Church concerned over water plan

A controversial project to pump groundwater in Nevada should not be approved until a U.S. Geological Survey study is completed, says a letter from the Corporation of the Presiding Bishop of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

The proposed project would use underground water resources in Spring Valley, White Pine County, Nev., where the church operates a ranch. It is part of the Southern Nevada Water Authority's larger "Clark, Lincoln and White Pine Counties Groundwater Development Project," which would pump and pipe about 200,000 acre-feet of water per year from seven hydrologic basins, including Spring Valley, with most going to the Las Vegas area.

Another piece of the project is in Snake Valley, which straddles the Utah border. Some Utah officials, ranchers and environmentalists have expressed concern about the Snake Valley proposal because it would use an underground aquifer that affects both states.

Water needed by Utah ranchers and the environment could be taken by the Snake Valley project, say the project's critics.

The Aug. 4 letter sent by lawyer Bruce Findlay on behalf of the Corporation of the Presiding Bishop of the LDS Church, to Tracy Taylor, Nevada's state engineer, notes that the water district filed applications to appropriate public waters near the Cleveland-Rogers Ranch, about 4,000 acres. The ranch is part of the church's Welfare Services Department, "which provides assistance to the poor through growing crops and raising cattle that are used to provide food for the needy."

The corporation owns surface and groundwater rights in the Spring Valley area for watering about 1,500 cows and calves.

The church doesn't object to the authority's proposed development as long as the Nevada state engineer shows a reasonable likelihood that there is enough unappropriated water available for it.

But the church "desires to express concern about the impact that the pending applications will have . . . if the sources proposed for development will draw upon sources that are already appropriated," Findlay wrote.

"We understand that many of the waters of the state of Nevada have been fully appropriated," the letter states.

According to a USGS Web site, a law that Congress passed in 2004, the Lincoln County Land Act, required the agency to study water quantity and quality in White Pine and Lincoln counties, Nev., "and adjacent areas in Utah." The studies, which will involve Nevada and Utah water experts, are to be finished in late 2007.