Water control rules put on hold

Friday, Jan. 24, 2003 | 11:13 a.m.

A violation of the state's open-meeting law derailed efforts to pass a plan to control water use Thursday.

The Southern Nevada Water Authority passed its drought plan, which includes broad new guidelines for cutting back water use. But the authority failed to provide copies of the draft plan to people who had asked for them.

A review of the requests following the board meeting found the violation, authority spokesman Vince Alberta said.

'We fully acknowledge that we made a mistake," he said. "It's a technical mistake. It is not the way we operate, and we will fix it."

The effect of the error is to invalidate the board's 7-0 vote to pass the drought plan.

"Essentially, it just means the action is void and must be reconsidered," the authority's lawyer, Chuck Hauser, said.

Authority staff have worked for months to produce the plan in response to a crushing drought that has left the Colorado River, the source of nearly 90 percent of the area's water, at its driest in modern history.

"It does not lessen the importance of this issue as a community regarding the drought," authority General Manager Pat Mulroy said. "We need to find a way to conserve."

The plan includes restrictions on watering times for residential use in the spring, fall and winter, and provides greater incentives for putting in low-water use landscaping around homes.

The authority's plan also suggests to the six regional agencies that actually deliver water to the tap that water prices for heavy residential users go up. And the plan recommends financial penalties for golf courses that fail to reduce their water use.

The last point prompted two speakers at the Water Authority board meeting to complain that they had not been consulted and could not get a copy of the drought plan before the board vote.

When he learned that the authority would have to meet again to reconsider adoption of drought restrictions, Donald Barsky, president of the Nevada Golf Course Owners Association and one of several who said they could not get a copy of the plan before the meeting, was elated. "Outstanding!" he said.

He said his association wanted the opportunity to look over the regulations before they become law.

"We'll go over it very carefully," Barsky said. "Not that there is anything nefarious in there, but some of the items that they dropped on us really upset us."

Of particular concern were rules that would require golf courses to drop water use. Barsky said the recommended levels of 5.7 feet of irrigation water per year would probably not be enough for golf courses.

Stan Spraul, a board member of the Nevada Golf Course Owners Association, said, "We're just definitely stakeholders and we want to be involved."

The authority's presentation of the plan also brought out several long-time critics of the agency. Larry Paulson, a retired biologist, and Ken Mahal, president of the Nevada Seniors Coalition, argued that instead of seeking greater conservation, the authority needs to cut off the growth.

"We don't need one more person moving here," Mahal said while pounding his fist on the speaker's podium. "The Mahal family will not be able to save one gallon more."

"Why do residents have to endure water restrictions now?" Paulson asked. "So we can support more development?

"The problem we must deal with in our community is not drought," he said. "It is limiting growth."

Board members, however, disagreed. Authority board chairwoman and Henderson Councilwoman Amanda Cyphers said the issue is not about controlling or stopping growth, but about responding to a drought that has left the West high and dry.

Mulroy, after the meeting, agreed.

"The issue of future development is a long-term resources issue," she said. "This is about drought.

"How to grow and how much to grow are policy issues," Mulroy said, adding that it is the job of the water authority to respond to the needs that exist.

The rules already on the books say that any developer building a subdivision does so at his or her own peril until the water distributor approves the water use, she said.

Alberta said following the meeting that the problem with the open-meeting-law violation will not stop the distributors, which include the cities of North Las Vegas, Henderson, Boulder City, the Las Vegas Valley Water District for Las Vegas and unincorporated Clark County and the Big Bend Water District in Laughlin, from moving forward with new rules.

"It does not prevent the other agencies from beginning their processes," he said.

The authority board could hold a special meeting within a couple of weeks, or wait until the regular Feb. 20 monthly meeting, to once again pass the plan, Alberta said.

"It will be on the February board agenda if not earlier," he said.