Extended Interview

Gary Perea, White Pine County Commissioner Read more extended interviews.

This interview has not been edited for content.

Interviewer:  Tell me what most of the residents of White Pine County think of the water situation here?

Gary Perea:  Most of White Pine County, a majority of the county is against what we call the water grab.  We believe that taking the water is going to take away our future and any type of potential growth or expansion of industries.  They haven't come out with an official number or how much they want to pay for the water that they take, but money is not a factor for them.  They have a lot of money and Las Vegas, as fast as it's growing and the amount of money that they have and the political pressure that they have, they have no problem taking the water.  We have been told that when they take the water that it will lower the water table and it will affect some of the springs in the national park and the wildlife—it could be devastating.  The effects won't happen all of a sudden, but it will take years to create.  Southern Nevada Water Authority has offered the county large sums of money or have made the reference that they would be able to support or mitigate any kind of potential harm that they would do to the county and that isn't what the county and it's residents are looking for.  It takes a special kind of people to live in this rural type of an area and we don't need the money, we need the water.  One of the things I've been looking at when we go to the different presentations is the growth in Las Vegas and I know that there is a figure that goes around that every twenty minutes a new home is being built in the Las Vegas Valley and for every home that is built in Las Vegas, Southern Nevada Water Authority receives $20,000 for that hook-up and with that kind of money they can throw it at any problem they have and they think that money is the solution and that White Pine County, because of the financial situation that we have in the county and the fact that we don't have a booming economy, that we'll take that money, but there is a lot of resistance.  When they take the water away, it takes away our future and we want to be able to have a future for our children to live this type of a lifestyle in this area.  There is a fund which was created to… the BLM sells property and land in the Las Vegas area and Southern Nevada Water Authority receives some funding from those lands sells to provide water for those developments.  Money is just not an issue with them.  They have hired lobbyists in both Nevada and in Utah to help fund this project.