Wednesday, Sept. 29, 2004 | 10:46 a.m.
Three years after the federal government gave local water systems a six-year mandate to lower arsenic levels in community water systems, Nevada's communities are still struggling to meet the new standard.
Throughout the state, groundwater sustains ranches, towns, tiny communities and in the future may be a major source for Las Vegas. But in Nevada, like much of the West, the groundwater has relatively high levels of arsenic.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2001, following an extended political and scientific debate, adopted new standards for arsenic in water that go into effect in 2006, the first change since 1942. The allowable level of arsenic will drop from 50 parts-per-billion to 10 parts-per-billion.
The same year that it issued the new regulations, the EPA found that Nevada had the worst rate of arsenic contamination in the country -- an average of just under 12 parts-per-billion, or molecules of arsenic among a billion molecules of water.
Scientists continue to debate what should be the health-based standard for the element, and an EPA panel initially proposed a 5 parts-per-billion standard. Scientists may not agree on what the allowable limit for arsenic should be, but generally agree that chronic exposure is associated with several cancers, including lung, bladder and skin cancers, and an increased risk of high blood pressure and diabetes.
Throughout Nevada, arsenic occurs naturally in soils and rock that also supply groundwater. Some surface water also has been contaminated with the metal as a result of mining, but professionals working with the issue agree that the biggest threat to drinking water comes from the ground.
Communities that have arsenic in their drinking water are scrambling to find the technologies -- and the funding -- to remove the arsenic. The standards are hitting the Silver State and some of its smallest communities the hardest.
Among hundreds of water systems in the state with arsenic levels above the standard, only one has a new system in place. Fallon, a city of about 8,000 people, a Navy air base and an alarming concentration of cases of childhood leukemia, opened its federally funded, $16 million water treatment plant earlier this year.
The municipal water system for Fallon and surrounding Churchill County had arsenic levels above 100 parts-per-billion, twice the old standard and 10 times the new one.
Mark Walker, associate professor at UNR, said the concentrations of arsenic in Nevada water that he has studied vary tremendously. He has sampled about 300 public and private wells in Churchill County.
"You could have concentrations that are below the standard to concentrations that are pretty high -- 10 to 100 times over the standard," he said.
Only about a quarter of those wells he sampled come in under the EPA's arsenic standard, he said. The maximum concentration he found was about 2,100 parts-per-billion Walker said.
Walker said the issue is not a single dose of the suspect water.
"If I had just trekked out of some deep part of the desert, it would not kill me to drink a glass of water like that," he said. "I think the question is whether you want to do it every day."
Impact on the state
The Nevada State Health Division's Bureau of Health Protection Services estimated three years ago that the water-system cleanup cost could total $400 million. Bert Bellows, the bureau's public health engineer, said he does not have an updated estimate of the potential cost to the Silver State, but he warns it will be significant.
Of about 620 public water systems statewide, "about 140 will be or may be in exceedance of the new standard," he said. The water systems serve from a few dozen to tens of thousands of customers, Bellows said.
Unlike Fallon, most water systems will not find federal funding to pay for all the treatment, state and national officials believe. Generally, the bigger the system the easier it will be to pay for the required treatment on a per-customer basis.
Bob Foerster, executive director of the Nevada Rural Water Association, said many system operators will find it more difficult to treat their water and to pay for that treatment.
"Most small systems use well water," he said, "and they have no treatment processes except chlorination. This is a big step for them.
"They're spread across the state, a lot of them in the mineral belts. It's going to be a huge cost. It's going to impact the customer (water) rates, even with grant money."
The severity of the problem and the number of customers who will share the funding of the water-treatment system will be the factors that determine how much it will cost, he said.
"When you have a few hundred connections or less, the per-connection cost can be quite high," Foerster said.
As of mid-September, only one water system -- Fernley's, which serves a population of about 9,000 living 30 miles east of Reno -- has an exemption to the January 2006 compliance date, Bellows said.
However, that may change dramatically as water-system operators, particularly those serving small populations and are close to the new standard, realize it is going to be expensive or difficult to come into compliance, he said.
"Within the next few weeks, we'll be getting flooded with requests from all over," Bellows said. "It's going to be tough for a lot of the small systems we deal with. They don't have a huge income. They're not the Southern Nevada Water Authority."
Impact on Southern Nevada
The Southern Nevada Water Authority, which serves about 1.5 million people in Clark County, is the state's largest water wholesaler and now does not have a compliance issue with the new standard, thanks largely to the fact that 90 percent of its water supply comes from the Colorado River through Lake Mead.
That is supposed to change in the years to come, however, as the system's leadership is aggressively working to bring groundwater to Las Vegas. Water authority officials hope to as much as double the available water in the water authority's portfolio from groundwater, a move that brings with it the risk of arsenic contamination.
One of the prime areas that the water authority is looking to for groundwater resources is Lincoln County, where three of five systems studied in 2001 by the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension Service had arsenic concentrations above the new standard.
Kay Brothers, water authority deputy director, said the authority can handle any would-be threat.
"There will be places that if we develop water resources, there will be arsenic," she said, but the threat can be minimized by strategically locating wells away from high-arsenic locations.
Also, in general, the water authority plans to go very deep into the ground for water, into what geologists call the carbonate layer, which is as much as 1,000 feet below the surface. Brothers said the hope is that at those depths, the arsenic threat may be lower.
One of the strengths of the long-term contamination is that the water authority has the Colorado River to blend in with the groundwater, a strategy that other water systems around the state are pursuing.
"If you blend it with something, you might not have to remove it, because you have it below the 10 (parts-per-billion)," Brothers said.
If treatment ultimately is necessary, it will be easier and relatively cheaper for the water authority, she said. The water authority says it does not yet have a projection for the cost of the entire groundwater system of pipelines and wells, but independent estimates have ranged into the billions of dollars.
"Putting in arsenic treatment or considering it is pretty small compared to the whole project," she said.
But although the direct impact of the new standard might be minimal on Las Vegas water users, not all of Clark County is off the hook. In Mesquite, a community of about 17,000 in the county's northeast corner, the Virgin Valley Water District is struggling to meet the new standard.
"We average about 30 to 35 (parts per billion) in our system," Virgin Valley hydrologist Michael Johnson said. "We have nine production wells with arsenic concentrations that range from 6 ppb all the way up to 80 ppb.
"Because our system is over 30 ppb, we cannot get an extension," he said.
The Virgin Valley system will have to spend about $15 million to $17 million for new treatment infrastructure to comply with the EPA mandate, General Manager Michael Winters said. The system also will have to hire new operators for that treatment equipment.
"I've applied to the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers for funds," Winters said. "Nothing has been signed yet. We are hopeful we can get grant money for all but $4 million.
"We have gone to the state for a grant of $2 million, but that too still has not been approved," he said. "Everything is up in the air. Worst-case scenario, if we don't receive any grants, we are going to have to increase water rates by 60 to 70 percent."
Water bills for families in Mesquite now average $40 to $60 a year, Winters said. Even if the Virgin Valley Water District finds federal and state funding, the operations-and-maintenance cost of about $1.5 million annually could require a smaller increase in water rates, he added.
"I don't know how much, if it's needed," Winters said.
In Searchlight, 100 miles south, the Las Vegas Valley Water District is working to bring new technology to the water treatment issue. The water district is the operator of the small town's water system, which averages about 12 parts-per-billion, a hair above the new standard, said senior civil engineer Mao Fang.
"We are looking in the first place to see if there is any possibility of mixing it with good water from good wells," Fang said. New technologies also could be used, for a cost that he estimated at just $20,000.
Unfortunately, the options available for Searchlight aren't easily adaptable to other communities, he said.
"This technology, absorbtion technology, is very site specific," Fang said. "Even a little change in the chemistry would have to change the technology."
Solutions
Bellows said several factors make 2004 and 2005 important for the new standard. The state government, which is responsible for implementing and enforcing the federal mandate, is now drafting the regulations that the local water agencies will have to follow, he said.
The Legislature will have to adopt the rules in the next session, he said.
"We're just reviewing the reg(ulation)s and getting the language squared away," Bellows said, "making sure the language is what we want it to be. We have a little flexibility there."
Bellows said one ray of hope for smaller water systems is that new technologies for water treatment appear to coming.
"We've been approached by a couple of vendors who say they have good technologies," he said. "But these aren't yet verified by the EPA," a necessary step, he added.
"Doing pilot studies takes quite a bit of time, but the EPA is investigating different technologies, and we're seeing new technologies coming down the pipe," Bellows said.
Those designing and seeking approval for new treatment systems are responding to the EPA mandate, he said.
"It's the American free market system at its best, but it's in its early stages," Bellows said.
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