I agree with Amelia who is a fellow member of an organization called United Communities of Santa Fe County:
http://unitedcommunitiessantafecounty.ning.com/

We are a congress of community organizations and citizens that have banded together to address many land use and water issues.

The City of Santa Fe is an area of 7,000 feet in elevation that meets 12,000 foot mountains; so it is a high chihuahuan desert (10-14 inches of precipitation a year) that meets an alpine mountain (over 30 inches a year). So there is a small watershed generating 7-13,000 acre feet a year where a city of 70,000 has a need of 9-14,000 acre feet of use a year.

So we are always on the marginal edge of water use. As were the ancient people’s who left the area in the drought of 1250 A.D.

Currently, the proposals for importing water are intended to make us more self-sufficient but really threaten our true sustainability. It allows us to live beyond our means like Las Vegas.

So these are the challenges…….

From my travels in Nevada, and review of Nevada BLM and now Forest Service Veg Killing project proposals – it sure looks like sagebrush and pinyon-juniper are being removed to eliminate their water “waste”. Of course, that is not the reason given on the official Ely area agency EAs.

I had read your 2008 article about SNWA targeting phreatophytes on the valley floors by pumping fast and hard at first.

Are the alluvial fans and ranges cleared on the public dime?

As far as I’m aware, Mike Styler has always firmly believed a deal was better than no deal. He has always denied that there was any element of quid pro quo — NV saying “Give us Snake Valley water and or forget the St George pipeline.” So has Sen Reid’s office. I respect both men, but I find the denials implausible. Utah clearly needs the Senate Majority leader’s help, or at best, indifference, if it is to advance its legislative agenda. Why if not seeking Nevadan support for the St George pipeline would the Washington County Water Conservancy District want Utah to settle almost as much as Las Vegas does?

My personal favorite common denominator here is a Washington water lobbyist named Marcus G. Faust. If you look at his client list, what looks like a lot of pipe runs through it. http://www.implu.com/lobby_firm/287 — there is the City of St. George, Las Vegas, Colorado River Commission of Nevada, Las Vegas Valley Water District, SNWA, Central Utah Water Conservancy District and Coyote Springs. Mr. Faust steadfastly maintains that he would not dream of representing clients with conflicts of interest and that rivals are separated by some kind of cordon sanitaire. Who knows?

However, we have one of his best clients, Patricia Mulroy, to thank for spelling out the quid pro quo nature of the stand-off, which she did in a fit of pique to your editorial board. She maddens easily and her pipe has catastrophe attached to it, but she’s not entirely not wrong in saying that Utah is moving to develop a lot of water between the border of the two states and the procrastination may not simply be in the interests of good air and Snake Valley.

That takes us back to Mike Styler’s shuffle board of water right applications.

No, Interior didn’t send Mulroy inland. Interior manages the river and otherwise keeps its wick dry. It was the other six states on the river, including Utah, that told Nevada to forget the river and develop its “instate resources” before coming to them. Styler often says this in presentations. I feel for Mulroy here. The flippancy is mind boggling, given it was said to the driest state in the country. Styler, who I believe was a Millard County commissioner at the time (check this) swiftly protested the 1989 Vegas filings. She might as well have been told to take a long hot lap around the desert for nought. I wonder how many believed that she’d actually move on the groundwater?

If the pipeline is not built, it’s pretty clear that Congress will need to look for some kind of remedy for Las Vegas on the Colorado and no one could say that Pat Mulroy hasn’t fought for alternate sources. Sen Reid realizes this, and I can only hope he enjoys the power he’ll need if it comes to that. Much to his staff’s annoyance, I spent a lot of time following him around, and I think he’s probably just damn wrong in his always hedged support for the Vegas pipe. He’s dangerously loyal to his old group of Nevadans and my guess is that Richard Bunker and latterly Pat led him out on a limb.

The ultimate irony might be that the failure of the pipe might save the river. I wonder if any of the players begin to appreciate what impact reducing the pressure of the Great Basin Aquifer might have on Colorado River flows, particularly in the lower basin? As far as I know, this was never addressed in any of the studies. Hydrologists have been slow to connect the relationship of groundwater and surface water. Were anyone to study it, they might find that leaving the water where it is will be important to the health of the river, and not just the surrounding desert, and that it may be well worth giving Pat some surface water to leave that groundwater alone!

Does this help? Keep up the great reporting.

All best, Emily