Groups seek to halt Las Vegas 'water grab'

LAS VEGAS — A coalition including ranchers, farmers and conservationists is turning up the volume on efforts to block a plan to pipe billions of gallons of groundwater a year from the northeast part of Nevada to Las Vegas.

State Engineer Tracy Taylor relied on bad data and flawed reasoning in deciding last July to let the Southern Nevada Water Authority pump some 6.1 billion gallons of water a year from the rural Cave, Dry Lake and Delamar valleys, coalition lawyer Simeon Herskovits said Tuesday.

"We're requesting that the judge reverse the state engineer and instruct the state to go back to do the job correctly — to actually analyze what is and isn't acceptable in terms of impacts and the effect on the environment," Herskovits said.

Herskovits, based in El Prado, N.M., filed a 30-page opening brief March 16 with visiting Nevada state District Court Judge Norman C. Robison, who is hearing a challenge to the water ruling in Pioche.

State water rights hearing officer Susan Joseph-Taylor declined comment on the brief or the lawsuit, which was originally filed Aug. 8 against the state engineer and the Nevada Division of Water Resources, and names the water authority as an affected party.

The state attorney general is expected to file a written reply to the court. Oral arguments aren't set.

Southern Nevada Water Authority spokesman Scott Huntley defended the state engineer's decision as "entirely consistent with prior rulings and all statutory requirements."

Huntley said the ruling came after several weeks of hearings last year during which the water authority provided "substantial information and testimony from biologists, hydrologists and environmental experts."

The lawsuit focuses on one of several water authority plans to draw water from rural areas and pipe it to Las Vegas through a multibillion dollar pipeline stretching more than 250 miles. The more heavily populated southern Nevada region gets almost all its water from the drought-stricken Lake Mead reservoir behind Hoover Dam on the Colorado River.

Plaintiffs Carter-Griffin Inc. and Cave Valley Ranch LLC say that pumping large amounts of water from the Cave, Dry Lake and Delamar valleys would cause long-term harm to the environment and economies of rural Nevada.