By VERNON ROBISON
Moapa Valley Progress
It was a veritable ‘Who’s Who’ of all the important figures in the realm of water in southern Nevada last week at a meeting held in the Overton Community Center.
Nevada State Engineer Jason King brought no less than a half-dozen staffers from the State Division of Water Resources who sat at the head table during the meeting held Tuesday, July 24.
More than 100 stakeholders from across the region filed into the Community Center meeting room for the 9:00 am start. Most were associated in some way with water rights holders in the vast, multi-basin area known as the Lower White River Flow System (LWRFS) which includes Moapa Valley, Hidden Valley, Coyote Springs, Garnet Valley, Black Mountains area and the California Wash.
King began by explaining the purpose of the meeting: a concern that the LWRFS may be over-allocated in its water rights. Currently there are more than 40,000 acre feet annually (afa) committed in groundwater rights in the system, King said. Yet when a 2-year test pump of just 10,200 afa was completed in 2012 to determine the effects of taking so much water from the system, it caused an “unprecedented decline” in both the spring flows at Muddy River headwaters at Warm Springs and a general decline in ground water levels.
An acre foot of water is considered roughly enough to supply the needs of one Moapa Valley residential household for a year.
“What we learned through the test pump was that it is critical that a management strategy be implemented for the LWRFS,” King said.
Just what exactly the details of that strategy should be is yet unclear, King said. But he suggested that it might be best resolved by all of the interested parties working together.
If it is left up to the State Engineer’s office to resolve the problem, the management tools to do so are, by statute, quite limited, King said.
“If it is our office solving the problem, the statute leaves us only scorched earth techniques to do it,” King said. “To put it bluntly, it is the curtailment of rights. And we don’t really want to do that.”
King explained that there were only a couple of tenets set forth in the state law for managing water allocations.
The first is the obligation to serve the most senior water rights in time; even if at the detriment of the more junior rights-holders. In this case the cutoff date of over-appropriated rights would fall on any water rights generated after a period of between 1981 and 1983, King said. All rights issued after that time would be subject to being curtailed, he said. This would include rights held by the masterplanned community owned by Coyote Springs Investments (CSI).
The most senior rights are held by the Muddy Valley Irrigation Company, nearly half of whose water shares are held by regional water purveyor Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA). Other senior rights holders are NV Energy and the LDS Church.
But the second tenet has to do with putting water rights to “beneficial use.” Even the senior right-holders have to show that the water is being used. If not, those rights could be forfeit and transferred to an entity that will put the water to use, King said.
Rather then being limited to these rather harsh tenets, King proposed that a better solution would be a cooperative agreement reached by the various entities.
“The reason we called this meeting was to try and avoid a train wreck,” King said. “We know it is coming. So we are starting the process of working together and cooperatively come up with a solution.”
By the end of the meeting, King had established a tight timeframe for quick action on the issue. Within 30 days, he proposed convening a Hydrologic Review Team (HRT) that would analyze the data from the 2012 test pump. Stakeholders wishing to participate in that HRT could submit a notion of interest to the State Engineer’s office, he said. By late September, the work of the HRT would conclude and all interested parties would gather again to discuss options. Finally another public meeting would be held by late October to conclude the process.
Many stakeholders in attendance at Tuesday’s meeting welcomed the collaborative process being proposed and applauded the efforts of the State Engineer and his staff.
Muddy Valley Irrigation Company President Todd Robison of Logandale said that he was pleased that King is placing such emphasis on the senior right-holders of the system. Even the location of the meeting testified to that commitment, Robison said.
“Holding this meeting in Overton, the home territory of the Muddy River, sends a clear signal to everyone that we are not messing with the senior rights holders,” Robison said. “I think that he has made that completely clear in what he said here today too.”
Moapa Valley Water District (MVWD) General Manager Joe Davis called the meeting “very productive” and welcomed the state engineer’s efforts to bring all of the parties together in protecting the groundwater resources in the region.
“I think that it is good that all of the other entities are brought in to get a discussion started,” Davis said.
Though the main production well for MVWD, at Arrow Canyon, was certificated well after the 1981-83 cutoff date, Davis said that the district has good standing in the conversation.
That is because of something that the district gave up in a complex water agreement forged back in 2006 between MVWD and numerous other parties including SNWA, CSI, the Moapa Band of Paiutes, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and more.
In that agreement, MVWD pledged to stop diverting water from its Jones Springs resource; a right which is decades senior to the 1981-83 cutoff dates; and instead allow that water to flow through the Warm Springs habitat which is home to the federally-endangered Moapa dace, a finger-sized fish living only in the headwaters of the Muddy River.
In return for that concession, CSI and SNWA agreed to be the ones to curtail pumping water from the system if the spring levels ever reached certain established triggers.
“In that agreement, the district is the only entity that doesn’t take a cut because of Jones Springs,” Davis said. “The other entities know that we gave up that senior resource for the greater good of all the entities involved. I think that puts us in a good spot.”
Representing the Moapa Band of Paiutes (MBOP), Richard Burley praised the state engineer for adhering to the 2006 agreement.
“The tribe had concerns on how you would view the 2006 agreement,” Burley said. “We are pleased that you are not just jettisoning it altogether.”
Local landowner and water rights holder, Robert Lewis of Moapa also had praise for the direction being taken by King. “Many of us have minority interests and we rely on you to make sure that the Muddy River stream remains constant and doesn’t diminish,” Lewis said. “It is part of our heritage and legacy. I can understand why others want to take water from it. But please don’t let them do it.”
There were also concerns expressed by junior rights holders who may have the most to lose in the process. The Coyote Springs project, which recently was ready to file subdivision maps for approval, was virtually put on hold by the state engineer because of the apparent lack of water resources in the system.
In response, the company filed suit in district court in Las Vegas to overturn the decision.
“We are concerned about an elongated process that may have negative impact on our property and its development,” said CSI chief operating officer Emilia Cargill in a written statement she read in the meeting. “CSI objects to the imposition of any restrictions on the use of its water and asks that all decisions of the state engineer be transparent and motivated only by science.”
Speaking for the Apex Industrial Park, Golden Welch called into question the timing of the state engineer’s action. He pointed out that the test pump had been completed in 2012. Then special legislation to approve the huge Farraday Future project took place in 2015 involving the transfer of 1700 afa from Coyote Springs to North Las Vegas for use at Apex.
“I’m highly interested in knowing what would have happened if Farraday had actually gone forward,” Welch said. “It just seems like the timing of this notice, and the emergency nature of the supervision should have been addressed after the studies were completed back in 2013.”
In response, King said that even now the 1700 afa is available in the system. “I don’t know yet where it is coming from, but it is there and can support a project,” King said. “There is that much water there. So as we talk about future options and it looks like there is going to be a conflict, we will have to look at other solutions.”
