Rep Mark Amodei is hoping to tuck a 176-page amendment into a massive military defense spending bill that would have major implications for Nevada’s lands and water. The proposal would sell off public lands, advance a water grab and expand bombing ranges throughout Nevada. GBWN, the Center for Biological Diversity, and the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada sent letters urging US House committees to ensure that the proposal does not drain our limited groundwater supplies.
Read the letters and tell the House Rules Committee to vote down the Amodei amendment.
- It would require the government to complete any permitting necessary to facilitate Churchill County’s pernicious Dixie Valley Water Project, a proposal to pump 16.5 billion gallons of water per year from precious desert aquifers in Dixie Valley, piping it to Fallon to feed growth enabled by this bill. It would dry up desert springs and wetlands and potentially send the Dixie Valley toad to extinction.
- It would enable the long-proposed Fallon Naval Air Station bombing range expansion, and allow for greater military control on nearly 500,000 acres of public lands.
- It would allow private developers to purchase hundreds of thousands of acres of public land for sprawl and industrial development, including 10,000 acres in Douglas County, 50,000 acres in Churchill County, and a near unlimited amount of acreage in Pershing County.
- With land disposals for new developments across Douglas, Churchill and other counties, the amendment proposes a very important question: where will the water come from?