Water agency plans projects

Monday, July 1, 2002 | 9:48 a.m.

The Southern Nevada Water Authority is rolling out a $328 million capital improvements program this week, looking for local approval for a range of projects designed to recover, treat and move water throughout the Las Vegas Valley.

The authority is bringing the Major Construction and Capital Plan to the seven local agencies that have representatives on the authority's board of directors. On Tuesday the Las Vegas Valley Water District will consider the capital program.

The Water District is the largest agency represented on the Water Authority board. The district serves about 800,000 customers. The authority is a water wholesaler, providing bulk water to the local distributors from Laughlin to North Las Vegas.

Among the large projects outlined is a $32.5 million proposal to produce about 10,000 acre-feet in the Coyote Springs Valley to serve customers in Moapa. The project should be completed in 2005.

Another major project is to build a $34.9 million water quality laboratory at the River Mountains Water Treatment Facility "to stay ahead of water quality issues," said Water Authority spokesman Vince Alberta.

The biggest share of the capital projects outlined in the major projects plan, however, goes for energy projects -- a total of $227 million. Power is critically important to the Water Authority, which needs electricity to treat and move water into regional reservoirs for local distribution.

The Water Authority is the region's single largest energy consumer.

The capital improvements program supports a much larger, $2.1 billion plan designed to serve a regional population of customers that will grow from about 1 million now to 1.8 million by 2025.

The facilities authorized by the larger plan will mostly be complete by 2006, according to the Water Authority. The capital improvement plan should increase the daily system capacity from 400 million to 900 million gallons. About 72 percent of the funding for the plan comes from connection charges, charges to the local distributors and charges to individual water bills. Most of the remainder comes from a quarter-cent sales tax in Clark County.