Office park water features might not receive waivers

Sito Negron

Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2003 | 9:36 a.m.

Office parks are unlikely to be exempted from drought rules dealing with fountains, said two top officials involved in different areas of developing and implementing the water conservation ordinance.

The issue comes up because the drought ordinance calls for the possibility of waivers for fountains that are deemed to provide a core economic function in the community.

While this generally has been thought to apply to water features along the Strip, some have made the argument that other places -- office parks, for example -- can claim to be made more valuable to tenants because of fountains, and therefore constitute a strong economic value.

In early September the Ribeiro Co. asked the Las Vegas City Council to allow fountains at its Quail Park office complexes to stay on.

The council decided to postpone action on that request -- which allowed the fountains to run -- until it received more guidance from the Southern Nevada Water Authority, which is made up of local water providers and other government entities.

Although the valleywide drought ordinance is meant to provide a consistent drought response among local municipalities, seven of its 12 provisions are open to varying degrees of interpretation, and it's up to each jurisdiction to implement the rules.

"We're not here to impose a draconian concept," said Ken Albright, the Water Authority's director of resources. However, he said, the general feeling among staff members involved in the conservation discussions is that office parks ought not be exempted.

"There's a strong feeling from my perspective that the elected entities are going to hold fast," he said.

While city documents say that "to develop consistency, the Southern Nevada Water District will be developing model language to address guidelines for waivers," Albright said that the authority is not developing a new ordinance.

"There are some nuance changes," he said, but they are not meant "to take authority away from the entities."

As examples, he said, some operators who must shut their fountains down would be allowed to maintain some water in the system, so pumps won't dry and break. Also, if it freezes during the winter, operators would be allowed to briefly run fountains so pipes don't freeze, he said.

"We don't want anybody to lose any hardware," he said.