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  water recycling
Recycled water key to
valley's growth
In the drought-stricken West,
any source of water is precious. In Las Vegas, even treated wastewater
is becoming a more valuable commodity.
Not everyone might embrace
the idea of the recycled water, a product of the urban area's sewage
stream, providing sustenance to the region's grassy areas, but it
is already part of Southern Nevada's portfolio of water sources.
Officials from across the
region say that because of the drought and continued population
growth, treated wastewater will only be more important in the future.
The water is treated to remove
biological and chemical contaminants, and local officials say it
is safe for use outdoors, to play in and to come into contact with
people. Recycled water, they say, mitigates the Achilles' heel of
the local water system, an increasingly vulnerable weakness during
the drought: More than 60 percent of the region's water use goes
to irrigation.
A patchwork of local agencies
is responsible for bringing recycled water.
The Las Vegas Valley Water
District is the largest, providing 10 golf courses with the treated
water for irrigation last year. Las Vegas, which has three treatment
plants, gives water to the water district and to three golf courses
operated by local developer Billy Walters.
The Clark County Water Reclamation
District sells water to Nevada Power for generating electricity
and two golf courses. Henderson sells water to eight golf courses.
All of the providers have
different rates ranging from the water district's current $1.85
per 1,000 gallons to Las Vegas, which sells water to Walters' Stallion
Mountain and Royal Links courses for 23 cents per 1,000 gallons.
In the middle is the water
reclamation district, which sells water based on a formula that
comes to about $1 per 1,000 gallons. The reclamation district board
-- the Clark County Commission -- is scheduled to consider raising
that rate to $1.35 on Tuesday.
Marty Flynn, reclamation
district spokesman, said other changes on the table at the 9 a.m.
meeting in the commission chambers could be more important and help
the reclamation district and its partner, the Las Vegas Valley Water
District, sell more recycled water.
The increased rate will enable
the reclamation district to bring infrastructure to new potential
customers such as the Clark County School District, he said.
"The old rules have been
that the customer essentially comes to us," Flynn said. "The new
rules would allow us to bring the water to where the customer is.
We can go beyond the traditional power plants and golf courses to
parks, cemeteries and the other big users."
The move by the water reclamation
district, which would go into effect July 1, comes two weeks after
the Las Vegas Valley Water District raised its rates for recycled
water from $1.69. Water district officials said they needed to raise
the rates to balance the agency's costs for delivering water to
its customers, who aren't using the volume of water that the district
once anticipated.
Those golf-course customers
pointed out that one reason they aren't using the water in the anticipated
volume is that they have followed the water district's instructions
to reduce irrigation during the drought.
Despite the reductions, local
water officials say that in the long term, more irrigation must
be done with recycled water. Richard Wimmer, deputy general manager
of both the water district and the Southern Nevada Water Authority,
which brings wholesale water to the region for the local distributors,
said a primary reason is that the authority is planning to bring
more groundwater into the local system.
The authority now gets about
90 percent of the region's water supply from Lake Mead. Water from
the lake can be treated and returned to the lake for "return flow
credits." For every gallon of lake water returned, the federal Bureau
of Reclamation allows the authority to draw up an equal quantity
above its basic allotment.
But groundwater taken from
other areas cannot be returned to the lake for the credits, which
makes it more important that as Southern Nevada's water portfolio
expands, more uses for the treated and recycled water from wells
are found, Wimmer said.
Recycling the water also
has environmental benefits because less waste water goes into the
Las Vegas Wash and it saves the water agencies money because less
water has to be pumped uphill from Lake Mead, he said.
"It is extremely important
in the long run that we start being more aggressive aboout reusing
water," he said. "We're going to ultimately have to look at any
large irrigation projects."
The use now is relatively
paltry. The water district, the largest supplier of recycled water,
sold about 6,000 acre-feet of water to its golf course customers
last year -- about 2 million gallons. The region annually uses about
400,000 acre-feet, one-quarter of that from return-flow credits.
Richard Goecke, Public Works
director for the city of Las Vegas, said his agency sells about
548 million gallons, or about 1,700 acre-feet, annually. But the
three treatment plants operated by the city produce about 24,000
acre-feet of treated waste water daily annually. So there is a lot
of room to grow.
He noted that the water agencies
are already supplying Southern Nevada's golf courses with recycled
water, but they are the relatively easy customers to find and serve.
Others will come, he said.
"As the drought continues,
reuse water is going to gain greater acceptance," Goecke predicted.
"That will open up opportunities for greater use."
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