Nevada water chief rejects big Vegas pipeline pumping plan

LAS VEGAS» Long-fought plans for Las Vegas to pump and pipe drinking water from arid valleys just west of the Utah state line were dealt a severe blow with a ruling from Nevada’s top state water official.

State Engineer Jason King denied groundwater rights to the Las Vegas-based Southern Nevada Water Authority in vast rural tracts in Lincoln and White Pine counties, even though applications had been approved three times since 2007.

However, King also said Friday he will appeal a state judge’s order that forced him to hold do-over hearings last year that put him in a position “to upend the historical application of Nevada water law and water rights.”

The water authority also promised an appeal with a statement lamenting the “difficulty” King faced complying with what it called District Judge Robert Estes’ “contradictory” instructions.

“Southern Nevada, which is home to 73 percent of the population in the state, uses less than 5 percent of the state’s total available water supply,” the statement said. “There is water available in these basins for appropriation, but the state engineer is prevented from doing so by the scope of (Estes’) instructions, which impose unprecedented requirements into the science of water appropriation in Nevada.”

Estes — from the White Pine County seat of Ely — had rejected as “arbitrary and capricious” King’s approval in March 2012 of the pumping plan.

The judge ordered the state engineer to recalculate if there really was enough water underground to supply the 250-mile pipeline with enough water to serve more than 165,000 homes.