Judge again rejects Vegas pipeline from rural valleys

摘要

A state judge has again rejected a decadeslong bid to tap groundwater beneath vast rangelands in northeast Nevada and pipe it to fast-growing suburbs and glittering gambling resorts in and around Las Vegas. In a strongly worded statement, Judge Robert Estes said he saw no reason to undo findings he made in December 2013 that block a Southern Nevada Water Authority plan to spend billions of dollars to pump groundwater from four rural valleys in White Pine and Lincoln counties near the Utah border. Simeon Herskovits, an attorney representing the Great Basin Water Network and most opponents of the project, called the ruling "the end of the road for the Southern Nevada Water Authority and the state engineer, unless they appeal again to the [state] Supreme Court." "This project would have fatally and permanently harmed one part of the state to only temporarily slake the thirst of another part of the state, leading to a bigger problem down the road," Herskovits said yesterday. The order followed two days of hearings last November. The judge restated his previous finding that the state's top water official, then-State Engineer Jason King, was "arbitrary and capricious" in granting pumping rights over objections from environmentalists, Native American tribes, ranchers, two Utah counties and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.