Las Vegas -- Still apparently uncertain of
where it may lead them, spokesmen for U.S. Representative
John Ensign (R-NV) said the congressman's Natural
Resources Committee was to hear from the Bureau of Land
Management Inspector General last week and follow that up
in September with public testimony on questionable trades
of federal property in Las Vegas for
"environmentally sensitive" lands elsewhere. Top
officials of the federal lands agency have already
brushed aside implications of a draft audit report as a
mere "bookkeeping error" that made it seem
taxpayers lost at least $12 million on just a few swaps
in recent years. The BLM spokesman in Las Vegas said the final
audit report of the Inspector General would support his
office, and he hinted at an internal investigation to
find out who "leaked" the misleading draft
report. In the meantime, exchanges of potentially
lucrative Vegas acres for de-watered former farm land in
northern Nevada were apparently going ahead, with the
help of the Nature Conservancy, which is brokering
several deals for Arizona and Las Vegas developer Del
Webb Corporation. Despite BLM denials of any mishandling of
public trust, the hearings are regarded by some experts
as having the potential for opening a full-blown
Congressional investigation of such BLM bargain trading
that appears to benefit gaming and development interests
under the pretext of "saving" lesser-valued
land for the good of the environment. In the case of the Del Webb swaps, that's
formerly irrigated farm land which the Conservancy in
intends to dry up by turning the water rights over to
wetlands restoration at the desert sink terminus of the
Carson River. In return, the BLM hands out pieces of
federal property near the Sky Harbor airport in Las Vegas
that Del Webb wants for development. Former BLM Chief Appraiser Charles Hancock has
estimated that similar such deals over the past decade
have shortchanged taxpayers by as much as $150 million in
profits the government could have received by offering
the Las Vegas land for competitive bidding. So far, Hancock, who was in charge of
appraisals on all federal land in Nevada up until his
retirement in 1989, has not been invited to testify. In
fact, Hancock has been ignored and told he has "no
standing" in at least a dozen protests to federal
land exchanges he has filed since leaving the
bureaucracy. "At least it would be nice to win
one," he said hopefully last week after touring
wasted farm land near the old town of Stillwater that the
Nature Conservancy has already brokered for Del Webb. If there is potential in the hearings for
slowing down the dubious dealing on Lahontan Valley
farmlands, however, it seemed to carry no urgency to The
Nature Conservancy and its Fallon operative, Graham
Chisholm, who recently took out display ads in the Fallon
newspaper offering to buy water rights on the Carson from
any "willing sellers" ready to part with them. Chisholm and TNC are now presenting themselves
as representatives of the state of Nevada in returning
former community pasturelands to wetlands. No mention was
made in the ad of TNC's past or present financial
relationship with the Del Webb Corp. But the "willing Top of page
sellers" Chisholm seeks in the
Lahontan Valley are fully aware that the only buyers
available for their land or water are the Conservancy and
its financial partners acting indirectly on behalf of the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services and the BLM itself.
There were indications that even those free
spenders might be getting more frugal as the U.S. Bureau
of Reclamation moved toward full takeover of the
irrigation project, presenting representatives of farmers
with terms for a new federal contract that they would
find impossible to sign or to present for approval of the
remaining irrigators.
The contract, rewritten in Washington, D.C.
and ignoring proposals from a year of talks between the
irrigation district and Nevada-based BOR bureaucrats,
appeared to some Fallon farmers as the opening move in a
long-held scheme of Federal Justice Department lawyer
Fred Disheroon to simply seize the rights of resisting
farmers.
Disheroon represents Interior Department
interests on the irrigation project. In an American Bar
Association publication on water issues late last year,
he wrote that "alternative approaches" other
than purchase need to be tried to loosen the hold of
irrigation rights on water from the Newlands Project.
"[A]lternative approaches involve more
stringent enforcement of all limiting provisions of
western water law," Disheroon wrote. "This
includes the loss of rights provisions (transfers)
discussed here, but it also includes measures to reduce
the amount of water used to transport water to the end
user or to limit the amount used versus the amount needed
to achieve the decreed purpose..."
In other words, if irrigators won't sell their
water rights, Disheroon suggests there may be ways to
simply take them.
When the proposed contract negotiated over the
past year was sent to Washington in early July, it was
understood that Disheroon was among the high Interior
Department officials who rewrote it. Local researchers
for the farmers have reported that both Disheroon and
Pyramid Lake Tribal Attorney Robert Pelcyger are alumni
of Yale University, though it could not be determined if
they were classmates. In his law journal article,
Disheroon frequently cites legal challenges made by
Pelcyger on behalf of the tribe.
In any event, indications were that changes
made in the contract negotiated by the irrigators came
after letters sent to Washington by Pelcyger from his
Colorado law office.
Chisholm's Nature Conservancy newspaper ad was
seen by some as another direct swat in the face by the
young environmentalist-land broker to the Churchill
County Commission which had demanded that water right
purchases be halted until the federal government produces
a full Environmental Impact Statement on the implication
of drying out agriculture in the region.
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