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Dec. 11, 2006
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Arizonans draw line on water pipeline

Isolated area wants state to stop water sale to Mesquite

By HENRY BREAN
REVIEW-JOURNAL

Maintenance engineer Mike Wilcox last week checks on a water well pump near Beaver Dam, Ariz. The pump and well are owned by the Beaver Dam Water Company, which opposes a plan by another company to export Arizona groundwater to Mesquite.
Photo by John Locher.

Click image for enlargement.
Graphic by Mike Johnson.

BEAVER DAM, Ariz. -- Along the short stretch of Interstate 15 that dips into Arizona on its way from Nevada to Utah, it's easy to feel cut off from the rest of the Grand Canyon State.

But residents of the isolated northwest corner of Arizona are calling on state officials in faraway Phoenix to protect them from an unprecedented plan that would pump groundwater across the border to feed growth in nearby Mesquite.

Almost 400 anxious Arizonans crowded into the multipurpose room at Beaver Dam Elementary School last week to hear more about the proposal by Arizona company Wind River Resources.

Opponents of the plan promised to pack the house again early next year, when the Arizona Department of Water Resources is expected to hold a public hearing in the Beaver Dam area before deciding whether to allow the interstate water transfer to go through.

The fight dates to March 2005, when Wind River Resources filed a rare application to export groundwater from Arizona for use in another state.

Arizona never has granted such an application.

Wind River wants to sell water to the Virgin Valley Water District, which services the Mesquite area. The company also wants to piggyback on the district's water system, using it to deliver water back across the border to supply development on another part of the so-called "Arizona Strip."

The water in Wind River's pipeline would be pumped from wells on property northwest of Beaver Dam and piped the roughly 10 miles to Mesquite.

But residents in Beaver Dam and Littlefield, Ariz., on the south side of I-15, worry that the project could lower the water table and leave their wells sucking air.

"They can't take this water into Nevada without having a negative impact on Arizona. There's just no way," said Bob Frisby, whose Beaver Dam Water Company serves about 1,000 customers on the Arizona Strip. "It will dry us up."

To Beaver Dam resident Nikki Stoddard, the Wind River application is a "test case."

"If Arizona allows this, it's going to open the door" to others who might want to buy land on the Arizona Strip and try to sell their groundwater to Nevada."

Jack Riley, who owns several thousand acres along I-15 in Arizona, warned that any groundwater piped to Mesquite could wind up in Las Vegas, where it would be worth tens of millions of dollars more than it is right now. He said the exportation proposal is "absolutely ridiculous, repugnant, outrageous. There's so many adjectives you could use."

But Wind River Resources spokesman John Michael said the water the company plans to tap is in a different aquifer than the one that feeds the wells in Beaver Dam and Littlefield.

In fact, Michael said, the groundwater Wind River is after actually flows west into Nevada anyway.

"And it's important to note that not a drop of this water has ever been used before," he said.

Michael accused Frisby and Riley of whipping up opposition to the Wind River project to protect their own interests. He said Frisby wants a water monopoly on the Arizona Strip and Riley wants to increase the value of his land along I-15 by scuttling growth elsewhere in the area.

"What the town ought to be is very wary of those two I think," Michael said. "The people in town don't understand they're being manipulated yet."

The water fight belies the ties between Beaver Dam residents and their counterparts in Nevada and Utah.

The community literally splits time with its out-of-state neighbors. The clocks there are set on Nevada time for half the year and on Utah time for the other half, thanks to its location just inside the Mountain Time Zone and its refusal, like the rest Arizona, to observe daylight-saving time.

To get to Beaver Dam from almost any other part of Arizona, you must drive through Nevada or Utah. If you need to buy groceries, go to the hospital, check out a library book or haul trash to the dump, count on a trip to Mesquite or St. George.

Before and after last week's informational meeting, dozens of people lined up to sign petitions against the water deal, and most of those in attendance wore stickers advertising a Web site called NoNevadaWaterGrab.com.

A banner along I-15 directs passing motorists to the same Internet address.

Stoddard is part of the group that established the Web site. She is also the one who went around Beaver Dam last week, putting up hand-lettered signs on yellow poster board that implored everyone in town to attend the meeting.

"The general consensus is, nobody wants this," she said.

The feeling is different down the road in Mesquite.

Mike Winters has been general manager of the Virgin Valley Water District since it was formed in 1993. He said the offer from Wind River could provide for growth in and around Mesquite for a long time.

Under the proposal, the amount of water piped annually from Arizona to Mesquite would increase incrementally over the next 40 years from about 1,000 acre-feet to as much as 14,000 acre-feet.

Winters said the per acre-foot price of the water would start at about $200 and increase over the life of the deal to about $400. One acre-foot of water is roughly the amount used each year by two Las Vegas Valley homes.

For now, Winters said, his agency is operating on the assumption that Arizona officials "are not going to give us any" of the Wind River water.

"If they do, it's a plus for us. If they don't, we're going to continue to drill wells and find the water we need," he said.

The district delivers about 5,500 acre-feet of water a year to its 18,000 customers. Its service area covers more than 310 square miles in Nevada and Arizona.

Winters said the district owns the rights to some 12,000 acre-feet of water, enough to support up to 40,000 people.

Some predict Mesquite's population could top 40,000 in as little as four years, though Winters doesn't put much stock in such estimates. "I've almost quit looking at those projections because they're changing them so often," he said.

The Arizona Strip is also growing, particularly Beaver Dam, Littlefield and Scenic. According to some estimates, the area is home to 4,000 to 5,000 people, many of them retirees or ranchers.

Michael said Wind River Resources is developing its pipeline in cooperation with a property owner in Scenic, where some 5,000 acres are available for development.

Wind River's application does not specify how much of the water pumped to Mesquite could wind up in Scenic, just across the Virgin River and the state line.

Like a lot of things in Nevada and Arizona these days, that question most likely will be answered by growth.