Nevada, Utah Skirmish Over Aquifer

By John Yewell, 4-07-05

When Mark Twain said "Whiskey’s for drinkin’ water’s for fightin’ over," he had Nevada in mind. So it’s not surprising that folks in the two driest states in the country, Utah and Nevada, get nervous when one of them starts talking about "developing" groundwater common to both.

But that’s the case now, as Clark County, Nevada (home to Las Vegas) officials propose to tap water from a giant aquifer that stretches for hundreds of square miles under eastern Nevada and western Utah.

The proposal also pits rural Nevadans against their urban counterparts in the fastest growing metropolis in the country. Pat Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, is going to great pains to reassure everyone that this is not an Owens Valley-style water grab -- both states have to sigh off on any arrangement -- but not everyone’s molified.

"The folks in southern Nevada say that it's not going to affect this area, based upon the [groundwater] recharge," Don Duff, president of the Utah Council of Trout Unlimited, and a retired aquatic ecologist, is quoted saying in The Salt Lake Tribune. "But nobody knows what the recharge level really is. I don't think they have the science to make those decisions."

Two studies are now underway to try to answer that question. [End of article]