District Court to hear Las Vegas pipeline appeals this week

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Julie Jacobson / AP

This March 23, 2012, file photo shows pipes extending into Lake Mead well above the high water mark near Boulder City.

Mon, Nov 11, 2019 (9 p.m.)

A 30-year-old proposal from the Southern Nevada Water Authority to pump groundwater from rural Eastern Nevada to Las Vegas is returning to the courts this week.

Devised in 1989, the water authority's pipeline proposal calls for the construction of a series of buried pipelines that would collect groundwater in Eastern Nevada for consumption in Las Vegas. Court rulings and challenges from affected parties have stalled the controversial project for years.

The 7th Judicial District Court in Ely will hear appeals today and Wednesday from the Nevada State Engineer and the water authority, as well as from project opponents, including tribal groups, rural counties and the environmental organization Great Basin Water Network. At issue is a complex August 2018 ruling from the state engineer that denied the water authority's pipeline applications in four valleys in White Pine, Lincoln and rural Clark counties.

In issuing his ruling last year, former Nevada state engineer Jason King said he was forced to deny the applications in order to comply with a 2013 7th Judicial District Court ruling on the project, which King described as flawed and inconsistent with Nevada water law. King immediately vowed to challenge his own ruling, according to a release from the Nevada Division of Water Resources.

"In an effort to protect the integrity of Nevada's water laws, the NDWR intends to appeal sections of the mandated instructions that threaten to upend the historical application of Nevada water law and water rights," King said in a statement last August.

This week, acting state engineer Tim Wilson will follow through on his predecessor's promise, requesting that Senior District Judge Robert Estes revisit his 2013 ruling that purportedly forced the state to reject the water authority's applications.

For its part, the water authority will ask Estes to overturn the state engineer's decision to reject groundwater pumping applications in Spring Valley, Delamar Valley, Cave Valley and Dry Lake Valley. Opponents of the pipeline project, meanwhile, will ask the court to challenge the water authority's proposed mitigation plans for the project.

Officially known as the Groundwater Development Project, the goal of the pipeline proposal is to enhance water resources in the Las Vegas area, in which nearly 75% of the state's population resides.

Las Vegas receives approximately 90% of its water from Lake Mead, where water levels have declined over the last several decades, said agency spokesperson Bronson Mack. Obtaining permits for groundwater in Spring Valley, Delamar Valley, Cave Valley and Dry Lake Valley would secure sufficient water resources for years to come.

If granted access to groundwater in those valleys, the water authority would only be using 6% of the state's available water resources, according to Mack.

"This is a fact that can't be overlooked," Mack wrote in an email. "Southern Nevada's relatively modest investment in water resources generates economic returns for statewide benefits."

But opponents of the multibillion-dollar pipeline project say it would be unprecedented in the country and could have long-lasting ecological effects in Eastern Nevada, including in Great Basin National Park. The Ely Shoshone and the Confederated Tribes of the Goshute Reservation are concerned about impacts to spiritual and cultural resources on tribal land as well.

Opponents say that the water authority's monitoring, management and mitigation (3M) plans fail to demonstrate that the project would not conflict with existing water users and would not harm the environment or the public interest. They also say the 3M plans do not consider potential air quality impacts that could occur if the project increased dust emissions in Eastern Nevada and Western Utah by lowering the water table, among other deficiencies.

"We think there are considerable data points that are lacking as it relates to what their responsibilities would be under a 3M plan," said Kyle Roerink, executive director of Great Basin Water Network.

The water authority counters that the 3M plan provides "adequate protections" in its opening brief. Spring Valley's groundwater remains unappropriated by other users and groundwater pumping in the other three valleys would not conflict with existing water rights, the water authority argues.

"The 3M plans included significant monitoring programs, triggers, thresholds and objective standards for when action must be taken to avoid or eliminate conflicts with existing water rights and unreasonable adverse effects to environmental resources," writes the agency.

Nonetheless, Rupert Steele, chairman of the Confederated Tribes of the Goshute Reservation, said the plan would reduce groundwater levels in an area known as Swamp Cedars, harming plant and animal life. That area was the site of a Native American massacre and is sacred to the Goshute, whose reservation is located in White Pine County and parts of western Utah, Steele said.

"Whenever I go down there, it hits me hard in a spiritual way," Steele said. "If the trees are gone, it takes away our identity. It hits us hard as Indian people."

Another local Native American tribe opposing the proposal is the Duckwater Shoshone. The tribe's reservation in Nye County would not be directly impacted, but the Duckwater says the project threatens lands under the scope of the Shoshone Nation and runs counter to their value system of environmental stewardship.

Duckwater Shoshone members also worry that the project could create a precedent for future groundwater transfers from rural to urban areas.

"Who's to say that we're not next? It's important for us to be proactive," said Jeni Dick, administrative secretary for the Duckwater Shoshone.

The water authority respects the tribes' perspectives and concerns but maintains that they have been addressed through the 3M plans and an earlier environmental impact statement, Mack wrote in an email.

"(The) tribes do not have any water rights in any of the project basins. There are cultural resources that we generally do not feel will be impacted by the project," Mack wrote.

Regardless of what the court rules this week, Roerink says the fight over the pipeline project is likely to continue.

"No matter what happens, I think it's inevitable that this is going to the (Nevada) Supreme Court," Roerink said.

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