Western Water Wars

Las Vegas eyes rural Nevada's aquifers, triggering a debate about the future of this arid region

By By J. Madeleine Nash/Snake Valley Monday, Sept. 05, 2005

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    To be sure, the battle over the water stores of rural Nevada is taking place in a very different era--one in which multiple boards and authorities must approve a water request, constraining a large urban center from bamboozling an unsuspecting rural population again. So Las Vegas must play by the rules, waiting until state and federal officials agree to its aquifer-tapping proposal. While water-authority representatives wait, the city has been busy reassuring everyone that its plan will be considerate of the land, with carefully monitored pumping that can be dialed back the moment evidence of harm comes to light. But in the desert there's not a lot of margin for error, and a chronic water imbalance can be environmentally devastating. Robert Hershler, a taxonomist at the Smithsonian Institution, has combed through the biota of hundreds of springs in the Great Basin region, including Snake Valley, and has discovered more than 100 new species of spring snails, some of which are confined to a single location. "If their spring dries up, these snails are gone for good," he observes. "They can never come back."

    Donald Sada, an ecologist at the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nev., is also concerned. A slight decrease in the flow of groundwater will probably not be detrimental to the pockets of water that dot Western deserts, he says. The problem is, "What's slight? At what point do we start to alter the functional ecology?" The loss of the diminutive snails, fish and other organisms that dwell in desert springs would be important to more than just ecologists and taxonomists. Those tiny animals are indicator species, the canaries in the environmental coal mine that provide the first warning that the whole system is coming unhinged. "When these organisms disappear," says University of Michigan zoologist Gerald Smith, "it will signal the end of water quality and water permanence for humans in desert regions."

    Even if Las Vegas had not come calling, Great Basin water holes would be in trouble. Across the region, drought, agricultural diversions and overgrazing have done measurable damage, and there are examples in Snake Valley. "We're worried about southern Nevada because we know what we're doing to ourselves," says rancher Dean Baker. "And that's just a drop in the bucket compared to what they're talking about."

    Equally controversial plans could move beyond mere talk in other Western cities. A multiyear drought, which eased only this year, dropped water levels in the Colorado River's vast reservoirs to historic lows, raising the specter of involuntary rationing. It was a shock that rattled water managers in numerous states, causing Denver, for example, to eye the headwaters of the Gunnison River, clear across the Continental Divide, and Los Angeles to consider exploiting a groundwater field in the Mojave Desert. These and other communities will thus be watching Las Vegas closely, as will environmentalists who question, among other things, how much water, if any, the city can take out of Snake Valley without doing harm.

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