According to Nevada Revised Statutes (NRS) 533.025, all water sources in Nevada, above and below ground, are publicly owned. This principle underpins the State’s legal and ethical obligations to water management entities.
On April 24, 2025, Nevada Supreme Court Justice Lidia S. Stiglich, with Ron D. Parraguirre and Linda Marie Bell concurring, gave the Virgin Valley Water District Board (VVWDB) in Mesquite, Nevada, sole and absolute discretion to set the rental rate on irrigation water they delivered after January 1, 2020, and by default giving the same rate-setting authority to SNWA authorities to divert the Water to Lake Mead.
Public Ownership of Water in Nevada
The disputed publicly owned water was initially appropriated under the 1927 Virgin River Decree to Mesquite Irrigation Company (MIC) and Bunkerville Irrigation Company (BIC) stockholders for local area irrigation.
A Dying Irrigation Market
However, by the early ’90s, a dying dairy and agriculture market required rebuilding the community economy into a retirement area and tourist and gaming mecca, thus shifting the water demand from highly polluted Decreed water for declining irrigation to somewhat cleaner groundwater for rising domestic requirements.
As golf courses, gaming, and homeowner associations replaced irrigated lands, much of the undiverted Water flowed freely downstream to Lake Mead.
Virgin Valley Water District as stock brokers
In 1993, the Nevada Legislature established the Virgin Valley Water District (VVWD), requiring it to deliver better-quality groundwater from Virgin River Basin 222 for Mesquite-Bunkerville’s domestic needs.
Nonetheless, once formed, Decreed Water stockholders took control of the Virgin Valley Water District Board. They began acquiring Water at a baseline price of $900.00 per share for one MIC stock.
They argued that such share purchases of stocks were necessary for a future time when they would tax the rate holders to pay for the cleaning of the Water essential for domestic use.[1]
Thus began the Water Board’s practice of joining the Irrigation Companies as a leasing agent, effectively making the Water Board a stockbroker.
Raising Rates
As stockholders continued to dominate the Board, they increased the share price to $5,524.90 for a BIC stock in 1996, rising to $8,287.00 in 1997 with a MIC stock at $6,000. By 2005, stockholders on the water board had gifted $31,500 for BIC stock and $22,806 for MIC, a stock share.
Also, in 2005, the Southern Nevada Water Association entered the Virgin River market and paid $11,686,500.00 for 350 BIC water stocks at $33,390.00 per share.
In 2008, the VVWDB raised BIC stock price to $86,000 per share while establishing $65,000 as the per-share value for MIC stock shares. [2]
Also, in 2008, under a federally authorized contracting program, the Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) began using its public funds to pay Virgin River stockholders for unused irrigation water, arguably increasing the amount of Water flowing into Lake Mead.
In 2009, SNWA authorities purchased 1 BIC stock share at $80,056.23 and partially purchased 5 BIC shares for $400,281.15, amounting to $80,056.23 per share.
By 2010, the SNWA had moved to replace the VVWDB as a rate-setting stock broker by purchasing and leasing MIC and BIC stock shares to, on paper, show them reallocated from irrigation diversions in the Mesquite-Bunkerville areas as authorized under the 1927 Virgin River decree to flow into Lake Mead, thus servicing the beneficial use of SNWA customers in the Las Vegas Metropolitan area.
VVWD ended its activities due to potential profits from the SNWA reallocating program. By then, the VVWDB had spent $12,159,670.86 of ratepayer funds to acquire 549 stock shares they subleased (rented) (but did not deliver)[3] to local golf courses and occasionally to a local farm.
Legal dispute
In 2018, the owners of Paradise Canyon (DBA the Wolf Creek Golf Course) alleged that the members of the Virgin Valley Water District Board violated the covenant of good faith and fair dealing in raising their irrigation water rate from $250 to $1,115 per share an increase of 346%.
While the trial proceeded, on September 17, 2020, Nevada Supreme Court Justice Lidia S. Stiglich, who authored the Paradise Canyon Ruling, this time with Mark Gibbons, James William Hardesty, and Ellisa F. Cadish, ruled after oral arguments in the Walker Case, that the public trust doctrine does not permit reallocating water rights already adjudicated and settled under the doctrine of prior appropriation. Nonetheless, SNWA authorities continued applying VVWDB rate-setting standards to acquire and reallocate MIC and BIC stock shares to Lake Mead, a process arguably denied by Stiglich and other Justices in the Walker Case.
On June 5, 2023, the Jury concluded that when the owners of Paradise Canyon signed a contract with the VVWDB in June 2011, they had a justified expectation that the local market around the City of Mesquite on and after January 1, 2020, would exclude rates paid by The Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) upon which the Water District claimed they based its increased price to $1,200 per share. The Jury then set a fair rate of leased irrigation shares at $300 and awarded the owners of Paradise Canyon $811,000 in damages.
In the meantime, by the end of 2023, the SNWA had gifted $56,423,220.73 to stockholders of MIC and BIC in their diversion effort to Lake Mead.
Then, on April 24, 2025, Nevada Supreme Court Justice Lidia S. Stiglich, with Ron D. Parraguirre and Linda Marie Bell concurring, gave the Virgin Valley Water District Board (VVWDB) in Mesquite, Nevada, sole and absolute discretion to set the rental rate on irrigation water they delivered after January 1, 2020, and by default giving the same rate-setting authority to SNWA authorities to divert the Water to Lake Mead.
Questions of ethics, public Trust, and fiduciary responsibilities
The Justice Stiglich, Parraguirre, and Bell rulings suggest gifting $12,159,670.86 in public funds to those holding stocks in MIC and BIC through rate setting, which set the terms for SNWA to gift another $56,423,220.73 in public funds to the stockholders of MIC and BIC for a total of 68,582,891.59 funds for publically owned but not longer used appropriated irrigation water complies with fiduciary ethical requirements, as governed by the Nevada Commission on Ethics.
Further, the Justices seem to feel that contrary to the Walker ruling, the WVWDB has sole and absolute discretion to set rates that ultimately allow for reallocating appropriated water rights away from the Decreed area to benefit the population of the Las Vegas Metropolitan area.
Future options
If approved by the Wolf Creek Golf course owners, the attorneys for Paradise Canyon have several options. First, they can appeal to the entire Supreme Court for a review of the three Justices’ ruling.
Since the three judges remanded the case to the lower court, it could result in a new trial.
In either case, the potential may exist to define the VVWDB rate-setting strategy as a violation of the covenant of good faith, leading directly to SNWA’s question of purchasing and leasing of Decreed water for reappropriation to Lake Mead an explicit public trust and fiduciary violation as stated by Stiglich, and the other Justices in the Walker Case.
A complete review of this case is posted at Mesquitewateralliance.com
[1] Current plans project cleaning the Decreed river water for domestic use in 2035, continuing to 2061, for $60 million in capital expenses. The effort remains highly speculative for several reasons, including costs and overappropriation of surface water primarily by the Southern Nevada Water Authority.
[2] The difference between BIC and MIC stock shares comes from an assumption that more water comes from BIC shares thn from MIC shares.
[3] The VVWDB does not deliver the water; they profit from leasing (renting) stock shares paid for with ratepayer funds. Local delivery of that source comes via traditional ditches and pipes constructed by the Irrigation Companies.