For the last few years, the Virgin Valley Water District has tried to go toe-to-toe with the Southern Nevada Water Authority in buying up local irrigation water shares.

In fact, barely nine months ago the water district took the unprecedented step of raiding a bond fund earmarked for construction of the arsenic treatment plants and a new headquarters building to purchase 35 shares of water at $80,056.23 per share from Cresent Hardy and Bunk Farms, LLC for a total of $2,801,968.

Now that SNWA has exhausted their supply of cash for the surface water and is no longer buying, it appears VVWD is similarly losing its appetite for securing water shares.

On Tuesday, the VVWD board of directors declined an offer to buy 10 water shares from local resident Janice Draskovich.

"Before making a decision to purchase this water, we need to look at our Ordinance II money we have available, and the remaining money that we have in our bond fund that we could possibly use to purchase this water, but to see what we can do to alleviate some of the debt we have," said board member Kenyon Leavitt. "I've always been in favor of purchasing water, all we can get, but at this point in the game, I think that number one we do have some Ordinance II money, but we have obligations for that money, and that's what the Ordinance II money was for, to purchase water."

Ordinance II fees are similar to impact fees, which are charged to developers and builders for each lot. The fee currently starts at $3,000 per housing unit.

Several board members mentioned that, since local growth and construction has come to a near standstill, there have been very few of those fees paid recently.

Between the money used for previous purchases and ongoing payments, and the lack of new money coming in, the Ordinance II fund is dwindling.

"As far as the bond money goes, I don't know that right now is a good time to use the bond money to purchase water," Leavitt added.

"In better times we'd probably be snapping it up, and that's what we've done in the past," said board member Karl Gustaveson. "My concern now is, what is the market on water. The market on water in my opinion is $65,000 to $72,000 an acre. Those numbers were established partly by us, but they were established only because we were pushed into those numbers by Las Vegas purchasing the water. Las Vegas isn't purchasing that water anymore. I don't know that there are a lot of other purchases out there to make comparative numbers on."

"I wonder if that doesn't change the value dramatically, like maybe $65,000 is now $30,000," Gustaveson added. "I think the value of that water has been depreciated by at least 50%."

Board member Mark McEwen pointed out that, before more money is spent, the district needs to figure out exactly how much money is available and not encumbered for future payments on water shares purchased several years ago.

"I hate to be the scrooge," Leavitt said, "Right now, we don't need to really act on purchasing water because there's nobody out there buying it."

"Plus, we don't have anybody who needs it. We don't have any use for the water," said board member Ted Miller, referring to the fact that the water district doesn't currently use river water in their system to provide drinking water to homes or businesses, and that the surface water shares currently owned by the district are currently leased for as low as $300 a share.

The board voted 5-0 to not purchase the shares at this time.