Officials see new water line as key for growth, security

Jeffrey Libby

Friday, July 19, 2002 | 9:33 a.m.

As of July 29, new pumps will push millions of gallons of raw lake water to Boulder City along a $34 million pipeline, giving the city the capacity for the first time to deliver its full Colorado River allotment.

The second "straw" into Lake Mead should help the city maintain its legal rights to the water, city officials say, and should give the city room to grow through 2030.

In the meantime, they say, the eight-mile underground pipeline could also provide a backup delivery route if the city's existing potable water line is cut off by a catastrophic event.

But at least one critic says the pipeline provides unneeded capacity, is the result of naive regional politics and suggests that the city has unofficial plans for growth.

"The only justification for that water line is for somewhere down the line for the city to grow," said Bill Smith, a former Boulder City councilman. "And I don't think there's any appetite for growth in the community, so why do we need that added capacity?" In the last decade Boulder City's population increased by only about 20 percent, from 12,600 to 15,000 in 2000.

In the same period, the population of the Las Vegas Valley nearly doubled, from 741,000 to 1.4 million.

While Mayor Bob Ferraro said he has no plans to propose changes to city laws limiting development, he said it has to protect itself against the threat posed by the growing needs of the rest of Southern Nevada.

"We're sitting here as a very small community within a short distance of a metropolitan area of close to 2 million people," Ferraro said. "The second water line is desperately needed."

If the city doesn't have the ability to deliver, much less use, its allotment of 18,742 acre-feet of water per year, Ferraro and other city officials say the city could lose it.

There are also safety considerations, Ferraro said.

"If something should happen to the (existing) line, heaven forbid, we would be in dire straits," he said.

Smith said any damage to the current line could be fixed in 10 days, and engineering reports appear to back that up.

Smith also criticizes the use-it-or-lose-it argument as misleading.

"We may have lost the water already. There's only so much," Smith said. "And we as a political entity in Clark County are virtually nothing. We have rights on paper, but if push comes to shove, who's going to get the water, the new houses in Henderson or the golf courses in Boulder City?"

Since 2000, Nevada has exceeded its annual allotment of 300,000 acre-feet, so Boulder City's unused portion -- roughly 9,000 acre-feet in 2000 -- has been used elsewhere in the state. An acre-foot, or 326,000 gallons, is enough water for a family of four for one year.

Councilman Bryan Nix, who has served since 1997 as the city's representative on the Southern Nevada Water Authority, the board that oversees the distribution of Colorado River water in the state, said, "He (Smith) is simply wrong."

"The rights of Boulder City can't be diminished because someone wants to build homes in Henderson," Nix said.

The existing water line has a capacity to deliver about 13,000 acre-feet annually, more than enough to serve residents, a power plant, two golf courses and parks. The new line will add at least another 6,500 acre-feet of capacity each year.

City officials say they need the added capacity for a third golf course nearing completion and to uphold, if necessary, obligations to two other planned golf courses. Conservative estimates for 2030 put the population at 20,214. Those demands, along with others, could push annual water usage to 18,500 acre-feet, city officials say.

"The bottom line is that we will not use that full capacity for some time to come," Nix said. "But our draw is pretty much tapped out right now; the new line will give us flexibility in the long term, and in fact we will need the water."

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