Water bill may resurface in 2011 session

When the sausage finally got made in Carson City early Monday morning and water was not among the list of ingredients, Southern Nevada Water Authority officials were not terribly surprised.

Though they argued in favor of a hastily crafted bill aimed at reshaping Nevada water law, they considered its passage something of a long shot, said John Entsminger, deputy counsel for the water authority.

"That would have been the best-case scenario," he said. "There just wasn't any time to get into this issue in any depth."

The Legislature reached the same conclusion, declining to consider the quick fix to Nevada water law aimed at addressing questions raised by a recent Nevada Supreme Court ruling.

In a statement of legislative intent that was entered into the record of the special session on Sunday, lawmakers acknowledged the importance of the issue and signaled their willingness to take it up in the future when they have more time.

But, the statement read, "hastily passing legislation during the waning hours of this special session, without sufficient deliberation, will only raise more issues than it solves and will likely cause unintended and potentially harmful consequences."

Now authority officials and state water regulators will turn their focus back to the Supreme Court.

Both have asked the court to reconsider its Jan. 28 ruling that has stalled development of a pipeline to move water from rural eastern Nevada to Las Vegas. The justices' unanimous decision also could cloud thousands of pumping rights issued across the state since the late 1940s.

Water managers had hoped to have their legislative fix in hand when they went before the Supreme Court, but Entsminger thinks they have a case to make without it.

"We wouldn't be wasting the court's time if we didn't think we had important information to put in front of them," he said.

The bill draft request seeking changes in Nevada water law made it to the Senate on Saturday evening but was rejected.

There were frantic maneuvers Sunday to have a revised version heard in the Assembly, one that was more friendly to environmentalists and drafted with input from the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, a liberal advocacy group fiercely opposed to the water authority's pipeline plan.

But too many questions and too little time remained to complete the bill.

"It is unfortunate we were so engaged in the budget issue that we didn't have the time," said Assemblywoman Marilyn Kirkpatrick, D-North Las Vegas, who worked on the bill. "It is a big issue and something we need to spend some time on."

In the end, lawmakers called on the state engineer, Nevada's chief water regulator, to immediately hold hearings and work with the interested parties who testified before the Legislature to flesh out the recommended changes to state law.

That proposal could then be addressed during the 2011 Legislature or by requesting the governor to convene another special session, lawmakers said.

Review-Journal writer Benjamin Spillman contributed to this report. Contact reporter Henry Brean at hbrean@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0350.