At the same time, negotiations between Nevada and Utah have slowed over a related plan to share water resources in Snake Valley along the state line.

Michael Styler, director of the Utah Department of Natural Resources, said earlier this week that negotiations with Nevada have bogged down primarily because field work on the Utah side of the line to assess available groundwater resources is still being done. At the same time, he said Nevada's similar efforts on the other side of the line have been slowed by the hearing process. But Styler says that's not necessarily a bad thing.

"The slowdown has given us time to get our facts correct to gather information from the existing studies," he said. "There's no timetable, though it's my personal hope that we get it done before the end of the year."

Hearings in Carson City wrapped up this week to assess permit applications by the Southern Nevada Water Authority to tap wells and begin taking water out of Spring Valley, located west of Great Basin National Park. State engineer Tracy Taylor is expected to render his decision sometime after the first of the year.

The authority has proposed taking 91,000 acre-feet of water annually out of Spring Valley, the centerpiece of a plan to withdraw about 200,000 acre-feet out of Lincoln and White Pine counties.

Included in that larger proposal is a plan to take up to 50,000 acre-feet of groundwater from the Snake Valley, which takes in a swath on the Utah side of the border in Millard and Juab counties.

Utah's approval is required by federal statute for that part of the project to get the green light.

Opponents of the larger Southern Nevada plan, including area ranchers, environmental groups and local political leaders, have argued that such large withdrawals of water will destroy the grazing lands and overall ecosystem in that part of the Great Basin.

They also have protested the water authority's fast-track timetable. The Southern Nevada Water Authority is seeking quick approval from the state engineer to begin the project before environmental studies by the U.S. Geological Survey and Bureau of Land Management are complete.

In closing arguments, Matt Kenna of the Western Environmental Law Center told Nevada water regulators that his experts had proven that such withdrawals would create an excessive drawdown of the region's water tables and lead to "devastating" impacts.

Southern Nevada Water Authority attorney Paul Taggart countered that the water authority's project is vital to southern Nevada's future.

The question, he said, is "whether Nevada is going to control its own destiny" or find itself at the mercy of states unwilling to share their Colorado River water.

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* THE ASSOCIATED PRESS contributed to this report.