FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK: Moapa Valley: first in seniority AND in use

By VERNON ROBISON

Last week’s edition of The Progress contained a news item entitled “Vidler Requests To Shut Off Water To M.V.” This story reported how a representative of Vidler Water Company, which is a huge international powerhouse of a corporation, had filed a formal memo to the Nevada State Engineer requesting that the main source of culinary water for the Moapa Valley communities be stopped from producing water…immediately! The memo was presented publicly, right here in Overton, at a routine meeting called to discuss the ongoing wrangling over water resources in the Lower White River Flow System (LWRFS) superbasin.

Everyone knew that this request was just grandstanding by Vidler. As such, it was not very seriously considered by the State Engineer. But the outrage of it should not be ignored. After all, such thinking, if taken to its furthest extent, would leave Moapa Valley homes without a sufficient source of potable water. And with no water, there’d be no community!

Before going on, I would just clear up one small inaccuracy reported in last week’s print edition. In one line of the article, we reported that the Vidler rights at Kane Springs were senior to the Moapa Valley Water District (MVWD) Arrow Canyon rights at Warm Springs. This was incorrect. The MVWD filed on its Arrow Canyon rights nearly 20 years before Vidler entered the field at Kane Springs. Of course, this makes very little difference to the thrust of last week’s story. But for the sake of accurate reporting, I felt it should be cleared up.

Now that this is taken care of, though, I’d like to provide just a little commentary on the matter.

For the better part of three decades, the heretofore bountiful water resources originating from, and flowing through, the Moapa Valley have been under siege. Major outside interests have noticed them and coveted them for their own purposes. It comes as no surprise that big entities like Vidler, Southern Nevada Water Authority and others would be looking far and wide, seeking every drop of water possible to slake the never-ending thirst for growth in the desert. After all, when you have nearly unlimited funds before you, and are being whipped from behind by a relentless demand for mass development, that is what you have to do.

This kind of thinking is the heart of the ongoing legal bickering over the LWRFS superbasin. When there are stakeholders claiming ownership of 40,000 acre feet per year (afy) in groundwater rights from a basin that only has 8,000 afy to give, how do you divide the resource? Should it be divided based on who claimed “dibs” first, i.e. seniority? Or should it be given to those who are already using the water: i.e. beneficial use? Either way, it will take the wisdom of a Solomon to divide up this baby.

But to exercise wisdom one must be willing to see things as they truly are. So let’s do a little ‘ground-truthing’ in respect to the Moapa Valley and its water resources.

Let’s talk first about seniority. The first white settlers came to Moapa Valley in the mid-1860s. That means that before there was a meager train-watering stop at Las Vegas, before there was Fremont Street, before there was a Las Vegas Strip, even before there was a Clark County – there was a St. Thomas, a St. Joseph (current Logandale), an Overton and a West Point (current Moapa). And what was the reason why these pioneers settled here in this harsh environment? It was the bounteous Muddy River issuing miraculously from the artesian flows at Warm Springs.

Of course, that community heritage actually goes back much further than that. Native American people across several different epochs were drawn to the Moapa Valley because of the rich green ribbon of life provided by the river and its headwater springs. Archaeologist told us that this community heritage goes back to, at least, A.D. 300!

In any case, across the centuries, different people have come and built communities here for different reasons. But when you boil it all down, the fundamental basis that brought them all here – indeed, that have brought us all here today – is that water flowing through our communities. That is why there is a community here at all. That water is a vital part of this place. Despite whomever has claimed to “own” it over the eons of history, the water has always remained a local community asset. Now, if that is not seniority of rights, I don’t know what seniority is!

Moreover, it goes without saying that people who have been living here for millenia have actually been using that water to sustain life here in the desert. If that isn’t “beneficial use,” then I don’t know what the term means.

These facts are self-evident. As a community, the Moapa Valley has the most senior rights to that water. And for centuries it has been put to beneficial use. This should be the ground truth guiding the whole legal skirmish over the LWRFS.

Now, I am certainly not opposed to new development in the region. I have nothing against the great economic engine chugging away in the Las Vegas valley. I have great hopes for what is being done to develop the Apex area. I have even been, and hope to remain, a champion of the grand vision proposed at Coyote Springs.

But I must draw the line when these visions and goals begin to be placed upon the back of the Moapa Valley’s future. The truth is, the Moapa Valley communities were here, utilizing this local asset, long before all of these came along. Thus, in all fairness, there must be an initial carve-out, right off the top, that is sufficient to supply both the current and the future needs of the Moapa Valley; whatever the community determines those needs to be.

There is already a precedent for this. The SNWA has negotiated with local water entities and other groups to keep the Moapa Valley whole in compensation for water diverted from here to feed the Las Vegas valley. Those old agreements must be honored, no matter the demands of growth in the region!

Unfortunately, honoring those agreements was not the spirit behind the Vidler memo presented at the March 28 meeting. Rather it proposed to subvert both the Moapa Valley’s senior claim to the water and its millenia of beneficial use – all in a greedy, self-interested desire to swipe that local resource away.

Amazingly, the Vidler memo actually proposed to essentially shut down the spigot supplying the needs of this long-existing community – just dry out Moapa Valley and render it a virtual ghost town – all so that the community’s resource could be diverted to a glistening new city at Coyote Springs. Why? Because only when this mythical community rises out of the lonely, blistering desert can Vidler begin to make money on the deal. The very idea is scandalous!

No! The Moapa Valley was here first. It was using the water first. It has always been a local community asset. The local needs- both current and future – of Moapa Valley must come first!

Then, if there is still water left in the superbasin, it can be divided up and used to make the desert blossom as a rose somewhere else. But in the meantime, there is still an obligation to tend to, and provide for, our own little rose garden right here!