Money allocated to restore wetlands

Friday, May 19, 2000 | 11:06 a.m.

The Southern Nevada Water Authority Board for the first time put money on the table in its 2001 budget to begin restoring ruined wetlands in the Las Vegas Wash.

The board voted unanimously Thursday to spend $4 million on building erosion control structures to save vanishing wetlands -- which have decreased from 2,000 acres to 200 acres or less -- and for maintaining the structures in the wash.

Water authority General Manager Pat Mulroy said the agency's leadership and participation in the wetlands project were crucial to ensure a safe drinking water supply for the Las Vegas Valley.

The Las Vegas Wash flows with treated waste water and runoff from the entire Las Vegas Valley and drains into Lake Mead, the major drinking water supply for 1.3 million residents. The valley's water supply is drawn 6 miles downstream from where the wash drains.

With more demands by California to draw Lake Mead down in the next 15 years, Mulroy said lower lake levels could bring a polluted plume of water that drains from the wash closer to the water authority's intake pipes 150 feet beneath the lake's surface.

The Bureau of Reclamation has already predicted that Lake Mead could drop 11 feet by December.

In addition to lower lake levels, Southern Nevada is also attempting to clean up pollutants including the rocket fuel booster ammonium perchlorate that was traced coming from the Basic Management Industrial complex in Henderson. Wetlands can help filter such pollutants out of the water, Mulroy said.

The funds for the wash blend $2.5 million in water authority monies for building erosion controls with $1.5 million from three municipal wastewater treatment plants in Las Vegas, Clark County and Henderson.

The water authority will use part of the $43 million raised in a 1/4-cent sales tax that went into effect in April 1999 to build erosion controls.

Mulroy said that talks between the water authority and the three entities are continuing. She did not know when their funding will be approved, but said actual construction of erosion controls could begin by late summer.

Also included in the $725.6 million budget is $73.3 million for the largest municipal ozone treatment plant in North America.

Ozone will be produced at the water authority's treatment plant by exposing oxygen molecules to high electrical voltages. In nature, lightning produces ozone that gives the air a clean smell after an electrical storm.

Ozone is too unstable to be transported or stored, so it will be produced on the site of the plant to reduce trihalomethanes (THMs), a byproduct of chlorine treatment, and eradicate bacteria and organisms such as cryptosporidium and giardia.

The authority is also paying $2.2 million a year plus interest on 7,500 acre feet of permanent ground water rights in Coyote Springs, about 60 miles northeast of Las Vegas. Another $10 million will be spent next year to test the ground water system. The authority bought $25 million worth of water rights in May of 1998.

The authority is also spending $2.7 million this year on Muddy River water rights after purchasing up to 5,000 acre feet of the rights earlier this year.

There is good news for cities, the county and others such as Nellis Air Force Base which buy water from the authority. The wholesale delivery charge will remain at $157 an acre foot for the fifth year in a row.

And thanks to an agreement with the Colorado River Commission, which manages river water and hydropower supplies, the authority saved $3 million on electricity to pump its resources uphill into the valley, Mulroy said. Currently 80 percent of the authority's power needs are met by the river commission on independent transmission lines. After the commission completes a $25.7 million project to deliver power direct to the authority, another $1 million a year will be saved.

Mary Manning covers environmental issues for the Sun. She can be reached at (702) 259-4065 or by e-mail at manning@lasvegassun.com