Las Vegans say bill harms their well being

Monday, March 29, 1999 | 9:44 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Well owners in the Las Vegas Basin like the idea that the Las Vegas Valley Water Authority is replacing water taken from the ground.

But they don't like the fact that if they choose to give up their wells for hookups to the water authority, it costs $15,000 to $55,000.

To make matters worse, Las Vegas well owners do not own the rights to the water under their land, unlike well owners in other parts of the state. If a well runs dry, the state engineer's office will not approve drilling deeper for water.

Bruce Hamilton of the Nevada Well Association, which says it has 1,200 members, took the concerns of Southern Nevada well owners to the Assembly Government Affairs Committee Friday.

His group testified on Assembly Bill 341, requested by the water authority, to replenish depleted ground water in the basin.

The bill is needed, the water authority says, because growth has caused the ground water to be overpumped, leaving the water table in Southern Nevada depleted.

John Hiatt, chairman of the authority's advisory board and himself a well owner, said recharging the ground water was "one more step" to keeping the ground from sinking where the water table has fallen. The annual recharge will help "lengthen the life of wells," he said.

Kay Brothers, director of resources for the water authority, told the committee that 70,000 acre feet of water is pumped annually from the ground and there is a yearly recharge of 35,000 acre feet. The water authority is making an annual artificial recharge of 27,000 to 30,000 acre feet.

"We're trying to get the aquifer in balance," she said.

The water table is coming up in some areas, she said.

The bill calls for raising the annual fee for homeowners with wells from $10 to $27 and providing low-cost loans to well owners who want to hook up to the municipal system. Fees for those with large wells would go from $10 to $27 an acre foot of water per year. There are an estimated 5,000 wells now drawing water in the basin.

There are no plans to raise rates to nonwell owners for the recharging, said Julie Wilcox-Slay, lobbyist for water authority, but she noted that the water authority is paying a share of the plan.

But Assemblyman Harry Mortenson, D-Las Vegas, argued that while the plan is good, well owners were being made to carry the cost unfairly. The ground water was overpumped, he said, because of growth.

Now it's the well owners being hit with the extra charge to bring the water levels back. "You're punishing the people who pump water," he told water authority officials.

But Hiatt said everybody will be paying the cost of replenishing the ground water. He said the Southern Nevada Water Authority, which pumps about 40,000 acre feet, will be paying $1 million a year into the recharge project. But there won't be any general rate increase.

The well association didn't object to the increase in fees and it supports the recharge plan.

But Hamilton said the group would like zero-interest loans for water hookups instead of low-interest loans of 5 percent and noted that the water authority should lower the cost of connecting to the water lines.

"There is nothing in this bill to reduce the cost" of hooking into the system, he said. He also objected to a section in the bill that requires those who take advantage of the loan program to allow a lien on their home. He said that lien should be subordinated to others on the property.