Nevada Supreme Court orders new hearings in water case

The Nevada Supreme Court has ordered new hearings into whether Southern Nevada Water Authority should be granted applications to draw more than 250,000 acre feet of water from rural Nevada.

The complex case started when Southern Nevada water officials filed for water rights in several eastern Nevada valleys in 1989. The applications included water in the Spring, Snake, Cave, Dry Lake and Delamar valleys of eastern Nevada.

But the state engineer's office failed to follow a law requiring they decide applications within a year. Those applications languished without action for more than 14 years before the engineer tossed most of them out, saying SNWA should reapply. But the office did approve the authority's application for water rights in the Spring Valley basin. Both sides including environmental groups appealed.

The original Supreme Court ruling backed the engineer's ruling that many of those water rights applications were invalid because of the delay.

Wednesday's ruling reverses that opinion, stating that the water authority "cannot be punished for the state engineer's failure to follow his statutory duty."

"Similarly, it would be inequitable to the original and subsequent protestants to conclude that the state engineer's failure to take action results in approval of the applications over 14 years after their protests were filed," the opinion by Justice Jim Hardesty states.

The only equitable answer, the court ruled, is to direct the state engineer to re-notice the water rights applications, reopen the protest period and hold new hearings.