Pipeline opponents invoke Owens Valley

[NVMojo]

(...meanwhile in Reid Land)

CARSON CITY -- The state hearing hadn't even started yet on the Southern Nevada Water Authority's $2 billion pipeline to White Pine County, and already the comparison was being made.

All it took was three words on a bumper sticker: Remember Owens Valley.

But water authority officials insist their plans do not deserve to be lumped in with what is widely considered the most disastrous water exportation project in American history.

For one thing, they say, water managers are now subject to a host of environmental laws that didn't exist in the early 1900s, when Los Angeles water officials descended on the Owens Valley in search of water for their growing city. As a result of that ever-expanding project, a 63-mile stretch of the Owens River ran dry and Owens Lake was reduced to a sun-baked mud flat.

Water authority General Manager Pat Mulroy said state and federal regulations and improved pumping techniques will prevent the same thing from happening in Spring Valley, the White Pine County watershed where the authority hopes one day to tap up to 91,000 acre-feet of water a year.

"White Pine County is in a much better position than the Owens Valley was and is," Mulroy said after her testimony Monday.

But California water attorney Greg James sees a lot of similarities between the two situations.

more...

http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2006/Sep-13-Wed-2006/news/9612062.html