Nevada official worries about water ruling effect

Page Last Updated: Monday February 8, 2010 6:08am PST

The state's chief water regulator says a recent Nevada Supreme Court ruling in a key water case could lead to "chaos" for thousands of water rights awarded over a 55-year span.

But that depends on how the ruling is interpreted.

If the Jan. 28 ruling means nullifying every application for water that took more than a year to for a state decision, Acting State Engineer Jason King warned that as many as 14,500 water rights issued between 1947 and 2002 could be affected.

He says that could create a gridlock of litigation.

The decision brought a flood of paperwork to the state engineer's office in Carson City in the first week after the ruling.

Officials said 200 new water rights applications came in from water managers seeking to guard against potential fallout from the court's action.

(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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