After some 30 years of fighting to build a controversial pipeline from rural Nevada, Las Vegas has set the project aside, saying that a new diversion structure from Lake Mead, as well as aggressive conservation efforts, will allow the gambling mecca to meet its water needs for the next 50 years without the project.
The Southern Nevada Water Authority, which serves the city, had planned to export as much as 200,000 acre-feet of groundwater from rural parts of the state. But the plan had encountered fierce opposition from tribal communities as well as conservationists. A series of legal setbacks, as well as changes in leadership at the authority, were cited as reasons for canceling the pipeline. Among other things the water authority is moving to write off the $330 million in development costs it has incurred to date, as well as withdrawing water right applications and rights of way obtained from the federal Bureau of Land Management, according to news reports. More details on this story can be read here, in the Reno Gazette Journal.
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