The Utah Medical Association has examined the draft Snake Valley water deal, and the doctors' prognosis is not a happy one. They conclude that putting a giant straw into the aquifer below the valley to pipe water to Las Vegas could kill the plants in the eastern Great Basin, leaving the toxin-laden soils to blow across Utah in great dust storms. That would be dangerous to Utahns' health.

Their prescription to Utah's governor: Delay the deal until more scientific study can be done. Do not the sign the agreement as it stands.

We agree. Too little is known about the sustainable yield of water in the valley and how much could be safely sucked out of the ground without creating an environmental catastrophe. Many of the ranchers who live on the land and use the water every day believe that there is no surplus for the taking. As the doctors point out, there are reputable scientists who agree with the ranchers.

What's more, once the native plants that withdraw ground water with their roots die because the water table has dropped, the game is up. It may be too late to restore life to the basin even if pumping were stopped, a dubious possibility if Las Vegas were to invest a billion dollars to build a 300-mile pipeline. The dust bowl scenario could quickly turn from scientific speculation to wind-blown fact.

That would leave Utahns in a permanent fix. Deteriorating air quality due to particulate pollution from burning fossil fuels already is a major health issue on the Wasatch Front, in Cache Valley and elsewhere. The last thing Utahns need is to have a vacuum bag from Nevada dumped on them regularly.

By way of reminder, Snake Valley is about 100 miles long and straddles the central Utah/Nevada state line. Because Las Vegas has proposed to withdraw 50,000 acre feet of water per year from the aquifer below the valley, negotiators from the two states have proposed an agreement that would divide the rights to ground water equally between the two states. The proposed deal estimates the available groundwater supply at 132,000 acre feet. A system of test wells and environmental monitoring could cause those numbers to be re-evaluated over time.

But as the doctors' examination of the deal makes clear, too little is known about the water supply to reasonably allocate it, and it is anyone's guess whether environmental monitoring would lead to appropriate action if the valley were to dry up.

Utah's future could be gone with the wind.