LV City Council votes to let fountains flow

Sito Negron

Thursday, Dec. 4, 2003 | 11:20 a.m.

Fountain owners can keep their features running if they save water elsewhere, the Las Vegas City Council unanimously decided Wednesday.

The decision came despite an appeal from Pat Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority who urged the council not to send a mixed message to the public.

"The conservation campaign will lose credibility," she said.

The council ruling allows anyone who has a fountain to keep it running if he can show he has other ways -- typically described as replacing turf with native landscaping -- to save at least 50 times the amount of water used by the feature.

Although it can apply to anyone, the impetus came from commercial property owners who argued that they needed the fountains and could achieve greater savings in other ways.

One, Peter Thomas of Thomas and Mack Co., told that council Nov. 19 that he would spend $300,000 to replace the turf in front of his U.S. Bank building at Rancho Drive and Sahara Avenue if he could keep a reflecting pond that loses about 23,000 gallons a year to evaporation. He estimated replacing the turf would save 2.5 million gallons a year.

"I'd like to see an example like that set the bar," said Ward 4 Councilman Larry Brown, arguing that such a program would provide real water savings, going beyond the symbolism of a dry fountain.

"This is an opportunity for permanent water savings," he said. "If we set the bar high enough, some will choose to turn (fountains) off because they don't have the wherewithal ... to get real savings."

The issue has been bubbling since fall, after the city approved a drought ordinance that was developed by the authority -- a body made up of various jurisdictions in Southern Nevada -- but had to be ratified by each government entity.

The ordinance exempted fountains that served a "core economic function," a statement generally understood to mean such Strip attractions as the Bellagio, The Mirage and Treasure Island. But those were within Clark County's jurisdiction.

Las Vegas had a different economic constituency -- commercial developers. Office park operators quickly argued that their water features served core economic functions too. With them, their properties were more desirable, and they made more money.

Most of the 25 exemption applications made to Las Vegas came from office parks and businesses.

During the Las Vegas City Council discussion Wednesday, everyone agreed that the issue of fountains was symbolic, that the features themselves are not major water users compared with homes and landscaping.

Mulroy said that symbolism extends a long way, as other states look to the fountains when negotiating with Southern Nevada over use of the Colorado River, which supplies the vast majority of the valley's water.

"Believe me, our fountains have been an issue with every state in the compact," said Mulroy, noting front-page coverage of the issue in Denver when Colorado was in the midst of a billion-dollar water bond proposal.

And locally, she said, people will see the fountains running and wonder why they are being asked to conserve water when businesses are allowed to operate what many view as a frill.

But Mayor Oscar Goodman said people would understand the difference between the symbolic nature of a fountain and the real savings accrued as a result of allowing it to operate.

He suggested the authority develop a signpost, or other visual cue, so people would instantly recognize when they were seeing a fountain that was operating because its owners had saved water elsewhere.

Such trade-offs are sometimes used for pollution control -- for example, owners of power plants who take smoking cars off the streets in exchange for exceeding emissions standards.

Mulroy argued that it would provide those who could afford to buy credits an unfair advantage, and send a mixed message to homeowners, many of whom already replaced turf.

"There are thousands of people across the valley who already have done this," she said. "Why are we giving businesses benefits for doing what thousands of people already have done?"

The region will go to the second stage of a three-stage response to the drought as of January, Mulroy said. If the snowfall this winter is inadequte, the valley may go to the third stage, "drought emergency," within a year, Mulroy said.

Clark County is scheduled to take up the issue Dec. 17, with a proposal to allow fountains to operate if they use water from a source other than Lake Mead. The city of Henderson is waiting for the county before it makes a move, a spokeswoman said.