Nevada town willing to fight to keep its water
SANDY VALLEY, Nev. (AP) – Folks who live in the aging trailer homes in this dusty little town tend to follow an unspoken motto: To each his own. So when the Vidler Water Co. said it wanted to take some of Sandy Valley’s water and give it to another community, the 2,275 residents didn’t care for it.
A little water or a lot – they weren’t sharing.
“They probably thought we were a bunch of country bumpkins,” resident Joy Hyde Fiore said. “They so underestimated our passion for our way of life.”
So began the fight between a company with a job to do and a tiny town whose residents fear its very future is at stake.
Sandy Valley is an unusual community that lies in two states and three counties. The California-Nevada line runs right through town, though most people live on the Nevada side, in Clark County. Inyo County, Calif., is to the west, San Bernardino, Calif., to the south.
“Please drive carefully. Old Horses. Blind dogs. Unruly kids,” reads a sign on the way into town.
Sandy Valley is 40 miles southwest of Las Vegas, but might as well be a world away from its glitzy neighbor. Bighorn sheep roam the land and the mountains dwarf the cars and trailers. The residents like life the way it is, even if it means driving 15 miles to the closest gas station.
They didn’t take kindly to Vidler’s request.
It started in August 1999 when Vidler asked the state for 2,000 acre-feet of water from an aquifer beneath Sandy Valley. An acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons, enough water to supply a family of five for a year.
Vidler, a water resource development company and subsidiary of La Jolla, Calif.-based PICO Holdings, wanted the water for nearby Primm, an Interstate 15 freeway stop where the Primm family wants to build housing for casino workers and expand an outlet mall. Vidler later decided it only wanted 1,400 acre feet.
By July 2000, residents had noticed Vidler nosing around their wells. Soon, they were talking and the Sandy
esquite Valley Development Association was no longer just organizing Easter egg hunts and Halloween parties. It was fighting the water request and the town’s self-named “water warriors” were holding bake sales, raffles and cook-offs to raise money for an attorney.
A year ago, two dozen residents argued at a hearing before the state engineer that taking any water would prevent growth and Sandy Valley shouldn’t have to slake another community’s thirst.
“We’re trying to protect our own water for our own existence,” resident John Bacher said.
State Engineer Hugh Ricci told them that based on U.S. Geological Survey data from 1968, the area has 2,200 acre feet that can be taken away each year without harming the water supply. He said Sandy Valley has enough water for the future, too, based on a population estimate of 5,000 residents by 2020.
Still, Ricci granted Vidler a permit for just 415 acre feet a year, which led to appeals from both the company and Sandy Valley. Vidler wanted more and Sandy Valley didn’t want the company to have any.
“It’s such a small amount of water, but it’s everything to them,” Ricci said.
Vidler tried to compromise, even offering money. If Vidler was given 1,400 acre feet, it would have paid Sandy Valley $140,000 to hire an expert and deepen wells if it were proved that diverting water lowered the water supply. If there was no effect after 10 years, Sandy Valley could still keep the money.
“We just didn’t get anywhere,” said Dorothy Timian-Palmer, Vidler’s chief operating officer.
The money would have made a huge difference in a community with no full-size supermarket and hardly any paved roads, but residents said it would be costly to prove water loss.
And they didn’t want the money.
“They really thought they could buy us,” Fiore said.
. “They ran into a community that money is not as important to them as their lifestyle.”
Vidler’s request may be just the beginning: Three other companies have asked for Sandy Valley water to build power plants in the area. Ricci has not ruled on those requests.
On a recent Saturday, residents sold “I’m Appealing” T-shirts and recipes for jackrabbit stew while a stylist gave $8 haircuts. The smell of horse manure competed with the barbecue grill at the Wild West Roundup, the town’s latest fund-raiser.
“Sandy Valley is a wonderful place to live,” said Fiore, 64. “If we overdraw this basin, our property will be worth nothing. How do you start over?”