"Environmentalists are warning that a plan to pipe billions of gallons of water a year from rural central Nevada nearly 300 miles to the Las Vegas metropolitan area will dry up wetlands and springs, damaging thousands of acres of wildlife habitat and potentially creating a 'dust bowl' scenario."

"At issue is the Bureau of Land Management's issuance last week of a final environmental impact statement for a proposal to build an underground pipeline to transport as much as 27 billion gallons of water a year to the Las Vegas Valley.

Nevada State Engineer Jason King in March granted the Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) the right to pump water from four rural valleys as far as 300 miles to the Las Vegas metro area, which currently gets 90 percent of its water from the Colorado River system's Lake Mead."

Scott Streater reports for Greenwire August 6, 2012. [2]