Fresh spring water flowed for the first time at the Moapa Paiute Travel Plaza last week. On Friday, November 21, tribal leaders and members gathered at the Plaza for a special dedication ceremony of a new water line servicing the large facility at the Valley of Fire exit of Interstate 15. “This has been a very long time in coming,” said Tribal Council Chairman Philbert Swain. “It is truly a miracle in the desert.”

The Travel Plaza has been operating for two decades without common utility services. Water needed to run the booming facility has had to be

The new water pipeline brings water from a well located three miles away from the Plaza on the east side of I-15. A two-inch pipeline brings the water from the source about 2,000 feet to a 20,000 fiber glass holding tank. A ten-inch main then feeds water from the tank, about 13,000 feet to the Plaza. Constuction crews had to bore under the Union Pacific railroad and the I-15 to finish installing the line. The water then flows into three 15,000 gallon storage tanks on the site. The total cost of the project was just over $1 million.

A prayer of blessing and thanks was given in the Moapa Paiute tongue by tribal elder Juanita Kinlichini.

Then Tribal Council members were each given a chance to say a few words. “This is just the beginning,” said Council member Darren Daboda. “Today we are making progress for not just now, but for well into the future for the tribe.”

Daboda stated that the next big project would be to bring power to the facility. “All of this will be part of the infrastructure for the future economic development of the reservation.”

“Who would have thought twenty years ago when this land was given back to the tribe that we would be here today,” said Council Vice Chairwoman Kami Miller. “We now have water where they said it could never be.”

Moapa resident Chad Leavitt of Eagle View Construction, the contractor that built the pipeline, stated that he had been impressed with the sensitivity to the environment that the project had required. “I grew up in Moapa and so I have always had the understanding of nature being sacred to the Indian peoples,” Leavitt said. “I am happy to say that our work took great pains to minimize the effects to the land, animals and vegetation.”

To conclude the ceremonies, Board members lined up holding a fire hose that had been connected to a shiny new fire hydrant. The valve was turned on and fresh water sprayed out into the dry desert while the crowd cheered.