Drive to find new water is hastened

Monday, Feb. 23, 2004 | 11:11 a.m.

Las Vegas' thirst for water is nothing new, but four years and counting of regional drought have magnified that thirst, forcing water suppliers to turn to new sources years ahead of schedule.

The Southern Nevada Water Authority has always looked to the rugged landscape north of the urban area as a future source of water.

An unknown amount of water, but potentially enough for more than a million people, is in the Muddy and Virgin rivers and locked in the rock of the mountains and valleys of Clark, Nye, Lincoln and White Pine counties.

Tapping that potential supply requires a slew of environmental approvals, cooperation with the affected counties and approval from the Nevada state engineer, who serves as groundwater czar to ensure that new wells do not threaten existing water supplies.

But interests in Clark County construction and development -- industries that would dry up without water to support expansion -- want new wells and pipelines established as soon as possible.

They worry that without the new water, there will not be enough of the existing resource to keep the powerful engine of development rolling. The region now consumes about 300,000 acre-feet of water a year, almost all of it from Lake Mead.

The most optimistic projections show a similar amount of water could be recovered from what the water authority calls "in-state resources" -- other rivers and sources in the state that could be piped to the Las Vegas Valley.

The water authority has a resource plan that extends to 2050, and includes long-term reliance on groundwater from those areas. Originally, according to water authority Deputy General Manager Kay Brothers, that water was to come on line, in relatively small quantities at first, in 2016. It would have largely replaced the so-called "interim surplus" water.

The surplus, which is unused apportionment from upstream on the Colorado River, a few years ago looked like a secure source until 2015, at which time the federal river masters would have required California and Nevada to stop using the surplus. The drought, however, has lowered the amount of water available from the river through Lake Mead to the point where the surplus is likely to be cut, and could be eliminated altogether.

Faced with that prospect, the water authority is working to expedite the work needed to bring water from the north to Las Vegas. Brothers said the new schedule could begin to provide water to the urban area by 2011, five years ahead of schedule.

That is not fast enough to calm the palpitations of the construction industry. Steve Holloway, executive vice president of the Associated General Contractors of Las Vegas, a trade group, notes that without water, the boom town would fizzle. The drought, he noted, has given the region a warning on the peril of depending on a single source for nearly all of Southern Nevada's water needs.

"Although we only use about 4 percent of the water in the Colorado River system, we're almost totally dependent on it," he said. "This would give us another source.

"From our industry's perspective, our current allocation even with conservation will take us through the year 2017," Holloway said. "If we're going to continue that growth, we're going to need an additional source of water."

Echoing his industry's perspective on recent anti-growth discussions, Holloway said "stopping growth would be catastrophic for Southern Nevada." His industry and the home building industry directly employ an estimated 70,000 people in Clark County.

Further, Holloway argues that cutting off the development fees and other revenue to the county and the region's cities would shift tax burdens to those residents already here.

Holloway's industry has another interest. The cost for building a pipeline to Las Vegas from water sources along the Virgin River -- one of the closest of those in-state resources -- is upwards of $1 billion, which would make it the largest single public works project in Southern Nevada since the building of Hoover Dam.

Officials have studied that pipeline proposal in detail. The water authority produced a study on the idea last summer.

That money could flow to local companies who have the materials, manpower and experience of working on large projects in the region.

The same prospect of a huge public-works project appeals to some labor unions, including those who have recently picketed the Las Vegas Valley Water District, the water authority's sister agency, to urge a halt to new water connections for new homes.

The Teamsters, Pipefitters and other construction trades have been battling the home building industry for years in a largely unsuccessful effort to unionize the residential construction industry. Holloway and other observers, including the home builders, believe the latest effort is largely an effort to put pressure on the home building industry.

But John Milner, an organizer with Teamsters Local 631 in Las Vegas, points out that one of the goals of the picketing would be to raise development fees for new homes by $5,000, money that would go to building the pipelines from up north.

Brothers said the financing of the pumps and pipelines needed for a huge project to bring water from the Virgin River, Lincoln and White Pine counties has not been decided, but would likely involve bonds. Financing the projects is not the factor that requires years of waiting, she said.

A decade is too long to wait for in-state water to come to Las Vegas, Milner said.

"They say that's 10 years away," he said. "Ten years from now, where will we be? We will be bankrupt in water. ... This is the No. 1 issue in this city, as far as I'm concerned."

The unions, working under a banner coalition dubbed Raising the Standard of Living, believe that the public works project would and should be done with professional union labor.

Brothers, with the water authority, is sympathetic to both sides calling for faster construction of the pipeline and deliver of in-state water. But there isn't much more the water authority can do to expedite the process, she said.

"Because of the drought, we are accelerating, big time, the evaluation of our options," Brothers said. "We're looking at these things."

But the environmental assessments take time, she said.

"There's got to be a lot of environmental work to be done. The environmental permitting of this is going to be a huge issue."

The first relatively small step is under way. The water authority has drilled a test well in Coyote Springs, the site of a proposed community on the Clark-Lincoln County line, to comply with an order from State Engineer Hugh Ricci.

The test pumping is expected to produce about 10,000 acre-feet of water a year -- enough for a similar number of families, or about 50,000 people.

If the test pumping shows that the water can be drawn from the ground for at least two years without an adverse impact on the environment or existing wells in the region, then Ricci could allow the pumps to become permanent.

Until then, the 10,000 acre-feet will go to the Moapa Valley Water District system. Drilling the test wells and the short pipeline from Coyote Springs to the Moapa Valley Water District system will cost an estimated $33 million, Brothers said.

That project should go to bid this May. If the test pumping goes well, a pipeline will bring the water to Las Vegas, Brothers said. The water authority hopes to eventually bring in about 36,000 acre-feet a year from the source, enough water for 150,000 people.

The program illustrates at least part of the problem with trying to hurry the process, Brothers said. On the Coyote Springs project, "We won't have the data until 2008" that shows the site can support permanent pumping. Building the pipeline proper would take longer.

Brothers said the earliest the Coyote Springs site could bring water to Las Vegas would be 2011.

Reconciling the state and federal governments to the environmental costs of taking the in-state resource isn't the only hurdle for the water authority. The water authority has successfully negotiated a deal with Lincoln County that allows Las Vegas to extract 100,000 acre-feet of water -- if tests prove that the water is there. That's about enough water for a half-million people.

The Lincoln County deal also allowed the county immediately northeast of Clark County to keep a similar amount for its own economic development.

Brothers said after diverting water from the Virgin River and drawing it from Coyote Springs, the next step would probably be to go to Lincoln County. Beyond that, however, the plan is sketchier.

"We don't have a final agreement with White Pine County," Brothers said. "We've been talking to people about what they wanted. We're tying to come up with an agreement."

The issues on the table are similar to those that came up in the negotiations with Lincoln County's leadership. White Pine County's leaders, who represent fewer than 10,000 people, want to ensure that there is water and cash for economic development.

"They want to make sure we don't dry up their basins," Brothers said. "They want their ranches to still be green."

Brothers said that despite the drought, Southern Nevada is not in a desperate need of immediate new water. The authority has almost 400,000 acre-feet of water "banked" in the ground here and in Arizona.

While that water can't be drawn out all at once, it does provide a 10 percent or so annual cushion against anticipated future need, she said. That doesn't mean the water authority isn't sensitive to those economic interests in the community who want water from the north quickly.

"We do too," Brothers said. "We would like to start building it as soon as we can."

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