MVWD Officials Worried By Draft State Water Order

By VERNON ROBISON

Moapa Valley Progress

A draft order released late last month by the Nevada State Engineer’s office has Moapa Valley Water District (MVWD) officials concerned about the future availability of important local water resources which have long supplied Moapa Valley homes.

The draft order, released September 19, places a tight limit on ground water pumping for a vast region known as the Lower White River Flow System (LWRFS). What’s more, it gives sole priority to senior rights holders; many of whom have never used their water; at the expense of municipal entities like MVWD who have put certificated junior rights to beneficial use for decades in developing an existing community.

“It doesn’t make a lot of sense,” said MVWD General Manager Joe Davis in an interview with the Progress last week. “Why would you pull away water from an existing, viable community that relies on that resource and has shown beneficial use for decades, just to enable a possible development somewhere else that doesn’t even exist yet and has never used the water? What that would amount to is a water grab plain and simple.”

An overallocated resource
The draft order establishes a vast area of interconnected groundwater basins that is to be managed as one. In addition to the Muddy River Springs area, this superbasin includes Coyote Springs, California Wash, the Apex area (Garnet Valley) and portions of the Black Mountains. The State Engineer’s order also determines that pumping in any part of this interconnected underground aquifer has a wide ranging effect across the system, including the spring flows at the Muddy River headwaters of Warm Springs.

The heart of the issue is that the system has been overallocated, the order states. Currently, 40,000 acre feet annually (afa) of groundwater has been committed across the LWRFS system. But a two year test pump of only 5,290 afa from the Coyote Springs basin in 2012, in addition to already existing pumping of the superbasin, was shown to cause an “unprecedented decline” in groundwater levels and, more importantly, in spring flows at Warm Springs.

An acre foot of water is considered roughly enough to supply the needs of one Moapa Valley residential household for a year.

Since the test pump, an average of 9,318 afa has been pumped system-wide from the LWRFS with no effect on water levels, the draft order states. Thus, the order concludes that a cap of 9,318 afa be placed upon groundwater pumped system-wide.

Who is in and who is out
To determine just who gets to pump that water, the draft order adheres strictly to the date of priority of when the rights were originally issued. Doing so, grants senior rights status to those permits issued up until March 31, 1983. These senior rights holders include entities like the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Nevada Power and various other smaller industrial and private entities.

The 1983 priority date cuts water rights held by Coyote Springs Investments (CSI) roughly in half. About 1800 afa of CSI water rights fall within the March 1983 cutoff. But the remainder of the total 4,600 afa of groundwater held by CSI does not make the cut.

Also outside of the 1983 cutoff is around 2,500 afa in groundwater rights permitted to the Moapa Band of Paiutes.
Perhaps most importantly, though, is roughly 6,800 afa of water rights held by MVWD which were permitted in various portions through the years after March of 1983.

Certificated Rights? No Matter
About 20 percent of those MVWD rights are even certificated. They have been pumped from the district’s Arrow Canyon well sites since the 1990s for use by the Moapa Valley community.
Arrow Canyon #1 well is the main production well for MVWD. It produces by itself to supply the needs of all the MVWD customers. On the same well site, the Arrow Canyon #2 well produces less water. But it has also been an essential part of the district’s overall water portfolio.

In recent years the MVWD has made plans to drill a third well at Arrow Canyon, one that is hoped to replace the #1 well which is reaching the end of its life cycle.
“We had some plans to move forward and drill a new production well at Arrow Canyon,” Davis said. “We have spent money on engineering and have budgeted the first phases of the project. But all of that has been put on hold right now because of this.”

That’s because despite all this history of beneficial use of ground water, the draft order doesn’t take certificated use into account. Rather it only allows junior rights holders, like MVWD, to pump their certificated rights up until the time when senior water rights pumping in the entire LWRFS exceeds the 9,318 afa limit. At that point, junior rights; even though certificated; would be curtailed, the draft order states.
Eventually, that may mean that the Arrow Canyon well site will someday be forced to go silent.

Backup plans on shaky ground
Davis acknowledged that the MVWD has other water resources in its portfolio that, if needed, could replace Arrow Canyon in taking care of the community’s needs. The district’s surface water rights at Baldwin Springs and it’s most senior resource at Jones Springs provides enough to supply the community as it is today.

Another MVWD well located in Logandale, just outside of the LWRFS, could then provide for a modest level of future growth, he said.
But many of the surface water rights in Warm Springs area are bound up in the management of the Moapa dace, a finger-size fish living only in the upper Muddy area that has been on the federal endangered species list since the 1970s.

The Jones Springs resource especially is under particular encumbrances. In a 2006 water agreement involving the district, SNWA, CSI and other regional stakeholders, MVWD pledged to stop diverting water from Jones Springs. Instead that water would be allowed to flow through the dace habitat to assist in its restoration. In return for that concession, CSI and SNWA agreed to be the first parties to curtail groundwater pumping water from the system if the spring levels ever reached certain established trigger levels.

The most recent draft order seems to upend that agreement, Davis said.
In any case, the Arrow Canyon wells were developed more than two decades ago as a way to diversify and secure the community’s water resources, Davis added.
“That is the whole reason we put all that money into Arrow Canyon to begin with,” Davis said. “We felt we needed a diversification of resources and didn’t want to be putting all of our eggs into one basket. We thought we were taking a wise path.”

Creating a bidding war
The draft order is the most recent development in an ongoing effort by the State Engineer to tighten down management on the LWRFS. In a July 24 public meeting in Overton, State Engineer Jason King urged all stakeholders to cooperate on a management plan for the superbasin. Absent a consensus on moving forward, the State Engineer would have to intervene to solve the problem according to state law, King said.
“If it is our office solving the problem, the statute leaves us only scorched earth techniques to do it,” King said at the July meeting. “To put it bluntly, it is the curtailment of rights.”

In view of that, Davis said he had been surprised that the draft order had been released before the management plan process was given a chance to work.
“Our hope was that they’d let the (stakeholder) team work together to come up with a solution,” Davis said. “It’s unclear why there is this rush to make this order happen now before giving time to let the team manage it like they were supposed to.”

Davis fears that issuing this early draft order could harm the junior rights holders in the negotiation process, especially those using certificated rights like MVWD.
“What it will do is create a bidding war on water,” Davis said. “And we can’t compete with that.”

Public involvement needed
The next public meeting on the LWRFS management plan is scheduled for Wednesday, October 24 at 9:00 am in the Overton Community Center. The State Engineer and all stakeholders will be present.
Davis hopes that members of the Moapa Valley community will also turn out to the meeting and voice concerns about these developments.

“This has the potential to really have an impact for the whole community,” Davis said. “All of us have a stake in it. This meeting will provide a forum for people to voice their opinion and express concerns. Hopefully folks will come and do that.”