State engineer can limit water in Coyote Springs, top court rules
Nevada’s state engineer did have the power to limit water rights and stall the proposed Coyote Springs development in an attempt to protect an endangered fish, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday.
The decision establishes precedent for how much authority the state engineer has to create water use limits to protect wildlife and water in the nation’s driest state as aquifers across the world begin to dry up.
According to the ruling, the engineer did not exceed his authority in issuing the order involving Coyote Springs.
“The State Engineer has statutory authority to combine multiple basins into one hydrographic ‘superbasin’ based on a shared source of water,” the decision reads.
Coyote Springs is a planned community roughly 60 miles northeast of Las Vegas that was supposed to feature almost 160,000 homes upon completion. Almost two decades later, it has a $40 million golf course, but developers haven’t built a single home.
Developers have been embroiled in the current legal dispute over water since Tim Wilson, then-state engineer, denied plans to build homes in 2020.
Wilson ruled that only 8,000 acre-feet can be pumped from the aquifer system that makes up the Lower White River Flow System, which until then hadn’t been considered a single basin. Whether the specific cap he proposed could change will be decided later in District Court.
Kent Robison, Coyote Springs’ attorney, said developers feel the state engineer will never allow the project to go forward. Of the 8,000 acre-feet of available water, there’s no telling how Nevada will allocate it.
Developers are now tasked with arguing that there are more acre-feet available.
“We’re stuck,” Robison said. “Our property has lost value because the state engineer has determined that there’s not enough water to go around.”
More explicit power
The state engineer’s goal was to protect the habitat of the Moapa dace, an endangered fish the length of four quarters that’s only found in the headwaters of the Muddy River. But allowing for so little water in Coyote Springs effectively killed construction plans.
In 2022, a judge declared Wilson’s order “arbitrary, capricious, and therefore void,” and the state launched an appeal filed by 18 parties, including the Center for Biological Diversity and the Southern Nevada Water Authority.
Nevada’s high court heard arguments in August, when state attorneys emphasized the interdependence of the aquifer system. Coyote Springs’ attorney fielded questions from justices about potential conflicts over water rights in the region, but maintained that the state’s declaration of a single basin was an overreach.
State Engineer Adam Sullivan praised the decision in an emailed statement, saying it “sets a crucial precedent for water resource protection.”
Patrick Donnelly, Great Basin director for the Center for Biological Diversity, said the effects of the ruling on how Nevada will regulate its groundwater are far-reaching.
The decision affirms the state’s top water regulator’s ability to make decisions about the depletion of groundwater. Existing water law is now interpreted to include this distinct power.
“Whether the state engineer has these powers to regulate and manage groundwater for the benefit of senior water rights holders and wildlife — that question has plagued the state engineer and water law,” Donnelly said. “This brings real clarity to that question.”
Contact Alan Halaly at ahalaly@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlanHalaly on X.