CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) - Nevada’s acting top water regulator since January has been given the job permanently.
Department of Conservation & Natural Resources chief Bradley Crowell announced Thursday that Tim Wilson was promoted to state engineer and Division of Water Resources administrator.
Wilson has been with the division since 1995 and served several roles before stepping up from deputy to acting state engineer following the retirement of Jason King after his 28 years as a state employee.
The state engineer regulates and appropriates surface and groundwater in the nation’s most arid state - except the Colorado River - and oversees water well drilling, dam safety, resource planning and flood plain management.
Nevada is involved in several key court battles involving water-use decisions, including a decades-long fight over a plan to pump groundwater from arid valleys near the Nevada-Utah state line and pipe it more than 250 miles (400-kilometers) south to Las Vegas.
Crowell said Wilson will focus on issues such as over-promised and over-pumped groundwater basins, population growth, the drilling of domestic wells in areas with limited water supplies and what Crowell called “over-arching impacts of climate change” throughout Nevada.
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