During emotional testimony Friday, a $2 billion plan to pipe rural Nevada water to Las Vegas was criticized by some as a boondoggle and praised by others as a way to ensure the future of the booming gambling mecca.

Teleconferencing enabled the state engineer's office to collect comments from more than 80 speakers who showed up here and in Las Vegas, Ely and Baker, a tiny eastern Nevada town near Spring Valley where about half of the billions of gallons of water would be drawn from.

The Spring Valley pumping is a key element in overall plans by the Southern Nevada Water Authority to get more than 180,000 acre-feet of water a year from rural Nevada. The SNWA hopes to expand that through reuse and other means to get enough water for several hundred thousand households.

Kristi Fillman, who lives on a small ranch in Spring Valley, tearfully compared the proposal to the Los Angeles water grab in the early 1900s that dried up the Owens Valley in eastern California.

Fillman and other critics repeatedly said that there are pending federal studies on water in the areas that SNWA wants to tap, and they should be completed before Tracy Taylor, the state engineer, decides whether to allow the pumping.

Bob Fulkerson of the Nevada Progressive Leadership Alliance called the plan a "boondoggle" that could dry up Spring Valley. He joined in a call for more water conservation in Las Vegas, noting the city has a higher per-capita water consumption than many other cities in the arid West.

Rick Spilsbury, a Western Shoshone Indian who was raised in Las Vegas and now lives in Baker, near Nevada's border with Utah, said a major investment in desalinization of Pacific Ocean water would be "a better alternative to sucking the Great Basin dry."

While critics outnumbered proponents at Friday's hearing, there were plenty of supporters. They included Richard Bunker, chairman of the state Colorado River Commission, who said a prolonged drought has cut into the state's share of river water and mandates the project.

Bunker was joined by casino executives, developers, union representatives and others who described major water conservation efforts in the Las Vegas area and who warned of an economic downturn affecting the entire state unless the city has enough water to keep growing.

Berlyn Miller, representing the Nevada Contractors Association, urged approval to help extend "our season of prosperity." He quoted Mark Twain as saying, "Whiskey is for drinking. Water is for fighting over," but added that it's time for Nevadans to stop fighting over the SNWA project.

The water authority is seeking state approval for 19 groundwater applications it filed in Spring Valley in 1989. Those proposals are among 33 applications for rural water.

Even if the various groundwater applications are granted soon, the SNWA has said the water is unlikely to reach the Las Vegas Valley before 2015. Taylor will issue a ruling after weighing the testimony and reviewing more than 170 exhibits submitted by the SNWA.