Heartbreak, anger in the West Desert
Posted on | August 18, 2009 | 1 Comment
“DOES anyone think Southern Nevada [Water Authority] is going to build a $15 billion pipeline and then let somebody turn it off?” — Snake Valley rancher Cecil Garland, pictured above center.
Fifteen billion is what Garland and other critics believe the pipeline (originally estimated in 1989 at $1bn, in 2007 as $2bn, lately as $3.5bn) will ultimately cost Las Vegas. Regardless of the engineering bill, Garland also believes that once Las Vegas becomes dependent on groundwater from the largely rural and wild valleys of the Great Basin targeted by the Southern Nevada Water Authority pipeline, no protections, no monitoring agreements such as the draft one struck between Utah and Nevada last week, can or will protect the desert ecosystem from collapse.
To read the Salt Lake Tribune account of the August 17 meeting in Delta over a draft NV-UT accord for the Las Vegas pipeline, click here, for the account of the August 18 meeting in Salt Lake City, click here. From the 8/18 report: “Mike Styler, executive director of the Utah Department of Natural Resources, and Allen Biaggi, director of the Nevada Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, said they already are considering the comments they have received and expect to have the agreement signed within 30 to 60 days.”
8/19: And the Utah legislature has reservations about the draft UT-NV Snake Valley agreement. For the latest from the Salt Lake Tribune, click here.
8/20: Comment period on the UT-NV Snake Valley has been extended in Utah reports the Salt Lake Tribune.
For a map of the proposed pipeline plan, click here.
This posting is being continuously updated, 8/20/2009.
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