Thursday, Aug. 28, 2003 | 11:04 a.m.
Boulder City has become the newest battleground in the war over water and growth.
Unlike some of its municipal neighbors in Clark County, the political leadership in the city of about 15,000 is skeptical about whether water should continue to flow to the thousands of new homes and businesses moving into the county every month, especially because they aren't moving into Boulder City.
Despite reservations, the Boulder City Council on Tuesday adopted -- with a couple of exemptions -- the water-use restrictions that the Southern Nevada Water Authority advocated. The water authority, grappling with four years of drought in the Rocky Mountains that feed Lake Mead, wants to cut water-use levels in the county by 25 percent.
Critics, however, have charged that the Water Authority's political leadership, made up of elected city councils and the Clark County Commission, is sacrificing the needs of residents already here to satisfy the need for thousands of water hook-ups on new homes and businesses. About 20,000 new homes a year are added in the county, an extension of a decades-long population boom.
Some Boulder City residents feel the drought restrictions are especially unfair to them, since Boulder City has restricted the number of new homes to 120 a year since 1979. It is the only city in Southern Nevada with an ordinance to control growth.
Bill Smith, a city resident who came within 18 votes of becoming mayor last year, is one of the critics. He said the council should not have adopted the new water-use restrictions.
"The whole thing is wrong," Smith said. "It's asinine to add new users when you already are using all the water you're entitled to, then ask people who are already here to give up water so you can serve new users.
"All of the water agencies in Las Vegas are hooking up new lines and adding new users. What I'm saying is if they want us to be a good neighbor and recognize there's a water shortage, they need to recognize that they need to stop adding new users."
Smith lost last year's mayoral race to longtime incumbent Robert Ferraro last year, and the two rarely agree on anything. But Ferraro said he is sympathetic to Boulder City residents who look at the water consumed by the Las Vegas Valley with trepidation.
"It's causing some of our citizens to be quite concerned," Ferraro said. "They feel that Boulder City has stepped up to the plate, has adopted conservation measures years ago (through the controlled-growth ordinance) and now perhaps is being penalized for it."
The city agreeded to restrict water use by including limits on water fountains and new grass at commercial buildings, but it went against the authority's recommendation of outlawing commercial misting systems. The council also delayed a decision on allocating water for golf courses in the city.
Boulder City, he noted, does not use all of its allotment from Lake Mead. The city, according to officials there, has a basic allotment from the lake of 17,000 acre-feet a year, but uses only about two-thirds of that.
The rest goes into the pot for the Las Vegas Valley to use. Altogether, Southern Nevada consumed about 330,000 acre-feet of water last year. One acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons, or enough water for a typical family for one year.
"Boulder City has some surplus water," Ferraro said. "We've never attached any strings to it. It has been allowed to go over to the Las Vegas Valley, and of course has been used to service the further development of homes.
"I do have a concern about that."
Sharing water resources has been the key to water use throughout Clark County for more than a decade.
Boulder City joined with Clark County and the cities of Las Vegas, North Las Vegas and Henderson in 1991 to create the powerful Southern Nevada Water Authority, the water wholesaler that brings the resource to the municipal distributors throughout the county. The water authority is not only the agency overseeing the water system; it also represents the region in negotiations -- now under way -- with the other six states along the Colorado River and with the federal government.
Vince Alberta, water authority spokesman, said the concerns expressed by Boulder City's political leadership and citizens are part of a larger debate over the water-and-growth nexus -- and in any case, the advantages of being part of a regional water agency outweigh the negatives.
"The concept of the water authority and its member agencies is that we are together as one, and Boulder City is a part of that," Alberta said. "We succeed as a team and we face challenges as a team."
The city benefits because it has additional clout in negotiations and through the use of new water-treatment technology that serves both Boulder City residents and users throughout the Las Vegas Valley, he said.
"With that comes some obligations, and among those is that water will go where water is needed in the valley," Alberta said.
Smith and the city leadership doesn't want to pull out of the regional water agency. But Smith takes issue with the city council, which voted unanimously to institute the drought-related use restrictions.
"Boulder City should not adopt this particular ordinance at this time," he said. "My feeling is that every bit of water Boulder City gives up at this time is water Boulder City will not get back."
Smith and the other critics throughout the county who have argued for curbs on growth as a way to avoid water-use restrictions have met with stiff resistance from elected leaders. He said the only way to change the picture is for grass-roots resistance to rise up not just in Boulder City, but in all of Southern Nevada, directed at the politicians and the developers and home builders that back them.
Failure to do so will mean less water for everyone, Smith warned.
The water agencies are "going to have to keep hitting people time and time again to keep cutting back on their water use," he said. "The developers control much of the politics. I recognize that, but that doesn't mean it's right."
Elected officials such as Clark County Commissioner Myrna Williams have warned that cutting off water to new development isn't as easy as some seem to think.
Williams, a member of the water authority board, joined her colleagues this month in asking for a study on the economic impact of limiting water for new development -- a move that would effectively limit new construction, threatening the estimated 70,000 construction jobs directly. A similar 1992 study found that such a move could triple the Las Vegas unemployment rate and lead to long-term economic disruption.
Williams said the "huge economic impact" would affect everybody in Clark County, including people in Boulder City.
"Those simple ideas don't necessarily benefit everybody," she said. "It's much more complex than that. It's a complicated issue and it's very difficult for some people to fathom."
Boulder City Councilwoman Andrea Anderson has a foot in both camps -- she shares some of the concerns of her neighbors, but she also is the city's representative on the water authority board.
Anderson said many Boulder City residents work in the Las Vegas Valley, including in the construction industry. The entire region's water future has to be considered together through the water authority, she said.
She thinks, though, that unlimited growth has to be examined.
"It's all part of the water usage," Anderson said. "I think it's going to have to be looked at in the future.
"To just continue uncontrolled growth just adds to the complications."
Sun reporter
Dan Kulin contributed to this story.
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