On December 16, 2010, the Nevada Supreme Court issued a per curiam opinion, Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe of Indians v. Ricci, affirming the district court’s order denying judicial review of the State Engineer’s decision to grant Nevada Land and Resource Company, LLC’s (NLRC) change application for water rights in Washoe County’s Dodge Flat Hydrologic Basin.
NLRC originally obtained permits to appropriate Dodge Flat groundwater for temporary use in a mining and milling project in 1980. Twenty years later, NLRC applied to change the use from temporary to permanent and from mining and milling to industrial power purposes.
The Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe of Indians (“the Tribe”) opposed the change application on the grounds that (1) Dodge Flat has no unappropriated groundwater, (2) groundwater pumping would interfere with existing rights to Truckee River surface water based on the hydrological connection between the Truckee River and Dodge Flat Basin, and (3) pumping from Dodge Flat Basin threatens to prove detrimental to the public interest by reducing Truckee River water quality and threatening the cui-ui fish and Lahontan cutthroat trout habitats.
On appeal, the Nevada Supreme Court found that there was substantial evidence to support the State Engineer’s conclusions that (1) there is 1,428 afa of unappropriated water available for permanent use in Dodge Flat Basin, (2) the change applications will not affect existing water rights, and (3) that the change application does not threaten to prove detrimental to the public interest.
Specifically, the Court found that the State Engineer properly excluded the Tribe’s use of groundwater in Dodge Flat Basin from the calculation of perennial yield because the Tribe has no express or implied rights to the water. Furthermore, the Court found that the change application does not threaten to prove detrimental to the public interest because NLRC’s pumping will be limited to the amount of the unappropriated perennial yield. Finally, the Court held that any potential threat to the public interest or injury to existing rights is a consequence of the Tribe’s unauthorized pumping without a permit or implied right.
A full copy of the opinion is available at: http://www.nevadajudiciary.us/index.php/advancedopinions/909-pyramid-lake-paiute-tribe-v-state-engr.
