Drainage could aid wetlands

Retired biologist Vernon Bostick has advice for a developer who wants to drain up to 3.2 million gallons of water a day off its property next to the Las Vegas Wash: Return the flows to restore the wetlands.

The developer agreed to a compromise plan after a hearing Wednesday night.

The water running under the housing tract comes from natural ground water and shallow runoff from lawns that has flowed into the wash from all over the Las Vegas Valley. All runoff in the valley goes into the Las Vegas Wash.

Saxton Inc. had asked state environmental officials for a permit to send the runoff downhill into Duck Creek for the next five years, until 700 homes in the Silver Springs development south of Tropicana Avenue and east of Broadbent Boulevard are completed, Saxton engineer Richard Striegel said.

The company has been draining the land since 1997 with permission from the County Commission and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The land, which some once considered part of the wash, was not declared wetlands under the federal criteria, because the soil did not contain enough water, Striegel said. Home construction began in 1998.

However, the state requires Saxton to get a discharge permit, because the water is draining into Lake Mead, Southern Nevada's major drinking water source. The development has measured about 800,000 gallons of runoff a day, but the flow could fluctuate up to 3.2 million gallons a day during the worst valley storms.

Saxton had asked to drain the water into Duck Creek, about a mile south, because it's a natural downhill flow, and gravity would do most of the work. All the company would need is a pipe installed from the property to the creek.

Bostick, who retired from the county's Conservation District, would rather see Saxton pump the water more than two miles north into a pond known as D-14. The pond, actually part of a drainage ditch north of Tropicana Avenue, would allow the water to flow into the Las Vegas Wash, where Clark County plans to build a desert wetlands park.

That would require a pumping station and a pipe, Bostick said. Neither the developer nor Bostick had a cost estimate for the alternative solution.

But after meeting with county officials, Bostick and other Friends of the Desert Wetlands Park, Saxton is willing to compromise by routing the water to the county's park area, Striegel said.

The county would be responsible to get the water from the border to the park.

"The state will consider alternative discharge points as long as the developer agrees to them," Jim Williams of the state Division of Environmental Protection said.

Either way, the water would flow to Lake Mead through the wash, but with the new plan, more of the wash would get the benefit of the extra flows, bringing nourishment to plants trying to root in the new county wetlands park.

Bostick has seen the 1,500 acres of cattail marshes shrink to about 100 acres in his 30 years of trying to protect and restore the wetlands.

Storm runoff has ripped the entire 2,000 acres of wetlands to shreds. Increased sewage effluent has gouged the marshes. And developers are bulldozing and draining millions of gallons of water away from the water-loving plants that help clean the valley's runoff flowing into Lake Mead.

"There were once 1,500 acres of cattails, now there's barely enough to fill the frame of a camera," Bostick, 85, said, waving his cane at a slim ribbon of remaining cattails. "You can't have a wetlands park without wetlands."

The area where the Saxton water would flow, Bostick said, "is the centerpiece of the wetlands park."

The extra water would encourage wetlands plants to grow, remove contamination in the runoff and offer habitat for two endangered southwestern birds, the Yuma clapper rail and the Southwest willow flycatcher, he said.

It only makes sense, Bostick said. "This water under the development comes from the wetlands park."

During the hearing on the request, retired biologist Larry Paulson also asked the state to consider who will be responsible for rising ground water after the five-year permit ends and residents are living in the Silver Springs homes. "Who will take responsibility for the discharges after five years?" he asked.

As part of its plan, Saxton says in its state application that it will monitor how much water flows into the wash, as well as measure four times a year how much inorganic nitrogen, dissolved solids or salts, acid or alkalinity and phosphorous are in the water.

"We have proceeded with our Silver Springs subdivision because over a year of testing for water quality the results have met standards," Striegel said.

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