Comments about ‘Nevada court delays pipeline, authorities instruct a look elsewhere for water’

Nevada claims that the water in Snake Valley originated in Nevada mountains. That may be true but with that logic one could say that the water in Lake Mead (Colorado River water) originates in the mountains of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, so therefore Nevada, California, and Arizona shouldn't be entitled to that water either.

Scambuster has it right. This is great news. I hope we can be aware of the potential start up of other attempts before it becomes too late to do something about it.

The water authority has countered that it has the right to tap those wells because the water originates in the mountains of Nevada, traveling east to Utah.

However the aquifer that they are taping into is body of water deposited during the last ice age, not last years winter storms, and will not be able to sustain the amount of water that Vegas wants to take.

Guess what Vegas? You can't just keep building in a place with very limited water resources.

Southern Nevada gets 450,000 acre ft/yr and California gets 4.4 mil acre ft/yr. from the Colorado river. Las Vegas residents are not the reason Lake Mead is down 90' from full pool.

So, we are weighing the demands of a valley of 2 million people against a valley of ranchers. Both should do fine with a pipeline. "The SNWA is committed to ensuring the development of these resources does not come at the expense of rural lifestyles or the environment." (SNWA)

So, the ranchers want it ALL for their use, and Vegas wants just enough to not impact the ranchers. Hmmm...

I agree that urban sprawl in the desert is a mistake, but here we are. What do we do now? Maybe we should all move to Utah.

The Deep Creek mountain range is a significant catch all for winter snow, and it is primarily all on the Utah side. I'm sure the moisture from this range also contributes to the aquifer in the west desert. There is no accurate way of determining where the water comes from for this aquifer. As stated above, Vegas, or any Southwest city for that matter, needs to have growth limits to protect our limited water resources out west.

Las Vegas has many tens of thousands of unneeded investor homes. The housing investment ponzi is over, and it seems realistic to assume that Las Vegas will be retracting and diminishing rather than doing any more growth which requires bullying neighboring states to obtain more water for the fountains and pools and golf courses of more investment oriented "housing" developments.

@Marc

This issue is not mainly the ranchers but the impact a lower water table will have on the environment (plants, animals). A lower water table will cause problems and probably will eliminate plant and animal species throughout the Snake Valley, which is fragile enough as it is. So get your facts straight; while you're correct that it's hard to agree with the needs of a few outweighing the needs of the many it's a much more broad argument than that.