TONOPAH -- Bob Coache, chief engineer for the Nevada Division of Water Resources southern office, traveled 207 miles up from Las Vegas Tuesday in a futile attempt to persuade Nye County commissioners to delay approving a large development in Crystal until a new law takes effect that requires the relinquishing of water rights.

Hans Siebt, owner of HSLV Development Corp.and the Desert Retreat RV Park on Leslie Street and Highway 160, nevertheless received the approval to subdivide five parcels, ranging from 39.2 to 41 acres, into four parcels apiece -- 20 in all -- varying in size from eight to 11 acres.

Other parcels being subdivided include Lawrence and Linda Bray's 74-acre parcel into a 43.5-acre parcel and three 10 acre lots; Natalie Villarante's 41 acres, into three 11-acre plots and an eight-acre parcel; and Nye County District Attorney Bob Beckett's 31 acres, subdivided into three eight-acre parcels and a seven-acre lot.

Coache urged commissioners to wait until Senate Bill 275 takes effect Jan. 1, 2008, which requires the relinquishment of water rights when land is parceled out. A similar requirement for the donation of 2.2 acres of water rights for each parcel is already in effect in the Pahrump Regional Planning District.

Coache noted both local state legislators representing Crystal, Sen. Mike McGinness, R-Fallon, and Assemblyman Ed Goedhart, R-Amargosa Valley, voted for the bill..

Coache said, "You have that type of requirement in Pahrump, you do not have that type of requirement in Amargosa."

Coache requested commissioners to "follow the spirit of the legislation" and hold the requested maps in abeyance. He also requested that commissioners set up a procedure for approving parcel maps to include water rights.

Commissioner Joni Eastley understood Coache's concerns were over the availability of water and the aquifer's ability to sustain large development.

"Everybody said we don't want another Pahrump. This is the very issue that caused the problems in Pahrump," Coache said.

If maps are approved and the developer drills wells, the county may have to regulate and possibly eliminate those wells in the future, he said.

Eastley said she received a phone call from an Amargosa Valley resident who felt the legislation was only happening because of pressure by the National Parks Service.

"I never spoke to the Parks Service about these parcel maps," Coache said. "We're seeing declining water tables. We're having difficulty getting actual, real-time data."

He added, "We need to find out if there is an issue ... The water table in most of Amarogsa Valley is going down. Even if the Parks Service does not protest an application, the state engineer is still obliged to follow statute, and part of that statute is it won't impair existing rights."

Coache said all the monitoring wells in the Amargosa Valley area have been vandalized, buried or made ineligible.

Commission Chairman Gary Hollis wasn't too sympathetic toward Coache.

"California can pump as much water as they want, which draws the water we have from Amargosa Valley south or southwest, and I have a problem with that," Hollis said.

Coache said Hollis was correct. "I agree with you; I think that's wrong. But we can only control what we can control," he said.

Some landowners in Amargosa Valley merely want to change the point of diversion from one end of their property to another, but the Parks Service protests, Hollis said. Coache said the protests were filed over diversions that moved water closer to the Devil's Hole, home of the endangered pup fish.

Coache referred to the U.S. Supreme Court decision decreeing the water level at Devil's Hole.

"We have problems throughout Amargosa Valley with lowering the water table," Coache said. "The impacts to Devil's Hole are just a precursor to what is going to happen in Amargosa Valley, just like Pahrump."

Pahrump Valley is pumping over 20,000 acre-feet of water rights but has 80,000 acre feet of water rights on the books, Coache said.

"Now if we do approve a parcel map, that person has a right to drill a domestic well," Coache said.

When Hollis claimed the county had videotape of a producing well in Amargosa Valley, Coache said he shouldn't confuse one well's production to the perennial yield of an entire basin.

"That well is three feet higher than it was in 1970," Hollis said.

While Coache may have lost this battle, he said, "Our intent is that, if this isn't taken care of in Nye County, that come the first of the year we'll issue an order and require hearings for the relinquishment of water rights."

Commissioner Peter Liakopoulos disclosed he did business with Seibt on his television show but it wouldn't bias his decision.

Nye County Manager Ron Williams said the commission only had three options: to approve the application, conditionally approve it or deny it. The requirement to donate water rights could be a special condition, he said.

The main snag, from the county view, was a concession by Kenneth Plewe, from CivilWise Services, that the surveying map could be inaccurate on three parcel map requests. The maps for subdividing those three parcels, each measuring 41 acres, would have to be surveyed by the Nye County surveyor at the developer's expense, the commission decided.

But he said it would be unfair at this point to change the rules.

Marlene Rogoff, a committee member of the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors, said the state legislature delayed the implementation of Senate Bill 275 until local officials could interpret the bill and public hearings could be held.

"If general denials are made, based on advancing the legislation back six months, we would definitely have a serious issue with this," she said.

Jan Cameron, chairman of the Amargosa Valley Advisory Board, said the panel is drafting a regional plan but it isn't ready to submit it to the commissioners.

Cameron said. "If our area plan were in place today we would've voted against approval of these."

However, she added, the town board doesn't have authority to do so, she said.