Extended Interview

Dean Baker Rancher Baker, Nevada Read more extended interviews.

This interview has not been edited for content.

Desert Wars /Interview – Dean Baker - Rancher

Dean Baker:  I went to school in Utah at the University of Utah and during that time I made up my mind that what I really wanted to do was to come back home to the ranch here and spend my life so I've put in both my adult and childhood life on ranches and doing it and that's what I know and I dearly love it.  I feel very lucky to have done it and I learned to take care of both the land and the livestock and that's what I do.  I get a great deal of pleasure out of that and the wildlife that's all around and the hundreds of deer that are here and the thousands of ducks and geese and I just feel very lucky to be here in this beautiful area.

Interviewer:  We were talking about the MX missile debate.  What parallels are there between the MX missile and these water issues?

Dean Baker:  There are several parallels with the MX missile--one is what it will do to the environment and that's probably the major parallel.  A lot of the information that Southern Nevada Water is using was developed for the MX missile.  The MX missile would have churned up huge acres of land, and would have had a real affect on the area.  The other is there is the element of bluff and I think part of Southern Nevada Water coming here is there is an element of bluff and I think they have unfortunately got themselves to the point where they have to carry the bluff through too far.  They're trying to bluff the Colorado River Commission, Southern California and others and they're going to go ruin an environment and they say that they're not going to ruin it but everybody knows that that is a very probable outcome to get water and it's a small amount of water so that if they can bluff the others and make them realize how much damage they're liable to do and what the negative affects are, then they can get them to give water other places.  There are those two parallels and then a third parallel is I don't think either of them knew what they were doing or that that was a major care when they started out.  It was not until they got into it that they began to realize how many impacts there could be. 

Interviewer: Tell me about your greatest fears here and what impact would their plans have on your ranch and this community of Baker?

Dean Baker:  The biggest fear that I have is that they just take the water.  That's pretty hard to know—what springs, how many springs, how much they'll lower the water table.  But a large number of our acres that are irrigated or sub-irrigated with spring water that are close to the surface, if it was lowered—whether it is one foot or five feet or ten feet—it lowers the productivity.  If it goes 15-20 feet, which is entirely possible, then it really will reduce the carrying capacity of the meadows.

Interviewer:  Hal Rothman kind of singled you out in an article and I think his thesis was mainly that the water for the city of Las Vegas would benefit millions of people in terms of the economy and jobs and here it would only benefit a relatively small number of people.  What is your response to that?

Dean Baker:  Well there's a lot more than just people—there's millions of wildlife here.  On this ranch alone the Department of Wildlife counted over 500 deer here.  It's common to see ten, twenty, forty head of antelope in a field.  There are thousands of geese here in the good part of the year.  They live here year-round.  There are thousands of ducks that live here.  There are many other kinds of birds that we enjoy watching.  Some of the antelope we know by name.  It's not just the people that are here, but it's also the fact that it will affect thousands of people who drink milk from the hay that's produced here.  We produce over 2 million pounds of beef—that's a lot of hamburger or steaks for Las Vegas.  Indirectly it effects a lot of people and then there is a need for a lot of people that come through here and look at this area, the mountain and the valleys, and see what there is and enjoy the wildlife and the views. 

Interviewer:  Do you feel you have been singled out?  And if so, why?
 
Dean Baker:  Well I assume he (Hal Rothman) singles me out because I have spoken so strongly against this how I think this is wrong.  I don't think it's good for the people of Las Vegas because I don't think there is enough water here to justify the 2-3 billion dollars that somebody will have to pay those bonds off if they do it.  I don't think it's good for the environment because it will take the water and ruin the valley and I've said this quite clearly, I think it's wrong.  I think it's illogically wrong.  I think its workability won't work, but I think it's morally wrong.  I think it's wrong to do this!  If there is water here they can take without hurting it, then that is a different thing.  I just strongly believe there isn't.  My experience is, when we drill wells that pull the water down in a cone of depression around where we drill, we dry springs up and true, they are on our own land, but we know what it does to the water table with the little we do and it's a drop in the bucket compared to what they're trying to do.  I have such a huge fear of what they're doing and I've spoken out against it and I think that's the reason that he says it doesn't count because it will give water to thousands in Las Vegas and he is just up there alone and crying about his cow and bail of hay. 

Interviewer:  The SNWA—one of their points of view is that there are regulations in effect that would protect the environment and the land.  What is your response to that?

Dean Baker:  Well regulations that are in effect that are good regulations—there's a good history of the State Water Engineer making the best possible decisions.  But this is a whole other magnitude.  There has been no history of any withdrawal of this magnitude nor one that must, to pay off the pipeline, have the duration that it does.  So it's a totally different situation.  There is no comparison, and again, the State Engineer has been very good.  His history has been good, but this is one man that makes the final decision who works at the pleasure at the Governor of the State of Nevada and I don't think that it's any secret that Southern Nevada—the builders and gaming industry and the casino industry and Southern Nevada Water control the politics in the state of Nevada and if they need to, they can put pressure to change almost any political decision.  It has been well-shown that.

Interviewer:  Can you trust and do you trust the SNWA?

Dean Baker:  I think the SNWA is made up of very good and smart people, but they come from a totally different environment and as I told one of them once when they said, "We have a good history of living up to our word" and I don't question that, but I looked back at them and said, "That's true, but when that pipeline goes empty or there becomes an Owens Valley, your replacement will have very little choice but to, one way or another, fill the pipeline whether it's going north into Elko County or Steptoe Valley or simple pull the water table down.  So… it has been a pleasure to work with Southern Nevada Water people, but they're from a very different world. 

Interviewer:  Talk a little bit about Owens Valley.  Is that a valid parallel to the situation here?

Dean Baker:  Owens Valley is a very good parallel to this.  Southern Nevada Water Authority hates that to be brought up, but you've got to realize that Owens Valley is on the east side of the range that collects most of the moisture that comes off of the Pacific.  It is one of the best water sources there is in the West and by the time it gets here to Snake Valley it has gone across a half a dozen or dozen other ranges that rain more water out and drop it down.  The history of Owens Valley was that they didn't start in initially to dry the ranches up.  They were only going to take a little water and they weren't going to harm it, but as it became clear that there was such a conflict, they just simply had no choice but to dry it up and suck it dry.  They say the laws won't let them do that now, but I question that. 

Interviewer:  We were talking a little bit about your values.  Can you compare and contrast the values here compared to those of Las Vegas?

Dean Baker:  I hate to make judgments about people.  The values here—if money were the only value we would clearly be working to sell the ranch because the value enhanced by the water value has grown hugely over the time we were here.  We could certainly all retire and live the rest of our lives simply by selling the ranch, but my family, particularly the boys, love farming.  They enjoy the livestock.  They like raising their family here and the children so it's the values of here and not money.  I can't help but think that Southern Nevada and Las Vegas is largely driven by money.

Interviewer:  Should these large cities of the West like Las Vegas continue to grow, what should they do?  Where should these resources come from?

Dean Baker:  Logically to me there is only one source where there is enough water and that is desalinization of the ocean and trading it back from the coast.  I really don't think there is any other choice.  To do it otherwise will degrade the area, take the water away from it and hurt the future and take the future away from White Pine County and if they continue to rely on inner-basin transfers of water they will have no choice but to dry up the state of Nevada.  So I think the sooner they look at the alternative of the ocean, the better it is.

Interviewer:  Do you consider this a water grab?

Dean Baker:  I don't know if that's a good… I think it's a lack of knowledge and understanding about satisfying their needs.  They think they can take the water or at least they verbally say they can take the water without grabbing it.  I just don't believe that's possible.  So in the end it will be a water grab but that isn't the intention they're starting out with and that's the parallel again with the Owens Valley.  They didn't start out to dry Owens Valley up, but it was the end consequence.
Interviewer:  Tell me in your opinion what you think their plans are for this?

Dean Baker:  That's very hard to tell.  A lot of it relies on what the State Engineer tells them to do.  Part of it is what agreement they have to make with the state of Utah and keeping the groundwater and the water table.  I don't know.  There are a lot of cards to be played out when they get to it.  I just think in end that if they do enough studies and understand the area enough I think the pipeline will be forgotten.  It's so illogical and wrong to me that I think it will fall on it's own weight, as much as the MX did.

Interviewer:  Lets talk about the politics a little bit.  Who has the power in this issue?

Dean Baker:  That's really easy!  The casinos in southern Nevada or across the state, but primary in southern Nevada just had a gaming net 11.6 billion.  They are very forthright in saying now that less than half of their net income comes from gaming.  So they had a net income of between 25 and 30 billion dollars in 2005.  There has been a lot of outcry about the net of Exxon at 36 billion, but Exxon goes clear around the world supplying energy, drilling for energy, shipping it across the oceans.  There is a huge number of risks, and if you go back through the last ten years I suspect their net is on an average less than the gaming industry and hotel industry in Nevada.  So they're creating this huge pile of billions of dollars that they invest and bring more tourists in to make more billions, but it creates another firestorm in that it takes a building industry not only to build the billions of dollars in casinos, but the homes for the construction workers and homes for the people who man the gaming industry and then also the infrastructure of the school teachers and others.  This brings the gaming industry and the casinos and the construction developers, but also the strong Southern Nevada Union.  So you put the three of them together as a political force and it's unbelievable what it does to the politics in the state of Nevada.  Logically you can't politically do anything if it goes against those three put together and it's like a wildfire that's creating it's own draft—it has to go on or it just sucks everything up and there is no way to stop it at this point.  I believe they totally control the politics in the state of Nevada at least on the national level and the state legislature level.  There are a few that don't, but they have been put into an insignificant corner.

Interviewer:  So what kind of chance do you have?

Dean Baker:  The people of Nevada for one.  I think education nationally—I just think it's unacceptable what will happen if this project goes through.  I think it's so illogical and wrong that, like I said, it will fall on it's own weight before they get it built if they gather enough information and time goes on.

Interviewer:  What would you like to see for the future?

Dean Baker:  As far as my future? 

Interviewer:  Well the future of the water issue here.  How would you like to see this resolved?

Dean Baker:  I would like to see them decide what water levels have to be maintained.  First they need to get a baseline of what springs there are, what wet meadows there are, how many areas where the roots are going into the water, what the water table really is.  Then they need to do drilling and testing with pressure testing between the layers, and do the best scientific approach they can.  The BARCASS study of the USGS #1 and #2 should be completed.  Get all the information you can from them and put all of the information on the table and get the very best minds, whether they are for or against it, to look at it and analyze it.  If they believe that there is water then start a test-pumping project and see what cones of depression there are and do it long enough that there is real information.  If they can prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that there is water then I don't think we have an argument against them taking it.  But I think that should be proven to the best ability of all the water models, the water budgets… everything should be completed before they start to build the pipeline.  The pipeline should be the last thing they do. 

Interviewer:  Talk about the appropriateness of any large metropolitan city taking water from rural communities.  Is that an appropriate thing for them to be doing?

Dean Baker:  I don't think it's really appropriate to dry one area up, dry agriculture up because there are so many other holders—the wildlife, the recreation and other things that are affected by it.  It depends on the impacts.  If they are severe enough and affect so many holders—plants, animals, people, hunting and fishing, others—then it has to be done in such a matter that it doesn't hurt so many others that aren't monetarily affected.  The question of whether they ought to be able to buy the water and take it—that's another issue.  My family has clearly said that that isn't a factor, that we want to live out here, but there are varying opinions about private property rights and what is right to jeopardize those or not and I have fears that may happen and I don't think that's right.

Dean Baker:  This is a stream that's coming from an area in these meadows.  It's about three miles across here and about a mile wide and the groundwater is right here.  This time of year it comes up and flows.  Most of the year it flows all of the time south of us.  North of us it quits in the dry summer, but it's an area that is very important.  We have about 2,000 acres of this kind of meadow where the groundwater is critical to the summering of our cows and calves.  My theory is that if the water table is lowered at all, the carrying capacity is going to be greatly diminished and we simply won't have a home for the cows and the calves in the summer.  We know from our pumping that this can happen and we wouldn't want to see this happen here.  There is this meadow and the Burbank meadow that was the first place that was settled in this valley about fifteen to twenty miles south of here.  But it's a large area with a water table that's close and supports a lot of cattle and wildlife of all kinds.  Earlier there was a herd of deer that went right below us here.  This here is in the middle of an area where the water raises.  It's a wet meadow area on this… this is our main ranch.  This area is about three miles across and about a mile or so wide and has a big carrying capacity.  Water comes up from under the surface all year long.  A big part of it we can't drag because it's so wet that the tractors get stuck anytime of year but some of it dries up later in the summer.  But this is similar to a large number of our acres of meadowland.  That's where we summer our cows and calves, and it's very productive and if the water table were to drop even a foot, it would make a significant difference in the carrying capacity.  If it drops fifteen or twenty feet, which I think is very likely if they pump the amount of water, then it would greatly lesson the amount of carrying capacity in the number of cattle that would carry and feed in the summer.  There are a lot of areas like this throughout the valley—these are particularly important to us and this stream, I'm sure, would go away if we dropped the water table a foot. 

(Later, while flying over Baker's ranch in his plane, he shows the interviewer the natural environment of the area)

Interviewer:   How would the water issue affect the landscape that we're flying over?

Dean Baker:  (aerial view) Well it depends on how much water they take and what it does to the water table—it could have a really significant effect on the landscape.  Below us is a big area of greasewood that put their roots into the water and if the roots get out of the water, they die so there are thousands of acres of that kind of vegetation that would change if the water table were lowered significantly.  Wet Meadows could change and it all depends on how much water they take and how the water flows and recharges and how long-term it is. 

Interviewer:   Is it proper for Las Vegas to take the water from rural communities, and if not why?

Dean Baker:  There are a great many lives that depend on this, whether it's livestock—we produce millions of pounds of beef out of this valley.  There are tons and tons of hay that go to produce milk that is drank in Las Angeles or San Francisco or Las Vegas, and those things all come under jeopardy if this area isn't able to continue to produce the livestock and the hay that goes into these projects.  So it depends on how much and how long.