Pat Mulroy’s legacy includes a plan to bring water from eastern Nevada to Las Vegas via pipeline. While the plan is controversial, the mega-drought in the Colorado River Basin is squeezing the region’s main source of supply leading the editorial board of the Las Vegas Sun to conclude, “there aren’t many real alternatives to the pipeline.”
The project, which was proposed in 1989, was one of Pat Mulroy’s first actions as General Manager of the Las Vegas Valley Water District (Southern Nevada Water Authority later become its successor in the filings). The district applied for unappropriated groundwater in eastern Nevada, which it plans to convey to Las Vegas via pipeline. In 2012, the State Engineer issued orders providing SNWA appropriations totaling 89,988 AFA. In December 2013, a judge voided the State Engineer’s orders and required recalculation of the water available in the basins.
SNWA filed an appeal to the judge’s ruling on January 23.
Read the editorial from the Las Vegas Sun.
Written by Marta Weismann