Nevada's state engineer is putting the squeeze on the use of groundwater in the massive development called Coyote Springs, north of Las Vegas.
The engineer says only 16,000 acre feet of groundwater can be pumped each year in Coyote Springs, not enough for agricultural irrigation. The amount of water available there is a central question for developer Harvey Whittemore, who wants to create a sprawling city in the desert.
Uber lobbyist and ambitious developer Harvey Whittemore wants to create a world class planned community, so he's going the extra mile in many regards, proposing a massive solar farm to power his thousands of homes, setting aside thousands of acres for a nature preserve, looking for ways to reuse wastewater on his 42,000 acres.
But there are serious questions about whether there was ever enough water in Coyote Springs to meet Whittemore's needs, let along those of competing users. And there are questions about how much political juice has been used to move his project along.
"There is no real geography here that helps to make a pipeline to Coyote Springs," said Farrell Lytle. In a pristine area near the Utah line, Eagle Valley resident Farrell Lytle points to a vast ranch now owned by developer Harvey Whittemore. Lytle and his neighbors suspect Whittemore wants to take the water from this ranch and some others he's acquired and pipe it to his massive Coyote Springs development 100 miles to the south, a smaller version of what the Southern Nevada Water Authority wants to do to rural valleys further north, using a multi-billion dollar pipeline to bring rural groundwater to Las Vegas. Chances are, Whittemore will use the public pipeline to ship his water too.
George Knapp: "If not for the SNWA pipeline, you would build your own pipeline?"
Mike Hillerby, Coyote Springs executive: "We are prepared to do that, absolutely. It is our responsibility to either find a partner or do that ourselves."
George Knapp: "Pretty handy to have a pipeline coming."
Hillerby: "No doubt about that."
Public agencies and elected officials have jumped through a lot of hoops to help the Whittemore project. When SNWA bought a piece of Whittemore's water rights for $25 million, it more than covered what he paid for the 42,000 acres.
If Whittemore uses the SNWA pipe, it would save him millions more. But the most important favor done for the Coyote Springs development is the political pressure that's allowed Whittemore to avoid problems with environmental laws.
