The newly-appointed Nye County Water District Board met for the first time last week and took care of administrative business, but the underlying theme seemed to be to devise a way to import water into Pahrump and protect Nye County from actions by other water authorities.

Members appointed by the Nye County Commission include: Tonopah Town Manager James Eason; Dan Harris; former county Commissioners Roberta "Midge" Carver and Bobby Revert; Bob Cameron; Donna Lamm and Tim McCall.

"This has been a long time coming, the formation of this water authority," Nye County Commission Chairman Joni Eastley said in her introductory remarks. "I'm sure that it's not lost on anybody what's happening with the Southern Nevada Water Authority.

"They're doing what they think they need to do to obtain money for a thirsty community, and we're going to do what we need to do to make sure that we stay on an even footing with all water authorities to protect our resources."

The board can enter into contracts, incur indebtedness, issue bonds, apply to sell or buy water rights, construct infrastructure, import and store water and enter into agreements with government or corporations.

Nye County water rights attorney George Benesch said the district will be similar to the Virgin Valley Water District, Moapa Valley Water District and Las Vegas Valley Water Authority.

"But there are some major differences," Benesch said. "You are autonomous to a certain extent but you do serve at the pleasure of the commissioners. More importantly, decisions of this board are appealable to the board of county commissioners."

He added, "Any tax this group may decide to levy in the future will be done through the county."

Bob Coache, deputy state engineer for Southern Nevada, gave a primer on his office, in which he mentioned three times suggestions on importing water.

The first groundwater law in Nevada was enacted in 1913, the first comprehensive law was passed in 1939, Coache said. Groundwater restrictions first came into effect in Pahrump in 1941; by 1970 Pahrump was closed to irrigation.

The first well drilled in Pahrump was in 1910. Today there are over 10,000 domestic wells with 60,000 acre-feet of ground water rights, Coache said.

After the Spring Valley case, which revolved around an application by the Las Vegas Valley Water Association to import water from around Ely, the state engineer's office changed its regulations on intervening for interested parties, Coache said. Now those intervening requests can only be made during the 30-day public comment period following the publication of the application notice for water, he said.

"Interbasin transfer, which is what you guys want to do, is not a new idea. It started all the way back in 1873 when they were bringing water to Carson City," Coache said.

"You cannot change the point of diversion from one hydrographic basin to another. If your well is going to be in that basin when you get your permit, that's where that well stays. So if you guys acquire water rights from somebody, from some ranch or some outfit, that well stays there. You pipe that water out of that basin."

A water district has to justify the need for water, which Coache said should be easy for Pahrump to do, since it's overappropriated with three times as much acre footage in water rights as annual recharge, the valley is growing, there's no future supply and there's a conservation plan.

The Nye County Water District would have to show it wouldn't negatively affect future growth in a groundwater basin by taking water from it, he said.

Board members elected Carver interim chairman. Cameron was elected the interim vice chairman. Permanent officers will be elected after bylaws are adopted.

The district will be run out of the Nye County Nuclear Waste Repository Project Office in Pahrump. NWPRO Director Darrell Lacy suggested the water board could tap into some of the expertise of his office, which has hired scientists to conduct water studies to oversee the Yucca Mountain Project for years.

The water district will use a $167,000 budget from money left over in a federal earmark for a Pahrump groundwater study, to last through the rest of 2009.

"The district will develop its own source of funding shortly," Assistant County Manager Pam Webster said.

Revert suggested rotating meetings around Nye County. The next meeting was scheduled for April 27 at the Beatty Community Center.