Background of the Las Vegas/SNWA Water Grab
The Great Basin Desert of eastern Nevada and western Utah is threatened by plans of the Southern Nevada Water Authority to drill over 200 wells in one of the driest regions of the United States and pipe the water 300 miles to Las Vegas. If permitted by the State of Nevada and the Bureau of Land Management, Las Vegas would pump up to 85 billion gallons of water each year from rural valleys adjacent to the Great Basin National Park and National Wildlife Refuges. The groundwater would be piped through a huge, buried pipeline network and supported above ground by hundreds of miles of power lines and roads. The groundwater exported from eastern Nevada’s desert valleys by the Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) would enable more sprawl development in the Las Vegas Area further impacting Las Vegas residents with congestion, pollution, and a poorer quality of life. Rural communities would be destroyed by the loss of water. Unique wildlife dependent on small streams, wetlands, and regional springs would be threatened or exterminated.
PLAN’s Public Statement to the NV State Engineer
To read the public statement given by Bob Fulkerson, State Director, Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, to Nevada State Engineer, Jason King, regarding the proposed Las Vegas/SNWA Water Grab on September 29, 2017, in Carson City, Nevada, check out the post, “Protection of water has priority over protecting the profits of development, mining and industry”, on Medium.
To learn more about the Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) Groundwater Development Project — the water pipeline/grab from Eastern rural Nevada and the Utah border for continued Las Vegas sprawl/development — visit our ally’s, Great Basin Water Network’s, website, reach out to PLAN’s Environmental Justice’s team and sign the online petition to stop the Las Vegas Water Grab.
To learn more about the hearing taking place in Carson City at the end of September and beginning of October, visit the Nevada Legislature calendar. To view the hearings online (live), visit this link.