Bill calls for inventory of Nev. water rights
By Sandra Chereb, Las Vegas Review-Journal
CARSON CITY — With drought gripping Nevada and much of the West, the state’s top water official and a state senator said it’s time to inventory how much water there is and who owns what by tidying up the books on water rights that pre-date state law.
“Clearly if we’re going to establish a water inventory … we have to understand what water is available, what is permitted,” state Sen. Pete Goicoechea, R-Eureka, told members of the Assembly Government Affairs Committee during a hearing Wednesday.
At issue are so-called “vested” rights initiated by putting water to beneficial use before state law was enacted setting regulations for surface water use in 1905, artesian groundwater in 1913 and percolating groundwater in 1939.