Water authority OKs budget

Friday, May 21, 2004 | 9:25 a.m.

The board of the Southern Nevada Water Authority approved a $476.6 million budget Thursday that calls for a higher wholesale prices for the local agencies that deliver water to homes, but is not expected to raise prices to consumers.

The wholesale cost of water will from $215 to $243 for an acre-foot, an increase caused indirectly by the drought and the conservation measures that the community has instituted, water authority officials said. An acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons, or about enough water for a family of five for one year.

The rates that individual consumers pay are set by the distributors, which include the Las Vegas Valley Water District and the cities of Boulder City, Henderson and North Las Vegas.

Vince Alberta, spokesman for both the water authority and its sister agency, the water district, said the increased cost of wholesale water is not going to result in a rise in charges for consumers in the Las Vegas Valley Water District, which covers the city of Las Vegas and the urban part of unincorporated Clark County.

Last year the region's homes and businesses used about 272,000 acre-feet, down from 318,000 acre-feet the year before, according to the water authority.

Water district customers were hit with a drought and conservation-related increase in September last year, the first for residential users in eight years, Alberta said. The average customer's water bill rose 29 percent.

The North Las Vegas City Council raised water rates, increasing the average monthly bill by $4 as of Oct. 1. The Henderson City Council raised the average monthly bill by $5 as of the same date. Boulder City rates are expected to go up about 80 cents a month in the fiscal year that begins July 1.

Alberta said that although the latest increase was included in the water authority's projections for the coming fiscal year, which begins July 1, the water authority board will have to approve the increase on June 17.

A key reason for the increase, Deputy General Manager Dick Wimmer said, is that while the costs to deliver water are relatively fixed, the amount of water consumed has gone down, so the cost per acre-foot has to go up.

"We're spending an awful lot of energy convincing people in the community not to use our product," he said.

The budget includes funding for 27 new positions at the water authority, including 13 new positions related to the agency's efforts to bring groundwater pumped from rural areas.

The budget includes $157.6 million for capital improvements to the water system, $124.3 million for the cost of water delivered from Lake Mead, $180.3 million for debt service on bonds that financed earlier system expansions, and $14.4 million for work on the Las Vegas Wash, which brings waste water back to the lake.