Panel to recommend rebuilding wetlands

Tuesday, May 26, 1998 | 10:11 a.m.

A group of citizens concerned about water quality in the Las Vegas Valley will recommend to the Southern Nevada Water Authority a major effort to rebuild a wetlands to help clean up contaminants.

The SNWA Citizens Advisory Committee on water quality formed in August finished its work last week. The committee will review a final version of its recommendations on June 4. The SNWA board then will consider them on June 18.

The committee recommended that the SNWA ask the 1999 Legislature to give it authority or funding to coordinate efforts to restore marshes in the Las Vegas Wash.

A hodgepodge of federal, state and local agencies manages bits and pieces of the main drain for surface and groundwater in the valley, but no single agency has the responsibility for it.

If the SNWA board approves the plan, the water authority staff will begin working on a coordinated approach for restoring the wetlands, since the Legislature does not open until January.

The Las Vegas Wash is under intense study after scientists discovered toxic chemicals, pesticides, bacteria, viruses and deadly organisms flowing from the wash into Lake Mead, Southern Nevada's major source of drinking water.

A 1996 federal water quality study found the highest levels of endocrine disruption in carp -- a bottom-feeding fish -- out of 21 testing sites nationwide. The male fish had female egg yolk sack protein in their tissues. Further tests on sports fish are underway. Scientists are looking for pesticides, heavy metals and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), all of which remain in fatty tissues. If contaminant levels pose a danger to human health, warnings could be posted for fishermen at Las Vegas Bay and the lake.

A year later Southern California's Metropolitan Water District measured the rocket fuel booster perchlorate in its drinking water. Local water tests showed perchlorate in the wash, the lake and wells in the valley. Two rocket fuel booster manufacturing plants have operated in Henderson for more thant 40 years.

As growth has continued to boom in the valley, more than 2,000 acres of wetlands along the Las Vegas Wash were swept away by runoff and erosion. Runoff carved canyons where cattail marshes once grew. Since wetlands act as natural filters for water, regrowing them would help remove many pollutants, the advisory committee said.

In addition to boosting the wetlands, the committee also called for greater public participation in solving the valley's water quality problems. It took two years before citizens learned that 43 residents had died from cryptosporidiosis and another 127 had become ill from the single-celled organism that can cause deadly diarrhea in infants, the elderly and those with diseases that cripple the immune system.

So far this year no cryptosporidiosis cases have been reported in Southern Nevada. There were nine cases reported in 1994, 17 in 1996 and 22 in 1995.

In order to build public confidence in water testing, the committee recommended that the water authority provide sampling results and tell the public what they mean. The authority also should test for contaminants that are not regulated, but are of concern to the community.

Major sewage spills in the wash and the breakdown of the SNWA's water treatment plant in February, which slowed drinking water deliveries, have further eroded public confidence. The committee urged that the Clark County Health District, the three wastewater treatment plants and drinking water agencies notify residents about such emergencies.

Other recommendations include diverting contaminated groundwater runoff from the wash, building small wetlands in natural dry washes to slow and clean flood waters, reducing reducing wastewater flows into the wash, increasing conservation and reusing wastewater in the valley so it does not run back into the lake and then get pumped back into valley pipelines.

The SNWA board will decide whether the committee will remain active. There has not been a cost-benefit analysis done for any of the recommendations.