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Snake Valley water hearings won’t happen until late next year

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 16, 2008 at 7:03 am

From the Associated Press & the San Francisco Chronicle:

The main water supplier for Las Vegas, already allowed to pump more than 19 billion gallons of water a year from rural Nevada, pressed Tuesday for a January hearing on its bid for another 16 billion gallons from a valley on the state’s border with Utah. But opponents of the Southern Nevada Water Authority pumping plan for Snake Valley said they need more time to prepare, and asked state Engineer Tracy Taylor for a hearing delay until late 2009.

SNWA’s application for the Snake Valley water is a key element in its efforts to start delivering rural groundwater through a 200-mile-long pipeline network to Las Vegas by 2015.

The authority’s eventual goal is to import enough water to serve more than 230,000 homes, in addition to about 400,000 households already getting its water. Cost of its pipeline project has been estimated at anywhere from $2 billion to $3.5 billion.

Foes of the Snake Valley pumping include many ranchers and farmers who fear the loss of their way of life, environmental and conservation groups, several Indian tribes and White Pine County which encompasses part of the valley. Other opponents include federal agencies such as the National Park Service which has a park near the pumping zone, some local governments in Utah, and the Central Nevada Regional Water authority which represents several outlying Nevada counties.

Read more on this story from the Associated Press by clicking here.

The Las Vegas Sun adds this:

Opponents at a hearing Tuesday argued that they should have at least a year to do additional studies of the groundwater in the rural ranching valley, and to model how pumping the water to Las Vegas would effect the water table and the environment.

They said a $2 million study by the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of Nevada Reno funded by the Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act, which began in April, should be completed before State Engineer Tracy Taylor rules on the pumping plan. The study won’t be completed until fall of 2011, although test wells could begin producing data as soon as spring 2009.

J. Mark Ward ,of the Utah Association of Counties, said that because only a small corner of Snake Valley is in Nevada, Utah’s rural Millard County should also be given time to work with staff from the state’s own Water Resources Division to completely study how much water Snake Valley residents and business on the Utah side are using and what the impacts of pumping on them might be there.

Ward argued the application of the Southern Nevada Water Authority would lower the water table in Snake Valley and degrade the quality of water, affecting existing water rights and threatening springs in the area. He said he also wants to make the argument during hearings – tentatively scheduled for the fall of 2009 - that pumping will degrade the air quality.

And Ward said he wants Taylor to hold a public hearing in Salt Lake City because there is a “lot of interest” in this water case in Utah.

Ward, representing Millard County in Utah, said that state’s Legislature put up $2 million for a study of water available in Snake Valley. He told Taylor, “You don’t have a lot of information about the Utah side.”

The hearings were initially set to be held in January of 2009, but now will be held in the fall of 2009. For the rest of this story from the Las Vegas Sun, click here.

July 16, 2008 · Filed Under Las Vegas

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