Public input sought on LV Wash

Friday, Nov. 5, 1999 | 11:27 a.m.

Planned hearings

Hearings on the Las Vegas Wash management plan are scheduled for:

Twenty years ago the wash was a 2,000-acre ribbon of wetlands stretching across the eastern edge of the valley. Erosion from increased runoff as the valley has grown and from recent flash floods has shriveled the wetlands to less than 200 acres.

Those wetlands, besides providing a shelter for wildlife, naturally filter pollutants out of the runoff before they go into Lake Mead, the valley's drinking water supply, Southern Nevada Water Authority General Manager Pat Mulroy said.

To stop the erosion, including some new 300-feet-wide channels cut by this summer's floods, and to help clear the runoff water of its pollution, the water authority formed the Las Vegas Wash Coordination Committee to create a plan of action.

After a year the committee has produced a 2-inch-thick management plan for the wash.

"The coordination committee includes a wide range of stakeholders, from government entities to citizens and business people," the team's project leader Kim Zikmund said. "But we want the public to come out, look over the plan and share their ideas."

Hearings are scheduled in various places across the valley this month on the plan, which makes no assumptions about what the public wants to see done in the wash, water authority spokesman J.C. Davis said.

"What the Las Vegas Wash is, where it is and why should anyone care about it are part of the plan," Davis said.

The solutions are complicated by the growth of runoff from from developed areas in the 1,600-square-mile watershed and by the fact that treated wastewater flows to the lake through the wash, Davis said.

"The solution has to be integrated," he said.

The management plan is more of a roadmap for solving the degradation in the wash. "It is not about who or what will be done," Davis said.

The solution is up to the public.

"People may know about the wash in their peripheral vision of the valley, but the wash is such an integral part of the valley, doing one thing affects the entire valley," Davis said.

The draft management plan for the wash has to involve the community, Davis said.

"We don't want people thinking this has already been decided and this is the way it is," he said. "People have to be involved."