Arizona communities oppose wastewater straight to Mead

Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2005 | 9:27 a.m.

The Mohave County, Ariz., board of county supervisors voted Monday to oppose a planned $625 million project to send Clark County's treated sewer water deep to the bottom of Lake Mead.

The project -- which would divert the treated effluent from its present discharge point in Las Vegas Wash -- would threaten the lake's water quality, said Buster Johnson, a Lake Havasu City resident and third-term supervisor.

The board agreed, voting 3-0 to oppose the project, which is now going through a required federal environmental impact study.

Johnson, at a special meeting of his board, said Las Vegas already is polluting by discharging the residues of pharmaceuticals and other groundwater sources into the lake through Las Vegas Wash. The result has been algae blooms and other problems for downstream users.

Lake Havasu and Bullhead City, both Arizona communities, get water from the river, as do Indian tribes along the river. Las Vegas and its suburbs also take 90 percent of their drinking water from Lake Mead, several miles south of where Las Vegas Wash enters the lake.

The proposed change would take an expected 300 million gallons of treated wastewater to a point about 200 feet deep in the lake. Advocates from the Clean Water Coalition, which includes Clark County, Las Vegas and Henderson officials, believe that the plan would improve water quality by keeping contaminated water away from intakes that bring clean lake water to the urban area.

Opponents, however, say that the Clean Water Coalition's analysis for the environmental impact study is profoundly flawed. Among the critics has been UNLV professor Jim Deacon. Some of Johnson's comments to the Mohave County board Monday appeared to closely mirror Deacon's earlier testimony on the issue.

"Day after day of dumping hundreds of millions of gallons of effluent will certainly lead to a major sediment buildup filled with harmful and concentrated byproducts of the effluent," Johnson said.

"Of greatest concern to me is that no studies have addressed the issue of pharmaceuticals being dumped into the lake and their effect on down river users. The cumulative effect of years of ingesting these drugs is not known and should be studied before a release of this size is even considered.

"Nevada has already given us health problems with the testing that was done for the atomic bomb and the people of Mohave County have not received compensation for those lives cut short. ... Are we are expected to sit idly by while the Big Dog defecates in our yard? Well, I believe killing our people with atomic fallout and polluting our water ... is enough suffering for our citizens."

Johnson said Las Vegas and its suburbs should thoroughly treat the water and reuse it, not return it the lake.

"Las Vegas said it best -- 'What happens in Las Vegas, stays in Las Vegas' -- and I think now is a good time for them to follow their motto," he said.

Doug Karafa, program administrator for the Clean Water Coalition, has said that failure to divert the water would lead to increased contamination problems in the lake.

Launce Rake can be reached at 259-4127 or at lrake@lasvegassun.com.

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