Nevada Supreme Court to Judge State Engineer
Posted on | May 29, 2009 | No Comments
ASK any of the rural Nevadans who stand to lose their water to Las Vegas and its proposed 300-mile pipeline into central Nevada if the proceedings were fair, and they will laugh at your naivete. For them, Las Vegas gamed the table before the rural communities even knew that a game was on. One of their last recourses to stop the pipeline is a suit coming before the Nevada Supreme Court on Monday at 10.30am.
The court’s summary of Great Basin Water Network versus the State Engineer of Nevada reads: “In 1989, the predecessor to the Southern Nevada Water Authority filed applications for unappropriated water rights from rural Nevada for use in Las Vegas. More than 800 interested persons filed protests. In 2005, the State Engineer notified roughly 300 of the interested persons that a prehearing conference would be held to discuss the water rights applications. Some organizations and individuals petitioned the State Engineer to re-notice the 1989 applications and reopen the period for filing protests. After the State Engineer denied the request, appellants filed a petition for judicial review in the White Pine County District Court. That petition was denied and appellants are now appealing that decision. ISSUES: Did the State Engineer deprive appellants of the right to due process and/or equal protection by refusing to re-notice the groundwater applications? Did the State Engineer violate his statutory duties by not ruling on the 1989 application within one year?”
Mike Turnipseed, the State Engineer who originally received the protests has since become a paid consultant for Las Vegas.
The “more than 800” protests cited in the case description were in fact more than 3,000. As the legal protest period to the original 1989 applications neared closing in August 1990, the number of protests had surpassed 3,000 and Turnipseed’s office was so swamped by them that he told the Las Vegas Business Press, “It’s beginning to look like we could have 4,000 to 5,000 protests.”
Among the protestors were the US National Park Service, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the US Bureau of Land Management and the US Bureau of Indian Affairs.
And still Las Vegas is prevailing.
So, 20 years after the fight against Las Vegas began, when you ask any of the surviving protestors if they think that they have had a fair shot at protesting the pipeline, you may wish to forgive the tired laugh as an answer.
Weekly Drought Map
Posted on | May 28, 2009 | No Comments
Beverly Hills Billionaires Bilk Bay-Delta, Taxpayers Too
Posted on | May 28, 2009 | No Comments
Poor farmers, except Stewart and Lynda Resnick. The Contra Costa Times reports that in addition to owning more than 115,000 acres in Kern County and the largest pistachio and almond growing and processing operation in the world, the Resnicks’ holding company, Roll International, also owns Fiji water, Pom Wonderful pomegranate juice, and Teleflora, the largest floral wire service in the world. Evidently that wasn’t rich enough, reports an excellent series by Contra Costa Times reporter Mike Taugher. The Resnicks have found a nifty way to profit from water, gleaning 20 cents of every dollar spent on Delta preservation — at the expense of the taxpayer and the environment. Taugher’s stories are linked below. If the links fail, you may need to register with the Contra Costa Times.
2. Paper Shuffle Allows for Easy Money
3. Pumping Water and Cash from the Delta
4. Water Ownership Murky, Complicated
Then brace yourself for what promises to be a scathing report to be released Monday June 1st about management of the Delta.
Via On Water
Tags: Bay-Delta > California Department of Water Resources > chance of rain > Emily Green
Dust Storms Cause Premature Snow Melt in Colorado
Posted on | May 27, 2009 | No Comments
This May 24 report from the Los Angeles Times is must read material for anyone looking at the relationship between the desiccation of the western deserts of California, Utah and Arizona by climate change and ground water pumping, the tearing up of fragile dry land by off road vehicles, and the effect of the subsequent dust storms on Rocky Mountain glaciers. These glaciers are crucial to the Western water supply.
From the story:
- Twelve dust storms barreled into the southern Rockies from the deserts of Arizona, Utah and New Mexico so far this year. In contrast, four storms hit the mountains all year long in 2003.
- The storms leave a dark film on snow that melts it faster by hastening its absorption of the sun’s energy. That, coupled with unseasonably warm temperatures, has sped up the runoff here, swelling rivers to near flood stage, threatening to make reservoirs overflow and fueling fears that there will not be enough water left for late-summer crops.
- Dust can speed up snowmelt by as much as 35 days.
- Ever since European settlement of the West, there has been dust. Initially, grazing cattle kicked up the dust. Scientists say it is now more likely to be caused by off-road vehicles, mountain bikers or energy exploration. In a study last year, researchers found that the amount of dust in the Rockies is five times greater than before the late 19th century.
- Even without the dust storms, forecasters predict that global warming will reduce the soil quality in the western United States to dust-bowl levels by 2050. The Southwest’s temperatures are expected to rise by 10 degrees Celsius by 2100.
- Dust and soot are contributing to the disappearance of mountain snows and the disturbance of water supplies all over the world.
- In California, the Sierra Nevada snowpack gets some soot from Asia and from the state’s own smog-emitting centers, but little dust. State officials have begun to study whether that soot could be contributing to a sped-up snowmelt that, if it continues unabated, could someday overwhelm the reservoir system.
- Because winds in the western United States blow from the southwest, dust from the deserts of California, the Great Basin and the Colorado plateau is deposited on the southern Rockies.
- The amounts of wind-blown dust in the West peaked in the 1920s, reaching seven times the historic norm. Scientists think the level of dust dropped after Congress sharply limited cattle grazing in 1934, near the height of the Dust Bowl. Today, levels are five times the historic norm.
- It is only in the last six years that scientists have begun to study dust’s effect on snow and water supplies.
- This year’s storms put the issue of dust front and center. Mountains that usually remain snow-covered until midsummer are already almost bare along the entire western stretch of Colorado.
Tags: Add new tag > chance of rain > Colorado > dust storms > Emily Green > snowpack
Bay-Delta Water Overcommitted Eight Times, Three in Wet Years
Posted on | May 27, 2009 | No Comments
William K. Reilly, member of the Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force and administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under President George H.W. Bush, outlines the crisis in the Delta in the San Francisco Chronicle.
Bullet points from the article:
- The Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta provides water for more than 25 million Californians and 3 million acres of agriculture, supporting a $400 billion economy. But the delta’s ecosystem is crashing.
- Delta governance is “the critical missing ingredient in water management.”
- The delta water‘s average annual flow is overcommitted to users by more than eight times. Even in the wettest years, the water is overcommitted by three times.
- The Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force work concluded with the release of a strategic plan, but work continues under the banner of the Delta Vision Foundation.
He concludes, “On Monday, we will come together for a public meeting in Sacramento to announce one of the first products of this new, independent organization. Fair warning: The results are disappointing.”
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