it “a significant stage in the permitting process.”

Simeon Herskovits, attorney for some opponents of the project, put it another way: “I guess you could say everything is at stake,” he said.

Just don’t expect a ruling anytime soon.

“It will be months,” said Susan Joseph-Taylor, deputy administrator for the Nevada Division of Water Resources. “These things take a while to put together. They’re complicated.”

Water not yet needed

Since 1989, Las Vegas water officials have been pushing plans to tap groundwater up to 300 miles away as a backup supply for a growing communi-

ty that gets 90 percent of its drinking water from the overdrawn and drought-stricken Colorado River.

The idea has drawn fierce opposition in Nevada and Utah from rural residents, ranchers, American Indian tribes, conservationists, outdoor enthusiasts and even the Mormon Church, which operates a large cattle ranch in Spring Valley. Critics argue the project will drain a large swath of arid eastern Nevada, destroying the landscape and the livelihoods of those who depend on it — all while producing too little water to justify the project’s roughly $15 billion price tag.

The authority is counting on the network of wells and pipelines to supply enough water for at least 170,000 homes, though the agency does not expect to need the water for at least 15 to 20 years.

Almost three-quarters of the groundwater for the project is expected to come from Spring Valley.

Authority officials have spent tens of millions of dollars on permitting

and prep work for the pipeline. At the moment, they have little to show for it.

In 2012, King granted the authority permission to pump up to 84,000 acre-feet a year from the four valleys,

Elizabeth Brumley Las Vegas Review-Journal Ranch and resource manager Bernard Petersen, left, and water quality and water resource public information officer Bronson Mack at the box screen of an irrigation line on Aug. 7 at Great Basin Ranch in Spring Valley.

Elizabeth Brumley Las Vegas Review-Journal Great Basin Ranch in Spring Valley, the farthest north of the areas from which the Southern Nevada Water Authority hopes to siphon groundwater as part of a multibillion-dollar project.