That is the reason the Kane County Water Conservancy District decided to lease almost 30,000 acre feet of water a year to a company that has plans for Utah's first nuclear power generating project.

About 25 people showed up at the district's monthly meeting in Kanab on Thursday night to hear what went into the decision to lease the water to Transition Power Development, LLC, which wants to help build at least two 1,500 megawatt nuclear power plants, probably in eastern Utah's Emery County.

The district received the water from the defunct Andalex coal project, which had been planned for the county but died with the creation of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in 1996.

After a $10,000 payment, the district is scheduled to receive $100,000 a year until the plant is built, at which time the annual payment for the water, which will be drawn from the Green River, will jump to $1 million a year.

District executive director and legislator, Mike Noel, told the group that if the district did not come up with a legitimate use for the water - which could service close to 30,000 households a year - it would lose the rights to the valuable commodity.

When a member of the public asked why the water could not be drawn for use by county residents, Noel explained that the district can't justify how it would use such a huge quantity of water.

Instead, revenue from the nuclear deal will be a source of Kane County's funding for the proposed Lake Powell pipeline project that allocates a more manageable 10,000 acre feet of water a year to the county, with larger amounts going to Washington and Iron counties.

District board member Tony Chelewski explained the issue faced by the district in rancher terms.

"If I drop 1,000 bales of hay in your yard and you don't have any [livestock], I'm going to come get," said Chelewski. "It's the same with water rights. Use it or lose it."

Several people at the meeting were upset with the county getting involved in promoting nuclear power.

Joseph Woods, who called water the "most valuable commodity on Earth," was upset the water would facilitate the creation of nuclear waste in the state that fought the Goshute Tribe over a proposal to store the same type of waste on its reservation in western Utah.

"We stopped that and now we want to do this for our grandchildren to live with?' Woods asked.

Noel said while he is against storing nuclear waste in Utah from other states he thought it would be disingenuous to say Utah could not store waste produced by the state in the state.

"We'll take care of it," he said.

Noel said that the water district would not be responsible for costs associated with delivering the water to the plant sites or with environmental studies.

When asked to whom Transition planned to sell the permits for construction and operations of the nuclear plants if granted, Noel said there are no clients on the horizon.

mhavnes@sltrib.com