CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) - Ranchers and conservationists teamed up Friday to blast a plan to pump billions of gallons of water to Las Vegas as a 'boondoggle' that will dry up a large swath of rural Nevada and over time not give the gambling mecca the water it wants.
The critics were among dozens of people -- mostly project opponents -- at public comment sessions in Las Vegas, Carson City, Ely and Caliente on the Southern Nevada Water Authority plan to draw more than 11.3 billion gallons of water yearly from Delamar, Dry Lake and Cave valleys.
Several speakers asked why SNWA wasn't working on more conservation efforts or piping in water from the Pacific Ocean, some 230 miles to the west, to Las Vegas for desalinization rather than what could be diminishing rural Nevada groundwater through a 200-mile-long pipeline.
'I'm thinking, when I go to that kitchen sink to get a drink of water and there isn't any, where do I go?' Arnelda Arnoldus said to applause from others at the Caliente session. 'I really have no other place to go.'
Rick Spilsbury, also in Ely, urged the state's water engineer, Tracy Taylor, to 'trust your conscience. You know this water grab is wrong.' Taylor will have final say on the plan, a key part of SNWA's $2 billion-plus water import project. Critics said the cost could hit $3.5 billion.
From Caliente, longtime Panaca Irrigation Board member James Lee compared the project to a Los Angeles water grab that parched California's once-fertile Owens Valley. He said SNWA was attempting 'one of the biggest frauds that was ever created in the United States.'
Susan Lynn of the Great Basin Water Network urged the state engineer to be cautious in weighing the SNWA request, saying, 'We don't even know how much water is there, and we don't know what's sustainable.'
Among the few project supporters who spoke Friday was Andy Fegley of the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, who said it's important for the entire state that the economy of Las Vegas remain strong. He added that adequate water is vital to maintaining that economy.
Danny Thompson, head of the state AFL-CIO, also backed the plan, saying it's 'absolutely in the public interest to ensure that Nevada's economy is robust and that its workers have jobs.'
'The bottom line is this,' said Thompson. 'Nevada's population is expected to continue to increase. There is unused water in Delamar, Dry Lake and Cave valleys that can and must be used to meet these increased demands.'
The valleys are all in central Lincoln County, which initially opposed the plan but reached an agreement with the water authority that states which groundwater basins can developed. The agreement also allows for use of the pipeline, for a price, by the county.
The agency hopes to begin delivering the rural groundwater to Las Vegas by 2015. Its eventual goal is to tap into enough water in rural Nevada to serve more than 230,000 homes, in addition to about 400,000 households already getting its water.
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