Paying for water is valley’s No. 1 question

Thursday, Oct. 22, 1998 | 12:27 p.m.

Voters will decide on how the Las Vegas Valley pays for its drinking water.

Labor and business leaders teamed up to persuade Las Vegas residents to vote for a quarter-cent sales tax to help pay $3 billion to expand Southern Nevada's water system, telling voters tourists will help pay the bill with the tax.

Critics attacked the proposal, saying that poor people will pay the most if voters raise the sales tax in November.

Nevadans for Solutions, a coalition between unions and the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, raised $300,000 for ads to convince voters who will advise county officials how to fund the water system expansion through 2025.

With a quarter-cent sales tax, tourists will pay $800 million of the total. Residents will pay higher water rates and higher prices to hook up new homes.

If voters fail to approve the sales tax, residents will pay higher water rates and the hookup fees for new homes could reach $35,000 each, said Pat Shalmy, Chamber CEO and co-chair of Nevadans for Solutions.

"It gives us reliability in the water system, and better quality water," Shalmy said.

But Citizen Alert Executive Director Rick Nielsen said the environmental watchdog group opposes the sales tax increase because growth will not pay for growth. "It's a pure and simple subsidy," he said. "It puts the price increases and the burden on existing homeowners who have already paid their dues."

Assemblyman Harry Mortenson, a Las Vegas Democrat, said "simple mathematics" prove that current residents will pay more for growth under higher sales taxes than newcomers. Without a sales tax, hookup fees pay for 79 percent of the project, he said.

Add the sales tax and new residents pay only 52 percent while those living here will pay about 35 percent with increased water rates and sales tax, the retired nuclear physicist said.

The Nevada Senior Coalition opposes raising the sales tax, said coalition leader Ken Mahal. "It's a crap shoot," he said of plans to expand the system to deliver 600,000 acre feet of water.

The ambitious expansion project threatens residents' pocketbooks and their health, Mahal said.

A citizens' panel advising the Southern Nevada Water Authority never considered raising gross gaming fees or room taxes as a solution, Mahal said. No one suggested adding $1 to each hotel room, something that would raise more than $30 million a year. "There's been no increase in gaming fees in more than 11 years," Mahal said.

A second drinking water intake at the same level as the old one on Saddle Island increases risks that waterborne diseases such a cryptosporidiosis will get into the drinking water as it did in 1994, killing 43 residents, Mahal said.

Coalition co-chair Danny Thompson, political affairs director for the AFL-CIO, said the sales tax is critical so that continued growth will protect jobs for many Southern Nevada workers.

"Your water rates and connection fees will go up dramatically without the sales tax increase," Thompson said.

Southern Nevada Water Authority Board Chairman Mary Kincaid said the extra sales tax will help develop treatment for gray water, so drinking water won't be poured on golf courses. "It makes sense for tourists to help pay for it as well as residents," she said. And neither the water authority nor the Clark County Commission can raise other taxes, such as gaming or property, she said. That is up to the Legislature.