EPA rules will force agencies to keep pollution from water

Thursday, May 10, 2001 | 11:20 a.m.

New federal rules effective Oct. 1 will force Nevada agencies to keep more chemicals from polluting water in the Las Vegas Wash and Lake Mead, the state's top environmental official said Wednesday.

The Environmental Protection Agency is lowering the amounts of chemicals allowed to flow into waters that are identified as in jeopardy, Allen Biaggi, director of the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection, said at the Air & Waste Management Association conference in Las Vegas. The conference ends today.

States have been told to inventory the waters within their borders to identify which ones may be endangered by a variety of pollutants. State officials then must come up with plans to meet the new federal standards.

UNLV scientists are trying to measure the amount and type of chemicals flowing down the wash and from Las Vegas Valley tributaries, said Assistant Engineering Professor Jacimaria Batista, who is leading the research efforts. So far, no excessive contaminants have been found, but research is continuing, she said.

But Biaggi told the 100 experts at the conference that Nevada's ranking as the fastest-growing state in the country could bring problems from increasing environmental pollution.

Municipalities just can't build treatment facilities and other environmental protections fast enough, he said.

"Nevada's lifestyle and environmental quality are in jeopardy," Biaggi said.

Southern Nevada discharges about 150 million gallons a day of treated sewage into the Las Vegas Wash. That amount could double by 2020, and put the area in danger of exceeding the federal limits for such chemicals as nitrogen and phosphorous, according to state figures.

In addition, sediment from construction and erosion pose a threat to Southern Nevada's water quality, Clark County Sanitation District Support Services Manager Doug Karafa said.

Both Biaggi and Karafa said that Southern Nevada water experts from the area's drinking water supply and sewage treatment plants have worked together to begin building erosion controls in the Las Vegas Wash.

Southern Nevada scientists, like their counterparts working at Lake Tahoe, have discovered that people's actions often dump more pollutants into the water than would normally be expected. Mark Hoefer of JWA Consulting Engineers, Inc., said maintenance workers unplugging drains along roadways dumped more sediment into Tahoe than rain or snow runoff.

Local water officials have had some success controlling a chemical in the Las Vegas Bay, Karafa said.