Water authority ends pipeline plan
Opponents celebrate victory over ‘Goliath’
The Southern Nevada Water Authority’s board of directors voted Thursday to back out of a controversial plan to pump billions of gallons of water from eastern Nevada to Las Vegas.
The unanimous vote puts an end to decadeslong efforts by the authority to tap into the rural area’s groundwater by ending the state and federal permitting process, including withdrawing the water rights applications.
“Today’s vote is a victory for rural and urban Nevada. Vegas ratepayers will save billions of dollars, and the Great Basin’s aquifers will retain billions of gallons of water,” Great Basin Water Network Executive Director Kyle Roerink said in a statement.
Patrick Donnelly, Nevada state director at the Center for Biological Diversity, called the vote “truly historic,” adding, “Sometimes David beats Goliath.”
The multibillion-dollar plan was first proposed by the authority in 1989 as a backup supply for growing Southern Nevada, which gets 90 percent of its drinking water from the Colorado
River. The authority at one time expected it to supply at least 170,000 homes in Las Vegas after making the 300-mile trip from the Spring, Cave, Dry Lake and Delamar valleys.
Opponents of the roughly $15 billion project, which have included an unlikely alliance of Native Ameri
the box was 18 sticks of ammonium nitrate.”
‘Extensive criminal history’
Further inspection showed four 50-pound bags of ammonium nitrate fuel oil explosives and tools worth at least $1,500 were missing, too. Las Vegas police counterterrorism detectives started a probe, as did investigators with the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Las Vegas police said in the arrest reports that crime scene analysts recovered fingerprints from a fire extinguisher. The fingerprints, when entered into a law enforcement database, were identified as Bautista’s, police said.
“There are no reasons Bautista’s fingerprints would be on the fire extinguisher that detectives believe was used to break open the welding toolbox, other than the purpose of breaking the toolbox,” police said.
Bautista was described in his arrest report as having “an extensive criminal history of violent and property crimes,” including several domestic violence arrests. Further investigation showed “Bautista and Golden have likely known each other for several years and are more than casual associates.”
Detectives obtained recorded phone calls between Bautista and Golden from the Clark County Detention Center, where Bautista was incarcerated previously. Police said the men were heard in one conversation discussing “an abandoned mine 40 miles outside of Alamo.”
Police said they later examined GPS satellite tracking records linked to an electronic device owned by Bautista, and it placed him in the area of the remote Hinton
Mining property on the night of the burglary, police said.
Police said they tracked both men to a home on the 2300 block of Beaver Bay Court, near East Carey Avenue and North Hollywood Boulevard, where a search warrant was executed.
Both men were arrested Saturday, jail records show.
Police recovered the ammonium nitrate fuel oil and the box of “Blastex Charges.” Police said when they interviewed Bautista, he told them that Golden invited him to go off-roading on the night of the burglary and that they went “somewhere in the desert.”
Bautista said at some point he picked up a fire extinguisher in the desert, but he denied breaking into the mining property or stealing the ammonium nitrate, police said.
Detectives asked Golden why he thought he was in custody, and Golden responded, “because of the dynomite.” Golden said on the night of the theft, he and Bautista went off-roading in the area of the Hinton and PABCO facilities, “to the trailers where they keep the ‘dynomite,’” Golden told police.
Police said Golden confessed to taking the Blastex and the bag filled with ammonium nitrate along with Bautista.
“Golden knew the materials in the bag (ANFO) and the box (Blastex Charges) were explosive,” police said in the report. “Golden stated he wanted to take them to make firework.”
The ATF and PABCO did not respond to requests for comment.
Ammonium nitrate was a key component used in the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, which killed 168 people.
Contact Glenn Puit by email at gpuit@reviewjournal.com. Follow @Glennatrj on Twitter.