Nevada

Private Firms Scour Booming Nevada Desert For Water Profits

Published

1 year ago

July 18, 2023

Private Firms Scour Booming Nevada Desert For Water Profits

Beneath a bone-dry Nevada lakebed, close to the dusty desert where the Burning Man festival is held each year, an ambitious water project is reshaping this pocket of the US West.

A giant, natural underground aquifer containing enough water to supply 25,000 homes annually is fed by rainfall and snowmelt from the surrounding volcanic mountains.

For the past few years, a little-known company called Vidler Water Resources has been quietly pumping much of this water out through a buried pipeline, under the mountains — and straight into the rapidly sprawling northern suburbs of Reno, some 30 miles (50 kilometers) away.

“We, everybody, had to start buying from Vidler,” said developer Robert Lissner. “Anybody who is building.”

Housing developer Robert Lissner inspects a site where he is building 42 new housing units in Cold Springs, Nevada

Andri Tambunan

Diverting often-scarce water to cities is, in itself, nothing new in the West. But this pipeline is unusual because it was fully constructed and paid for by a private company.

Such projects could help solve water-shortage issues as development expands rapidly in the desert, but they raise serious concerns for the area’s aquifers – and with high building costs, the path forward will depend on whether the strategy ultimately proves profitable.

Vidler spent around $100 million to purchase the ranch atop the aquifer, and build the infrastructure — an outlay that local government officials say they could not contemplate.

“If Vidler hadn’t constructed this project, it wouldn’t have gotten done,” said John Enloe, of the water utility covering Reno.

“They took quite a risk,” agreed Lissner.

Mud cracks on the dry lake bed in Fish Springs, Nevada that lies over the natural underground aquifer from which Vidler draws its water

Andri Tambunan

Nevada is the nation’s driest state, and consistently among its fastest-growing. Builders cannot break ground on new homes here unless they have procured enough “water rights” to supply them indefinitely.

Developers typically buy these coveted and highly limited licenses from local farmers. In districts where local water rights have all been reallocated, building grinds to a halt.

“The land is completely worthless in our area without the water,” said rancher David Stix, whose farm is surrounded by newbuild houses.

Several companies have “water importation” plans, similar to Vidler’s.

IWS Basin, formerly Intermountain Water Supply, planned to pipe water to northern Reno, but had its permits canceled in 2018. Similar schemes in nearby Lower Smoke Creek and Red Rock Valley are at various stages of development.

A giant industrial park containing Tesla and Panasonic factories, unable to procure local water rights, is constructing a pipeline taking “recycled” water from a Reno treatment plant.

The Vidler water pipe terminus is seen in Lemmon Valley, Nevada in June 2023

Andri Tambunan

But water importation projects raise ecological concerns.

The US West remains in the grip of a decades-long drought, driven by climate change. Environmentalist Kyle Roerink believes that, if over-pumped, aquifers like Vidler’s “very well could be tapped out.”

As basins are interconnected, the negative impacts of pumping water into one valley might not be noticed in another until “it is too late,” he said.

Vidler declined to comment, instead directing queries to local water utility, the Truckee Meadows Water Authority (TMWA).

TMWA reduced its dependence on a major river flowing from Lake Tahoe by using Vidler’s pipeline — which can currently meet almost 10 percent of the region’s total demand.

The authority said a federal environmental impact review had been carried out, and that the amount of water the pipeline is permitted to take is well below the aquifer’s annual capacity.

Still, Roerink fears the Vidler pipeline could become a “bellwether” for similar projects, which may not prove sustainable in a few decades.

“There are other basins just like this, where you have developers who are salivating to tap it, salivating to export,” he warned.

Kyle Roerink, a water-conservation advocate, believes that aquifers like Vidler’s ‘very well could be tapped out’

Andri Tambunan

“Salivating to build their next subdivision, and shopping mall, off of groundwater that comes from 50 or 100 miles away.”

Environmental issues aside, the process of moving water across — or beneath — mountains is very challenging.

“There are lots of proposals… Every year or two, we get a call from somebody saying ‘I want to do a water importation project,’” said water lawyer David Rigdon.

“But they’re very, very difficult to get approved. They’re super expensive to build. And a lot of times, the market is not there for the water.”

Vidler’s pipeline, for example, sat unused for nearly a decade after it was completed in 2008, as recession brought housebuilding to a halt.

Vidler currently charges $45,000 per acre-foot of water rights, while water rights in central Reno tend to trade for between $10,000-$15,000. (An acre-foot is equivalent to around half an Olympic-size swimming pool.)

Those costs are borne by the developers, who must calculate whether the additional price makes construction viable.

“It doesn’t help,” admitted Lissner, the developer.

That said, one of the nation’s largest homebuilders seems to think Vidler is a good bet: Last year the company was bought by construction giant DR Horton for just under $300 million.

But whether such pipelines ultimately succeed largely depends on one factor, Stix, the rancher said: “Ultimately, at the end of the day, the almighty dollar wins out.”

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Nevada

Third quarter surge leads to victory over Morgan State 66-56

Published

2 hours ago

November 25, 2024

Press Room

Third quarter surge leads to victory over Morgan State 66-56

RENO, Nev. (Nevada Athletics) – In the second of a five-game home-stand, a third quarter surge by Nevada women’s basketball led to a victory over Morgan State, 66-56.

Tori Davis led the team with a career high 24 points, while grabbing five rebounds. Lexie Givens went 10-10 from the line and led both teams with eight boards.

Within the first 12 seconds of the game, Nevada was already up as Audrey Roden drove to the basket for a good layup.

Morgan State then tied it up, but Nevada went on a seven-point scoring run to take control of the opening 10. The Wolf Pack ended the first quarter holding the Bears to under 10 points, as well as only shooting 7% from the field. After not giving up the lead once, Nevada took a 14-7 advantage into the second quarter.

Morgan State began to find its rhythm before the half, as Nevada found itself down for the first time with just over four minutes remaining. From there, the rest of the game saw eight lead changes and 10 ties.

A second-half push from Nevada allowed the Pack to jump back in front in the third quarter. Momentum continued to swing back-and-forth well into the third as both teams battled for the advantage.

The Pack closed it out with a ten-point run that allowed them to grab the lead, which they didn’t give up for the remainder of the game.

Nevada will next host the Nugget Classic from November 29 to December 1, with Central Michigan, Southern Utah and Portland participating.

The Pack will first take on Central Michigan on Friday at 1 PM.

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Nevada

OSU Basketball: Cowboys Close Charleston Classic with Loss to Nevada

Published

10 hours ago

November 24, 2024

Press Room

OSU Basketball: Cowboys Close Charleston Classic with Loss to Nevada

The Cowboys went 1-2 in their trip to Charleston.

Oklahoma State fell to Nevada 90-78 on Sunday afternoon in the Charleston Classic’s consolation final. It was a game dominated by a pair of Nevada players, as Kobe Sanders and Nick Davidson combined to score 50 of the Wolf Pack’s points (27 from Sanders and 23 from Davidson). Nevada shot 59% from the field and 39% from 3.

OSU was playing from behind all afternoon, as the Cowboys never held a lead, and the Wolf Pack led for about 38 of the 40 minutes. After going into the break down 40-33, OSU made a few runs at it in the second half, but the Pokes couldn’t get over the hump. Nevada extended its lead to 19 with about 14 minutes to play before the Cowboys stormed back with an 11-0 run to cut it to 62-54. The teams traded baskets for the next few minutes before OSU ripped off another 7-0 run to cut Nevada’s lead to 70-66. But when the Wolf Pack needed a basket, they got one.

As much success as Nevada was having shooting the ball, the Cowboys ran into some struggles, hitting just 42% of their shots from the field and 29% of their 3-point attempts. It continues the trend to start this season where OSU has either shot in the 40% range from 3 or in the 20s.

The Cowboys forced Nevada into 10 turnovers, the fewest OSU has forced this season. OSU also had a season-low four steals.

OSU had four players score in double figures. Chi Chi Avery led the way with 15. Arturo Dean hit double digits for the first time as a Cowboy, finishing with 13. Robert Jennings II and Abou Ousmane each had 11.

The Wolf Pack are a good squad, winning 26 games last season and 22 the year before. Nevada made the NCAA Tournament on both of those occasions, and KenPom projects the Wolf Pack to finish this regular season with 24 wins.

At 4-2 in the young season, the Cowboys have some time to recalibrate after being tested in Charleston. OSU’s next game is Dec. 4 in Tulsa.

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Nevada

Can Nevada ride out Russ Vought? • Nevada Current

Published

18 hours ago

November 24, 2024

Press Room

Can Nevada ride out Russ Vought? • Nevada Current

The semi-celebrities and quacks (not that they’re mutually exclusive) get a lot of attention, but one recent appointment announced by Donald Trump is cause for even more concern, and especially for historically anti-government states like Nevada.

Trump on Friday named Russ Vought his director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Of all the Project 2025 authors, none is more eager to create chaos within and dismantle much of the federal bureaucracy than Vought

“We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected,” Vought has declared. “When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains.”

Minimizing the the federal workforce and traumatizing what’s left of it is Vought’s raison d’etre.

That might sound all “ooh, cool, that’ll teach ’em” — until the federal government can’t competently distribute grandma’s monthly Social Security benefit or process your federal income tax refund.

In Nevada, there are many dedicated state and local government employees who work hard to deliver a vast array of programs and services – from nutrition programs for low-income families to processing tax abatements for multi-billion-dollar corporations.

As in every state, those myriad programs and services and initiatives are contingent on federal money, or federal cooperation, or clarity and timeliness of federal rules and regulations.

And while there are many dedicated Nevadans working to provide and/or administer government programs and services the best they can, there are very rarely enough of them. Nevada can be very generous to big business. But when it comes to financing government, Nevada has always been a notoriously cheap state – bottom of the good lists, top of the bad lists, etc.

Vought’s – and Trump’s – crusade against federal civil servants promises to wreak havoc on the delivery of programs and services in every state, red and blue alike.

All states will struggle to compensate for the carnage Vought vows to inflict on the United States civil service.

The states that will have the best fighting chance of safeguarding continued and competent delivery of vital services will be those with something approaching adequately funded and staffed state and local government. Nevada has never been one of those.

***

A pleasant (if short-lived) surprise. But back to the aforementioned quacks and semi-celebrities… it’s as if Trump has been deliberately debasing his own supporters, nominating obviously outlandish and offensive people to jobs they have no business being anywhere near, for the depraved satisfaction of watching his followers – both those who are elected and those within the electorate – obsequiously go along with whatever he says or does.

Initially it looked as if Republican senators were prepared to surrender unconditionally, and grovel in submission while Trump insults their intelligence and rubs their noses in it.

So their willingness to tell Trump to shove his nomination of Matt Gaetz you know where, is a fine thing.

So that’s on the bright side.

On the not so bright side… Yes, though it’s a low bar – subterranean, even – Pam Bondi, the person Trump has named to be AG instead of Gaetz, is far more competent than Gaetz. But she’s also no less loyal to Dear Leader, meaning she could be even worse for the nation and the rule of law than Gaetz. And not surprisingly – her being an extreme Trump loyalist and all – she has documented dalliances with corruption (shielding the Trump University grift) and rejecting reality (election denier).

Stay strong, Republican senators,

Portions of this column were originally published in recent editions of the Daily Current newsletter, which is free and which you can subscribe to here.

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