Rules for private wells draining homeowners

Ray Preston wasn't any different from his neighbors when he saved up enough money 10 years ago to buy a custom dream home in the rural northwest portion of Clark County.

He knew the price of a quiet lifestyle in the booming Las Vegas Valley would include installing a septic tank and spending $16,000 to drill a water well. But, like his neighbors, what Preston didn't know was that he might have to pay the price twice.

A rapidly growing population means a fast-expanding municipal water system, which means well owners might not be living in the country much longer. More important, it means many homeowners might soon have to spend more than $20,000 to cap their wells and link up to the municipal system.

"People are angry because they feel, because of the developments in the area, that's why we are being forced to hook up," Preston said. "The cost is terrible. The developers should pay."

Preston is one of about 200 anxious northwest residents who have called meetings with Clark County commissioners, state water officials and Las Vegas Valley Water District representatives to find out when they have to hook up.

And the answer, according to state engineers, is the same as it has been for years.

Homeowners who live 180 feet or less from a water line must connect to the system if their wells fail or run dry and must be redrilled to reach a deeper aquifer.

The people who are most jumpy are those hooked up to a well with several other homes. While they live by the same distance guidelines, they hold revocable permits, meaning they can be forced to hook up to the system at any time.

"The chief engineer can arbitrarily pull a permit with multiple homes per well," resident Owen Kline said. "It's the biggest thing around because people are going to be hurt because of this. People may be forced to sell their homes."

Residents have heard it would cost between $20,000 and $30,000 to connect to the water system. In addition to the hookup cost, they would be required to pay $6,000 to cap the well to keep contaminants from tainting the system.

Chris Weiss, the water district's analyst and government-affairs representative, said the hookup cost would hover between $9,000 and $11,000 in addition to the capping fee.

That amount is much more significant than the cost to deepen a well, which probably would be around $5,000.

"When you go to sell your house, you'll never get your money back," Kline said, "if you could afford to do it in the first place."

Repairing a well or redrilling is monitored by the state. A hired well driller must obtain a state permit before starting work. The denial of such permits is when most well owners first learn that the municipal water system is close by.

State engineer Michael Turnipseed said that, until about three years ago, the state policy was if it was more expensive to hook up to the municipal system than to redrill a well, the homeowner would be permitted to drill deeper.

"Because of the infrastructure and the rise in hookup fees, we realized years ago it would never be less expensive to hook up to municipal," Turnipseed said. "We changed from making economic decisions to pure distance decisions."

The commotion in northwest Clark County is nothing new, Turnipseed emphasized. "We have been actively revoking permits in Las Vegas steadily since 1971. The old part of town was easy because they were hooked up. Now we are out to where we need to revoke permits in the northwest.

"It's a substantial cost to those people when they're perfectly willing to stay on their own wells. Emotions have run from high anxiety to out-and-out rage."

Turnipseed said the state has tried to wean people off ground water since the mid-1950s when it was determined that the Las Vegas basin was "over-committed."

"We've become ever more restrictive on how much we allow. At one point we were allowing eight houses per well, then four. ... We wanted to force developments to the middle of town where (Colorado) river water is available."

Although the state still allows new wells for single homes more than 360 feet from a water line, it stopped issuing permits for multiple-home wells in 1992.

About 20,000 homeowners still rely on wells in the valley, and the process of revoking permits is very gradual. In fact, Weiss said only eight well owners were hooked up to the system in 1998.

Weiss said the water authority's management program, instituted in 1997, is drafting methods that might make the transition easier for well users.

First, he said, is a proposal to create a permanent aquifer recharge that would raise and maintain ground-water levels, preventing wells from running dry. Secondly, it is exploring the possibility of low-interest financing -- residents would be given 20 years with 5 percent interest to reimburse the authority for the hookup costs.

Finally, Weiss said, the management team will look into signing a contract with a firm that could plug and cap a well for less money.

Still, the financial assistance doesn't comfort residents who cherish their crisp, clean ground water.

After all, when the water system was nowhere to be found in the northwest, residents paid between $15,000 and $40,000 to build their wells, depending on how far down they had to drill.

"I'm not fighting the district or the state engineer's office," Carroll Varner, president of the Northwest Citizens Association, said. "My fight is with the system itself and the way it's working a double investment.

"We had to drill a well at one time out here because we didn't have water. We have a right to use that water."

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