The
Las Vegas-based Nevada Seniors Coalition --- which says
there are serious flaws in the environmental impact
statement filed for the project by the Southern Nevada
Water Authority and the federal agency --- learned Friday
afternoon its appeal had been granted.
"We got word from Interior this
afternoon," Dr. Larry J. Paulson, a Colorado River
water quality expert who donates his consulting services
to the Coalition, told Electric Nevada.
"We're finally getting on a more level
playing field," he said.
The Nevada Seniors Coalition is a nonprofit
organization of Las Vegas senior citizens concerned about
quality of life issues.
L. Kenneth Mahal, Coalition president, filed
the notice of appeal --- prepared by Paulson --- with the
U.S. Department of Interior's Office of Hearings and
Appeals December 19. That had followed months of
controversy over the $1.7 billion project, which, Mahal
and Paulson say, would almost triple the Southern Nevada
Water Authority (SNWA) water treatment
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and transmission
capacity --- taking it from an average capacity of 400
million gallons of water a day (mgd) to 1.1 billion mgd.
A level of growth that massive, says Mahal,
will destroy the quality of life in Las Vegas -- pulling
in extra cars, extra crowding, extra pollution -- and
only benefit developers and casino magnates, who will
then, he says, take their gains and move their own homes
somewhere else, somewhere still unspoiled.
"It's my contention," said Mahal,
"that if they're so god-awful bent [on] spending
this money ... then what the casino industry and the
developers should do is ... put their net worth on the
line, one hundred percent, and go out for a bond issue
and finance it -- since it's for their growth, and their
profitability."
Instead, he noted, the Southern Nevada Water
Authority board voted to seek a 1/4-cent hike in the
state sales tax in Clark County, surcharge fees on
existing water
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