Southern Nevada Water Authority’s appeal of pipeline rejection denied
CARSON CITY — The Southern Nevada Water Authority’s plans for a controversial eastern Nevada pipeline project have come up dry once again.
A judge on Tuesday upheld a 2018 ruling from the former state engineer that blocked the water authority’s plans to pump billions of gallons of groundwater from four rural valleys in White Pine and Lincoln counties.
In the decision, Senior District Court Judge Robert Estes also went a step further and overturned older rulings from the state engineer that previously granted the water authority the right to pump water out of Spring, Cave, Dry Lake and Delamar valleys.
The engineer’s decision to award those water rights in Spring Valley was inconsistent with state water law, “inconsistent with the state engineer’s long held rules of water appropriation, and is arbitrary and capricious,” Estes wrote.
The ruling echoed one made by Estes in 2013 during a prior legal challenge to the pipeline. But rather than nullifying the prior water permits, Estes at the time ordered the state engineer to recalculate and reduce the water allotments from those valleys.
Depletion of aquifer seen
The allotments in Spring Valley, where most pumping would occur, would prevent the groundwater basin from ever reaching equilibrium and result in the eventual depletion of the aquifer, Estes wrote. That so-called water mining is inconsistent with state water law, Estes wrote, “inconsistent with the state engineer’s long held rules of water appropriation, and is arbitrary and capricious.”
Estes also ruled that there was “little or no water available” in the three other valleys where permits were sought, and that any new water taken out would result in “oppressive” double appropriation and would conflict with water rights further down the water system.
Longtime opponents of the project hailed Estes’ decision as a victory, calling Estes’ ruling “the death knell” for the pipeline project.
“Judge Estes saw clearly through the various subterfuges and false reasoning advanced by both SNWA and the state engineer, and he systematically ruled against them on every significant point in contention,” said Simeon Herskovits, an attorney who represents several pipeline opponents and argued in front of Estes in Ely last November. “In our view, the rigor and care in Judge Estes’s ruling makes it highly unlikely that any part of this ruling would be subject to reversal on appeal.”
In a statement, the water authority said that the pipeline project, the plans of which originated more than 30 years ago, is a nonfactor in its planning for the near future.
Water not needed for 30 years
“Since these groundwater applications were filed more than 30 years ago, Southern Nevada has emerged as a world leader in urban water conservation. Through SNWA’s proactive water resource management and the community’s achievements in water efficiency, there is no scenario in our Water Resource Plan where this project would be needed within the next 30 years,” the authority’s statement said.
Southern Nevada officials have pushed for plans to pipe water 300 miles from rural Nevada to Las Vegas since 1989. The authority says the pipeline, with a price tag of roughly $15 billion, would supply water for some 170,000 new homes.
In 2010, the state Supreme Court struck down two previous rulings that gave the water authority to pump almost 79,000 acre-feet a year from the same four valleys. In that ruling, the high court directed the state engineer to hold new hearings on the authority’s groundwater applications, which happened in 2011.
The state engineer again approved the authority’s plans. But after another appeal, Estes ordered the state engineer to recalculate whether or not there was enough water available in the eastern valleys’ groundwater basins to match the proposed supply demands, which eventually led to the state engineer grudgingly rejecting the proposal last year.
That water authority said that moving forward, it “will evaluate its Water Resource Plan, which is done annually, to continue ensuring reliable water supplies to meet current and future water demands for decades to come.”
Contact Capital Bureau Chief Colton Lochhead at clochhead@reviewjournal.com. Follow @ColtonLochhead on Twitter.
