LV Water District issued flood of water-waster fines

Beth Slovic

Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2005 | 9:37 a.m.

Last year the Las Vegas Valley Water District issued 2,140 fines totaling $193,900, and Henderson's water district assessed 200 fees totaling $5,775 for water wasting after levying none the prior year.

Meanwhile in North Las Vegas no one was fined for water wasting last year, and in Boulder City just three fines were levied for a total of $100.

The disparity in the number of fines imposed by water districts around the area may be, at least in part, a function of the number of consumers each one has. But the differences also relate to the way local agencies approach the issue of curbing water waste, representatives from North Las Vegas' water district said.

The Las Vegas Valley Water District -- which doles out water to residents in Las Vegas and unincorporated Clark County and has assessed, by far, the most fees in the past year -- has far more accounts than other local districts, Tracy Bower, the district's spokeswoman, said.

The Las Vegas district had 295,000 accounts as of November, which is when the last count was compiled, Bower said. The number of fines represents 0.73 percent of that total.

By comparison, Henderson's water district currently has 72,308 open accounts, Kathleen Richards, a public information officer in the city's utilities department, said. The number of fines the city's issued in 2004 -- 200 -- represents 0.28 percent of the total number of accounts.

North Las Vegas has about 60,000 customers in its water district, Mike Wilson, a manager of business services with the city's utilities department, said.

According to Wilson and another representative of the city, North Las Vegas would rather teach its residents how to comply with water restrictions than punish them.

"The focus is more on educating than fining," Brenda Johnson, a spokeswoman for North Las Vegas, said. The fact that the city did not have to issue any fines last year meant people were correcting their mistakes once they had been notified of the violations, Johnson said. "It's a good sign," she said.

It's not an indication that North Las Vegas does not receive any complaints about wasting water, however. Last year the city received 1,576 such complaints, Wilson said.

In Henderson, "there was no conscious effort to not assess fees in 2003, nor was there a policy shift in 2004 resulting in Henderson assessing fees," Richards wrote in an e-mail. "Rather, the water waste violation process was only implemented by Henderson in September 2003, and given Henderson's three-step process (courtesy notice, warning letter, violation letter) before fees are assessed, no violation fees happened to be assessed in 2003."

Boulder City officials issued three fines to two individuals last year, according to Rose Ann Miele, the city's spokewoman.

In all four of the water districts, fines are included as fees on water users' bills, and fines increase for repeat violators.