Vol. 2, No. 21
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September 1, 2005
Nevada's Online State News Journal
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CRIMINAL DEFENSE |
COPYWRITING
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Special Feature Story:
Water Wars, Woes A Statewide Problem; Understanding Rules Confusing At Best
Meetings Going On As State Engineer Attempts To Explain Water Law
by Johnny Gunn
This old earth of ours is two-thirds covered in water and yet there are many places, as in Nevada, where water is either in short supply or non-existent. Population centers are often located hundreds if not thousands of miles from water sources, while areas with abundant water are often under populated. For hundreds of years the answer has been, transfer the abundant to those that need.
Other problems with water supply and distribution are often created by lawmakers only thinking of themselves, or worse, being paid to think of someone else. The human animal might be able to go for a week or two without food, but water is another story and many astute business people are beginning to take notice of that. Water as a commodity is as valuable as gold and many companies today, companies such as Vidler Water Company, recognize that and are creating water-based empires of commerce.
Confusing the issue is the fact there is no federal water law. Water distribution and water rights ownership is a state's rights issue entirely. Nevada State Engineer Hugh Ricci, water boss in the Silver State, pointed out one area in particular during a meeting recently in Eureka. Just because a person owns a piece of property in Nevada doesn't give them the water rights. Someone else can own the water rights on your property in Nevada.
"This isn't so in California," Ricci said. He went on to say that people moving to Nevada aren't aware of this difference, and there has been confusion over the point. Ricci also hosted a meeting in Dayton to discuss Lyon County water issues. That meeting took place August 30. One of the topics was the transition of agricultural water rights to municipal use in Nevada.
Farmers and ranchers in the west are becoming more aware of just how valuable their water rights are and with agriculture as a business becoming more and more difficult and expensive, many farmers and ranchers are selling off acreage and water rights. One problem that Ricci and others familiar with water have pointed out is that agricultural water often finds its way back into the ground water system. Municipal water rarely does.
When a rancher in area A sells water rights to a distribution company that in turn sells the water to a municipal entity in area B, several hundred miles away, the ground water system is depleted with no recharge from pumped use. Ricci is calling for a change in the rules.
He wants agricultural water to be transferred much differently. Currently if rancher A sells one acre foot of water to be used for municipal purposes, that entity would receive one acre foot. Because there is almost no recharge of the ground water system, Ricci is proposing that the municipal entity will only receive two-thirds of an acre-foot but the rancher will give up one foot of water rights.
Meetings around the state have been sponsored in part by the Nevada Water Resources Association (NWRA), a non-profit group that works with Ricci, the public, and water distributors. For more on the organization, go to http://www.nwra.org. The group is broken into four districts based on geography; southern, central, eastern, western.
NWRA will also-cosponsor a two day symposium called "Integrating Policy and Science along the Truckee River" on October 4 and 5. Others taking part in the program are the Desert Research Institute and Nevada Water Environment Association.
One objective of this program is to provide all groups who work on the river an opportunity to gain a comprehensive understanding of what their colleagues are doing, according to the NWRA website. The meetings will take place at the Desert Research Institute in Reno.
There have been plans in the works for years in northern Nevada to pipe water from Honey Lake in nearby California to the valley residential communities north of Reno. Lawsuits by the ton have taken place, and it's possible those will continue. Vidler Water -- their headquarters are in Carson City and they have distribution plans throughout the state -- holds water rights on a 10,000 acre alfalfa ranch near Honey Lake and plans to use that agricultural water in the pipeline to Reno.
It sounds at first glance that they will be limited to just two-thirds of their water rights, but this may not be the case since the water originates in California. The question may have to be answered in federal court, and that is where much of today's water law should be answered. Either in Congress, or in Federal Court.
For instance, does Nevada water law apply to Tribal Land? Ricci say the state feels the answer is yes, but the tribes say no. There hasn't been any court action yet.
The southern Nevada town of Pahrump is facing a problem with interstate underground water as well. A planned community in eastern California called Charleston View will need water for 50,000 to 60,000 homes. Pahrump, with a population of some 33,000, fears the ground water will be drawn down so far that they will not have any.
Aquifers have no knowledge of state borders and interstate compacts are rarely drawn up in advance of a problem. Will Reno's sucking dry a California aquifer have an affect on nearby California communities? Will Charleston View sucking dry a Nevada aquifer have an affect on nearby Nevada communities? The answer to both questions of course is an emphatic yes. The respective Nevada and California state officials must obey the rules of their particular state since there aren't any corresponding federal rules that might answer such questions.
Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) plans to pipe water from White Pine and Lincoln Counties to parched Clark County, but environmentalists and ranchers in Utah say such a plan would deplete their ground water. Watch for all of these issues to go to federal court soon, as well. The White Pine and Lincoln Counties water rights are mostly held by Vidler Water Company.
In the Eureka meeting, Ricci said when dealing with water right applications, the appropriation cannot threaten to prove detrimental to public interest. But would that include public interest in another state?
A group of local county governments has been formed to keep track of water issues in their areas of concern. Called the Central Nevada Regional Water Authority, the organization is made up of leaders from Elko, Esmeralda, Eureka, Lander, Nye, and White Pine Counties and "is a separate legal entity that will exercise power, privilege, and authority in common under Nevada Revised Statute 277."
According to their mission statement, "The Authority is to prepare communities in central and eastern Nevada for sound water-resource decisions that promote prosperous economies and strong civic institutions in a healthy natural environment."
Water laws are confusing to most people, and generally those who use water such as agricultural interests, land developers, even municipal and area-wide distributors of the commodity work overtime to keep it that way. If one turns on the tap and fresh water comes out, that's all most of us need to know. Because of that, most of us will be paying a premium for our water in the next few years.
More and more water distribution and ownership is coming under the control of fewer and fewer concerns. Sounds like oil, doesn't it. In Nevada just one company, Vidler Water Company owns most of the water rights, in particular those water rights that are most likely to be distributed by the major civic entities, SNWA and Truckee Meadows Water Authority (TMWA). By law Vidler or any other owner of water rights cannot sell to individuals, but is allowed to sell to political entities. SNWA and TMWA and other water authorities are government entities. They exist on taxes and they buy the water they distribute from companies like Vidler.
The smaller counties, those with the least amount of resources to fight back will lose water rights, the larger counties with untold resources will provide water for more and more development.
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