Agencies drop protest of water plan

Four federal agencies have withdrawn their protests concerning a groundwater pumping project in Nevada. They say an agreement announced Monday with the Southern Nevada Water Authority should protect the environment from the Spring Valley Project.

Spring Valley is entirely within Nevada. But the agreement is seen by the parties as a template for resolving conflicts about a larger groundwater pumping scheme, the Clark, Lincoln and White Pipe Counties Groundwater Development Project.

Another part of the overall plan is Snake Valley, which overlaps the Utah-Nevada boundary.

The Spring Valley Project would pump up to 91,000 acre-feet of water yearly to Las Vegas. Snake Valley could provide as much as 25,000 acre-feet. Five other valleys would also contribute.

The Snake Valley section has drawn the most objections from Utah environmentalists and ranchers worried that Las Vegas is intent on raiding the state's water. They fear that the water table will drop, damaging natural areas and ranches.

But Spring Valley, in White Pine, Nev., also impacts Utahns.

• The Cleveland-Rogers Ranch of about 4,000 acres, operated by the Corporation of the Presiding Bishop of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and part of the church's Welfare Services Department, is located in Spring Valley. The ranch provides assistance to the poor in the form of crops and raising cattle.

In August, lawyer Bruce Findlay sent a letter on behalf of the Presiding Bishop of the LDS Church to Tracy Taylor, the Nevada state engineer, expressing concern about the potential effect on water rights. The letter urged the engineer to hold off deciding whether to approve the project until a U.S. Geological Survey study about groundwater is completed. That is scheduled for late 2007.

J.C. Davis, spokesman for the Southern Nevada Water Authority, said the church had no direct involvement in any of the negotiations leading to the new agreement, "but they are a beneficiary of this agreement."

The agreement was reached after six months of negotiation, according to the Interior Department.

A monitoring network will allow church officials and any other interested parties to check how the aquifer responds to pumping, Davis said.

• Some of Spring Valley's water flows into Snake Valley, which has an aquifer shared by the two states.

• The agreement may pave the way for the federal government to withdraw objections it might have concerning the Snake Valley Project.

"I believe the general feeling among the parties was that this agreement can perhaps serve as a model" in reviewing the status of other valleys in the pumping plan, said Frank Quimby, an Interior Department spokesman in Washington, D.C.