Pact to restore wetlands nearer

Friday, Feb. 7, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

Southern Nevada's top water official said it's time to start restoring wetlands to help clean up polluted wastewater entering Lake Mead.

The Southern Nevada Water Authority is close to an agreement with federal, state and local water and wastewater officials to begin restoring some of the 2,000 acres lost along Las Vegas Wash, said Pat Mulroy, the authority's general manager.

Mulroy met with the Nevada Seniors Coalition Thursday. The coalition's leader, Ken Mahal, said the group opposes a quarter-cent sales tax increase proposed by the water authority to build a $1.7 billion water delivery system to bring the state's share of the Colorado River to growing Las Vegas.

"We're absolutely against that," Mahal told Mulroy.

"We are not going to accept this program ecologically or economically," said biologist Larry Paulson, who consults for the coalition.

He suggested using the current delivery system and restoring marshes to clean wastewater that runs into Lake Mead six miles upstream from the Las Vegas Valley's drinking water pipeline.

Paulson said if the coalition's appeals to the federal government to stop the current water project fail, the group will go to court.

Mulroy said part of the solution for future water supplies includes wetlands, along with extra wastewater treatment. "I agree, wetlands are part of any solution," she said.

Clark County already has $13 million from the 1995 Nevada Legislature and a desert wetlands plan to begin. "I think we need to start working on the plan," Mulroy said.

In addition, if the Legislature approves the quarter-cent sales tax increase, after two years 57 percent of it will go toward expanding Southern Nevada's undersized water delivery system and 43 percent will go for wastewater treatment, Mulroy said.

The water authority is ahead of schedule building a "second straw" from Lake Mead to the booming Las Vegas Valley, Mulroy said. Without the second pipeline, water companies cannot meet summer water demands.

It was close this past summer, Mulroy said. The water authority uses Colorado River water drawn from the lake and water stored in wells during winter across the valley, she said. The total amount of water available is 559 million gallons a day.

Las Vegas demanded 515 million gallons a day at peak last year, leaving an 8 percent margin.

"If it hadn't been for conservation, we'd have been in trouble," she said.

Thankfully, residents saved 7.5 billion gallons of water in the summer, an 11 percent reduction.

The second straw should be ready this summer, because without it water officials might have to declare strict cutbacks, Mulroy said.

The water authority has proposed to bridge the gap between water supply and Southern Nevada's booming growth by saving water in Arizona, she said. Since a third of the Colorado River isn't used by anybody, unused water and surpluses can be stored for dry years, she said.