Governor Gary Herbert has rejected an agreement with Nevada that would allow Las Vegas to pump massive amounts of groundwater from the states' shared border along the Snake Valley. The governor says he came to the decision after talking to residents and government officials in the West Desert.
“Overwhelmingly, the people in the three counties out there, Tooele, Millard and Juab County, the farmers, the ranchers the elected officials the county commissioners just said don’t sign the agreement. We’ve heard the pros. We’ve heard the cons. We come down on the con side. And as our governor, we want you to not sign the agreement,” Herbert says.
The water is in an ice-age aquifer under the 120-mile-long west-desert valley. Utah communities in Snake Valley include Callao, Trout Creek, Partoun, EskDale, Burbank, Gandy, Garrison and Border in Juab, Millard, Beaver, and Tooele counties.