Thursday, Sept. 25, 2003 | 11:41 a.m.
Southern Nevada's booming economy has raced ahead for decades, consuming tens of thousands of acres of desert while providing homes for hundreds of thousands of people.
New residents, about 70,000 a year, have also been thirsty. Restrictions and higher charges for water use have become a focal point for critics of the valley's growth. They are urging new business and commercial development be cut off.
One of the regional boards of elected politicians where those issues have come to roost is the Southern Nevada Water Authority, which has successfully pushed for the restrictions and rate changes in response to four years of the worst drought in recorded history.
While the restrictions backed by the water authority have been put into place, increasingly strident critics have become its regular visitors. They have demanded that the water authority stop bringing water to the 20,000 or so new homes that are built every year in central Clark County.
On Friday the water authority board of seven elected politicians -- three from the Clark County Commission and one each from the cities of Las Vegas, Henderson, North Las Vegas and Boulder City -- will try to quiet some of the controversy.
They will try to answer some of the questions that the connection of those restrictions and growth have raised, said water authority spokesman Vince Alberta.
"Obviously, we understand that the issue of growth has become a topic of discussion for some folks in the community," Alberta said. "The purpose of this study has a very narrow focus.
"It is an analysis to determine what impact there would be on the economy if growth is slowed or stopped."
That includes looking at the economic impact of a partial moratorium on new water hookups. Such a moratorium would slow but not stop development, Alberta said. He noted that water is the mechanism to study the impact of a brake on development, but the same study could be used to show the impact on any kind of slow-growth move throughout the region.
Hobbs, Ong and Associates, a prominent Las Vegas firm that frequently studies fiscal, tax and revenue policy and results for local government agencies, has been tapped to do the $160,000 study, which should come out in the first quarter of 2004 if not earlier. The choice of the firm doesn't sit well with the critics of growth.
The company and the study would be headed by Guy Hobbs, a former Clark County finance director who most recently was the target of criticism when he produced a study this year backing a broad-based business tax increase to fund a state budget expansion.
"I believe Hobbs, an ex-government employee at Clark County, is the only person they (the water authority board) would hire because he will tell them that growth is not a problem," said Ken Mahal, president of the Nevada Seniors Coalition, a frequent critic of the water authority and a member of the recently retired Drought Citizens Advisory Committee.
The committee, Mahal said, refused to look at growth issues when recommending measures to take if the region faces cutbacks in what it can take from Lake Mead, the source of more than 80 percent of drinking water in the urban area.
Those recommendations, which are mostly extensions of the drought-related restrictions on outdoor uses of water already in place, are also on the water authority's agenda for Friday.
He said his follow committee members, like most elected politicians throughout the region, were beholden to development interests.
"I was the only person who asked the tough questions," Mahal said. "I have one question for everyone in this valley: What has growth done for you personally?"
But those who support continued growth and some who take a middle ground say that critics such as Mahal refuse to look at the entire picture. Most importantly, they say, the more than 70,000 local jobs in construction would be lost immediately with a general growth moratorium. Hundreds of thousands more wage-earners would be impacted.
A similar study commissioned by the water authority in 1992 study and produced by University of Nevada at Las Vegas researchers found that a cutoff on new development could triple local unemployment levels at that time to more than 12 percent. The impact would ease but still be felt years out from a growth halt, and tens of thousands of existing residents would leave the region, while would-be homebuyers would stay away.
Even some who would like to change the local approach to growth want to avoid that scenario.
"If all you look at is a total cutoff, then that causes economic disaster," said John Hiatt, conservation director of the Red Rock Audubon Society and chairman of the Enterprise Town Board, which advises the Clark County Commission on land-use issues. "You have a train wreck. ... Just cutting it off doesn't make any sense. It's not feasible.
"But if we continue using water the way we're accustomed to around here, and continue growth unabated, you will also clearly have a train wreck," he said. "The real question is how do we deal with growth with a diminishing or finite water supply? Slowing down growth may be in the best interest of our community."
Hobbs, who will bring together a team of three local and three out-of-state economists to analyse the impact of a halt to growth, knows that whatever the study produces will raise the hackles of some residents. He discounted the critics who suggest his firm lacks independence.
"Being in this business and being in government for many years, you're used to these sort of things being said," Hobbs said. "We pride ourselves on our independence. A lot of times we have said things that weren't terribly popular. We will continue to do that."
"This is an analytical work product. ... This is intended to be based on fact," he said. "We know there are a lot of opinions out there.
"Growth -- whether you're for or against it -- understanding the implications of it are extraordinarily important to either viewpoint," Hobbs said. "This is not a trivial undertaking. Nor are the implications of continued growth or of artificially messing with market forces."
Alberta echoed those comments. He said that before consumers or policy makers can make reasonable decisions about growth or its antidote, they need to understand the impact of those decisions.
"Growth has become a part of the discussion in the community," he said. "If we are going to have this discussion, let's have all the relevant data so informed decisions can be made."
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