Matt Jenkins did a good job of tying together the
complex threads of the Vidler Water Company story (HCN, 8/4/03:
Pipe Dreams), a mind-boggling tale of the potential horrors of
water commodification and the boundless greed of resource predators
like Vidler. Vidler certainly deserves our wary attention, but it
is also important to point out that the BLM has enthusiastically
helped Vidler and its sister, Nevada Land & Resource Company,
work their will with public land and water.
Last year, the
Western Land Exchange Project discovered that two NLRC employees
were working inside the Carson City BLM office to expedite land
trades between their company and the feds, including the trade of
public land to NLRC for the Toquop power plant project. Identified
to the public as “volunteers” but actually paid by
NLRC, these gentlemen had full access to BLM land files and even
penned feasibility (go/no-go) studies BLM must do for every major
land trade.
Why was Toquop such a high priority?
Apparently not because of the land BLM would acquire in the trade,
which the Nevada Division of Wildlife concluded had little habitat
value. The impetus was Toquop/NLRC’s need to establish a
market (i.e., beneficial use) for Vidler/NLRC’s water. It is
no wonder that BLM didn’t want to analyze an air-cooled
alternative to the proposed water-cooled power plant, nor that BLM
remains adamant about the need for the project despite the
cancellation of other power projects throughout Nevada.
The commodification of water has the all-too-familiar feel of the
grabs and giveaways that put public lands into the hands of
extractors and developers. Companies like Vidler/NLRC are creating
a kind of hybrid land and water deal that first seizes public land,
then sucks it dry. If the BLM and other federal agencies aid and
abet these water grabs as they have the land grabs, we’ll be
in real trouble.
Janine Blaeloch and Chris Krupp
Seattle, Washington
The authors work with the Western Land Exchange Project.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Vidler is a water predator.
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