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OBITUARIES
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NO OBITUARY NOTICES
WERE PUBLISHED IN
THIS WEEK'S EDITION
OBITUARIES FROM THE
JULY 15TH ISSUE
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02-04-2010 New Water Applications in Lake Valley
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New Water Applications in Lake Valley
By Dean Baker
 I noticed with interest the 28 applications for thousands of acre feet of water filed by a a developer in Lake Valley. It is possible that these applications might even hurt Snake Valley. Let me tell a little bit about the changes we have seen in Snake Valley where I live.
Over 100 years ago, the Federal Government land sales people who were trying to develop and populate the West removed land from the potential private ownership in Snake Valley. This piece of land was next to some of the first private land north and across the valley from Baker. Both the private land and the public land had flowing springs and beautiful meadows. This was said to be for the good of the people, more specifically for the teams and wagons hauling supplies for the mines in Pioche from northern Utah. Today both springs and meadows on the private and public land are dry and create dust sources in Snake Valley. This has happened because the water is being pumped from underground, drying up the springs and taking the water from below the plants' roots.
What has this got to do with the new Lake Valley water applications? The USGS BARCAS study says there is water coming from the northwest, including Steptoe Valley into Lake Valley and Spring Valley and then thousands of acre feet flow into Snake Valley. It may be a long time and hard to show the tie between pumping more water in Lake Valley and drying up more of Snake Valley, but it may well happen.
The impacts of extracting underground water, or as it should be called "mining of water", has become more evident. State water engineers grant permits for the draw down of underground water for major reasons. When the laws of underground water use were written, there was a significant lack of knowledge of what the impacts would be. It was clearly said that existing rights must be protected. The tradition of acceptance of draw downs was created by the development of productive agriculture and towns being created above the aquifers.
Now, as it has become clear that water is the limiting factor in most growth activity, water economics are creating political pressure to allow more mining of water in new ways.
The pumping of the water into a large pipeline and drying up areas with no growth above the aquifers is being advocated as politically acceptable. With this pumping, nothing positive above the aquifer is being created. The pumping is for greed, power and money; it is not to save the environment, wildlife, plant life, food production and keeping land from creating dust storms. In my opinion it is not for what is right. What is water taken from northern Lincoln County and sent in a large pipeline to Coyote Springs or Las Vegas going to do to rural Lincoln County and its landscape?
The increasing knowledge and science of hydrology makes me believe that because of faults, cracks and the porous stratus in time they will spread these impacts much further than what is expected now. It is what my belief in the end it will also be a disaster to the metropolitan areas to use this water when the mining of water impacts are clear to all. It should be viewed differently before new applications and change applications for moving large amounts of water from one basin aquifer into a pipeline and into another water basin. Laws should be enacted to protect the land above an aquifer. Draw down should not be accepted and permitted with inter basin transfers. We should look at what is right for all, not just money for some now and bad for all in the future.
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