The Regional Planning Governing Board on Thursday approved plans to educate the public about water and growth issues in the Truckee Meadows to counter a resident's drive for signatures for ballot questions on annexations and water importation.

The campaign will consist of disputing information presented by Voices for Sustainable Washoe County and creating a speakers bureau, Web site information, flyers and government programming on cable channels.

One initiative would balance future land uses with known available water resources within Washoe County; the other would stop "leap frog" or "hopscotch" annexations. Both questions attempt to change the Truckee Meadows Regional Plan.

Backers must gather 18,000 voter signatures by June 27, to put the binding questions on the Nov. 4 ballot.

The governing board also approved proceeding with amendments to new water facilities plans to separate future housing build-out numbers between those covered with the regional planning scope of 2030 and more "conceptual" numbers after that.

The two studies show up to 528,456 homes could be built under existing land uses over the next 100 years, representing the build-out of the region. That could serve a population of 1.2 million while the county has water resources for only half of those homes.

Rosanna Coombes said future service areas, areas planned for growth after 2030, should be separated because 93 percent of those lands are considered not buildable under the regional plan because they are federally owned, are too steep to build on or otherwise environmentally constrained.

Before the governing board officially approved the future service areas north of Reno and east of Sparks in 2006, however, officials also agreed to jointly prepare a federal lands bill to put some of those lands up for sale.

The first step was updating the regional open space plan to preserve the best lands, which is now in the approval process.

Elected officials also want more answers on the ramifications of the two initiatives.

Reno Councilman Dave Aiazzi asked whether the water initiative would limit the county water purveyors from buying Truckee River water rights from people outside the county. Water has been purchased from Fallon farmers to augment water flows in the river.

County Commission Chairman Robert Larkin said he opposes the water initiative because water eventually will have to be imported to Spanish Springs to maintain water quality. Water in the valley, which is in his District 4, has been over-allocated.

In more than an hour of discussions, the board questioned Bob Fulkerson, Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada executive director, who is pushing the initiative.

The board and Fulkerson went round and round on whether the water initiative is needed because builders cannot build without purchasing water rights for their projects. If they have no water rights, they can't build.

"How can we grow beyond 600,000 if you can't get a building permit without water?" Reno Councilman Dwight Dortch asked.

Without additional water supplies, Dortch said local officials could have their "hands tied" in approving highly dense projects within the central cities, helping to reduce pressure to build on virgin lands.

County Commissioner Jim Galloway said there should be balance between zoning and available water supplies. If not, he said taxpayers will end up paying more for services, such as police, and for road and sewer maintenance for partially built subdivisions.

"It will be a tremendous cost to the community," he said.

Galloway asked for what the build-out of existing zoning would be.

But none of the other commissioners joined in asking for such a report.

Lacking that information, his was the sole vote against proceeding with the education campaign.