Critic of rural water plan offers alternatives

Tuesday, March 8, 2005 | 8:47 a.m.

A longtime critic of the Southern Nevada Water Authority on Monday proposed 14 alternatives to the agency's plans to develop water sources in rural Nevada for use in Las Vegas.

Mark Bird, a Community College of Southern Nevada sociology instructor and former U.S. Bureau of Reclamation employee, has been one of the loudest critics of the Water Authority's plans for bringing groundwater from Nevada's rural counties to urban areas.

The Water Authority has planned for more than a decade to tap such sources, but its plans have accelerated as years of drought have threatened water supplies in Lake Mead.

Much of Bird's talk Monday night to a group of about 20 people focused on desalination, removing salt from sea water, as a source of plentiful clean drinking water for Southern Nevada. He said new technologies are driving the cost down to the point where it would be competitive with other water sources and avoid the supply uncertainties that come with groundwater resources.

"One large desalting plant would solve Southern Nevada's problem," he said.

Bird has a patent for a solar and gravity-powered desalination technology, but, he said, that's not what's driving his advocacy of desalination.

"My patent is one of a half-dozen ways to de-salt water," Bird said. "It may seem like self-interest, but the SNWA (Water Authority) won't pursue it or not pursue it because of my involvement."

He said desalination would likely be one of a combination of ways to produce water for Southern Nevada. Bird listed 14 of them at his talk.

Among the others: canals from the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest or the Great Lakes to channel water to the region; towing icebergs to a place where they could be used or swapped for water for Las Vegas; and slowing growth, an alternative that has thus far found little support among Southern Nevada's political leadership.

Bird also said the regional water agency could do nothing at all. He argued that the the federal government would step in to save Southern Nevada in an emergency.

"There are multiple water options beyond those pursued by the SNWA," he said.

Bird compared the wells and pipelines that would bring rural groundwater to Las Vegas to an unpleasant sea creature.

"Imagine a giant octopus over the state of Nevada ... In a sense, the SNWA is proposing an underground octopus."

Bird repeated his charge that the pipelines to bring rural water to Las Vegas would cost $10 billion or more, far more than about $2 billion that the Water Authority estimates the system would cost.

Vince Alberta, Water Authority spokesman, said some of the options outlined by Bird are already a part of the long-term plans of the agency.

Pat Mulroy, authority general manager, has been one of many voices from urban users asking for more conservation by massive agricultural users in California.

Two years ago a settlement among California agencies actually diverted some agricultural water to urban users in San Diego. Mulroy and other states had pushed hard for the settlement.

"We continue to meet the resource demands of the community through long-term, strategic planning," Alberta said. "We are currently implementing new resource options that provide more diversity and flexibility in managing our resources and that help insulate us from ongoing or future drought."

He suggested that leaving water management issues up to the federal government would not be a practical option for Nevada or the other six states along the river.

"We are working with all the stakeholders involved throughout the Colorado River basin to manage the river as one system," Alberta said. "We think it will be much more effective if all the stakeholders can find a common approach to solve many of this issues than to have something dictated to us from an outside party."

Desalination of ocean water is one part of the agency's long-term plans, but would likely come years, even decades, in the future. Alberta said Bird's arguments to accelerate use of desalination ignore significant technological and environmental challenges.

"Regarding desal(ination), that is certainly one of the many options we identified years ago, but there are too many variable at this time that make it too expensive and not feasible at this time," Alberta said.

Environmental problems include the difficulty in disposing of high-salt brine or the "unbelievable environmental issues of miles of pipelines" from California or the Gulf of California, he said.

"Someday, desal(ination) will be a viable water resource alternative," Alberta said. "It is not that alternative today."

Those in the crowd seemed generally supportive of Bird's points, particularly when it came to controlling Southern Nevada's growth rate. Bird pointed out that at more than 5 percent annually, Clark County's growth is almost 10 times that of the United States' in general and one of the fastest worldwide.

Jim Brauer, a retired Clark County School District employee, said like Nevada's famed Comstock Lode, the growth bubble here cannot be sustained. Controlling growth now would eliminate much of the need for the new water sources, he said.

As for the Water Authority, Brauer said he is skeptical of the agency's plans and added that he doesn't believe all of the information the agency has published.