A $6 million federal study shows that a water-development plan in Nevada will adversely impact water users in Utah.

However, the U.S. Geological Survey research area was not large enough to adequately resolve the political questions of Nevada's controversial plan, said Kimball Goddard, director of the USGS Nevada Water Science Center.

If Nevada proceeds with a plan to pump water to Las Vegas from about 10 regions of east-central Nevada, water tables would drop below Spring Valley, just west of the Utah border, and in adjacent Snake Valley, which extends into Utah's Millard County. Agricultural water users in Snake Valley and water officials in Utah have long agreed that is the case. In question is the extent of the impact.

The groundwater decrease in Spring and Snake valleys could take years, even centuries, Goddard said. Terry Marasco, who owns the Silver Jack Inn in Baker, Nev., said the water table doesn't have to drop much before vegetation is adversely impacted, drying up habitat for deer herds that attract hunters, who account for 10 percent of his motel business.

"If the water drops, how much longer before farmers have to drill deeper wells, and at what cost?" Marasco questioned.

Millard County Commissioner John Cooper said the USGS findings strengthen his opposition to any pumping in the study areas of Nevada. "If (the water table) is impugned even a little bit, we're impacted adversely."

"The financial impacts need a model that hasn't been created yet," Goddard said following a Monday presentation on the USGS study's findings, which will soon be open to public review. A final draft report is expected in July.

Snake Valley is at the eastern edge of the USGS's study area. "It indicates there is more water moving between aquifers than we previously thought," said Boyd Clayton, assistant Utah state engineer. "I think we will look very closely at what the inter-basin flow implications might be."

Goddard suggested a supplemental study encompassing a larger area, from southern Idaho to Death Valley, is needed to address questions about the amount of water that is available for development without adversely affecting nature's ability to recharge the underground water supply.

Clayton agrees. "I believe our position has always been that the waters of that valley — some of it belongs to us and some of it belongs to Nevada. We've developed some of that, and they've developed some of theirs. I don't think we're willing to say, either of us, we can't develop any more."

Goddard said state engineers from Nevada and Utah, not the federal government, will ultimately decide what water-development permits will be issued in their states. Clayton said those developments are subject to ongoing negotiation between the two states. "I think we're both trying to move ahead as best as we can."

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