One of the concerns over the proposed power plants is the use of large amounts of water for cooling.  It is estimated that the Sierra Pacific plant will use 16,000 acre feet per year of water and that the LS plant will use 5,000 acre feet per year.  The total of 21,000 acre feet per year is equivalent to the water use of 62,000 average people (based on average per capita use in the Great Basin, EPA).  The current plan is to take surface water from Duck Creek and groundwater from Steptoe Valley and Butte Valley for the plants. 

One specific concern is that removing water from Duck Creek will make impossible a community proposal to restore surface flow (long ago diverted to pipes for the Kennecott mill at McGill) to the majority of the creeks in the Duck Creek drainage. The community proposal centered on buying water rights from the Kennecott Copper Company and removing the pipes.  Those water rights have instead been purchased by the power plant companies.

There are also concerns about the long-term effects of groundwater pumping in Steptoe and Butte Valleys on aquifers.    In particular, a major worry is that such pumping could permanently lower the water table, affecting wetland vegetation and water sources for wildlife and livestock as well as residential wells. 

These concerns are all in addition to the potential problems caused by a major proposal by the Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) to pump 200,000 acre feet of groundwater per year from eastern Nevada to facilitate the ongoing growth of Las Vegas and its suburbs.  The power plants and the SNWA pipeline project are all to be completed within the next 15 years with potential effects that have been compared to the drying up of Owens Valley to fuel the growth of Los Angeles.  For more information on the pipeline project and its effects see the Great Basin Water Network.