Idyllic town, $25 million water bill, unpleasant choice

By Phoebe Sweet, Mike Trask

Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2007 | 7:10 a.m.

Boulder City always has done its best to remain a small town, the kind of place where the mayor runs a hardware store, the homecoming game is front-page news and new crosswalks on the main drag can stir controversy.

During the past decade, its sprawling suburban neighbors hit the fast forward button on development, racking up triple-digit growth rates that changed them from sleepy outposts to upscale areas.

Boulder City, though, lifted the draw bridge, limiting growth to 1percent per year and warding off attempts to build at its edges. It remains much as it has always been, quaint and charming, filled with diners and antique shops.

Now, though, that leave-us-alone attitude may come back to haunt the city of 15,000.

Boulder City may have stopped many of the perils of growth - the need for bigger fire and police departments, major road improvements and other infrastructure, more schools. But it can't escape one harsh reality of living in the desert: It needs water.

The seven-member Southern Nevada Water Authority says it must install an $817 million third intake valve at Lake Mead. If it doesn't and water levels continue to fall as projected , taps across the valley could run dry by 2010. And although the chance of that worst-case scenario unfolding is only 15 percent, water authority officials say that is high enough to make moving ahead immediately on the new valve project a top priority.

For most valley municipalities, much of the cost will be covered by new connection fees paid by builders and tacked on to new home prices.

But Boulder City's growth restriction will force it to look elsewhere to cover its roughly $25 million water tab.

"I don't know how we are going to pay for it," said Councilwoman Andrea Anderson, the city's representative on the water authority board. "I don't have those answers."

The city's share of the new intake would be more than its annual general fund budget.

"It's an enormous amount for Boulder City," Mayor Roger Tobler said.

The amount, however, will have to be paid, unless Boulder City plans on building its own water lines - a financial impossibility, most say.

Lake Mead's water level keeps getting lower, as is obvious to anyone who has seen the gray shading running along its rock walls. By 2010 the level may fall below 1,050 feet, and below the first of two intake valves that provide the valley's water. Once the water dips below the first pump, the pipes running into the lake can no longer push water into the valley.

Adding a third intake has little to do with growth and more to do with the eight-year drought that has sapped the water supply. The new valve would provide insurance against a continued drought, which most environmental experts agree is inevitable.

The valley's 300,000 acre-foot allotment - 1.8 percent of the water taken from the Colorado River for agriculture , commercial and residential use each year - would drop the lake level only 3 feet if it were taken all at once. The lake loses more depth to evaporation each year.

"People that have come out in opposition have the wrong idea , that this project is about increasing capacity," said J.C. Davis, a water authority spokesman and a Boulder City resident. "It is about getting any water at all."

Today, the surface of the lake is 1,111 feet above sea level, more than 100 feet lower than it was a decade ago. The first intake, installed more than three decades ago, is at 1,050 feet. The second, at 1,000 feet and costing $2 billion, was installed five years ago to accommodate development in the valley.

Construction on the $817 million third intake is expected to start next year and be completed by 2013. If the water level dips to a dangerously low level by 2010, added pumps to increase the second valve's capacity, extra ground water wells and water use restrictions will help avoid shortages until the third intake is ready.

The intake project will be an engineering marvel that involves tunneling under the lake to 860 feet, a task water officials say wouldn't be possible if the water level were higher.

Henderson, North Las Vegas and the Las Vegas Valley Water District (which covers Clark County, Las Vegas and several smaller cities) will pay for most of the project.

Boulder City will have to pony up about 3.2 percent of the cost . A formula based on peak water us e produces the $25 million price tag.

The city has some options. But when a $25 million bill arrives, no solution is without pain.

Politicians say the obvious choice would be to sell some city land. Boulder City is the largest municipality in Nevada by area, the result of a deal in 1995 that netted the city 107,000 acres of the Eldorado Valley, a chunk of mostly vacant desert west of town, at the bargain price of $12 per acre.

But in small-town Boulder City nothing is simple.

City law requires voter approval for any land sales. Historically residents have resisted selling any of the outlying land out of fear that the vast development in Henderson could spread to their doorstep. In June a ballot question that asked voters to sell 30 acres for housing failed by 300 votes.

On the same ballot, voters approved spending on the new intake, meaning the city wants the water, but isn't ready to make many sacrifices to pay for it.

"I thought we should sell land," Tobler said.

The water authority could help the city finance a bond over 20 to 30 years . But Boulder City folks know that money already is tight.

"It seems to me that we are doing something that may be more expensive than it needs to be," Councilman Travis Chandler said.

Not so, the water authority says. For water to make into the line that carries it to the masses, the level needs to be above the pumps . The pumps cannot be lowered .

Another option to pay for the valve would be for Boulder City to raise water rates - by how much is under review - for current customers, never a popular decision.

The matter probably will come down to selling land or residents reaching for their wallets.

In the meantime, life goes on in Boulder City. Many residents are more focused on the future of the city-owned Boulder Creek Golf Course, which some make the scapegoat for all of the city's problems. The course has cost the city about $4 million to operate since 2004 and uses about 13 percent of the city's water.

Yet most of council members remain optimistic that the course eventually will turn a profit . And if land surrounding the course were sold for high-end housing, the revenue would pay for most of the city's share of the intake project.

Of course, voters would have to approve that idea.

Nobody in Boulder City is apologizing for their attitude or desire to keep their community pretty much as it is.

The city is like no place else in the valley. Neighbors know one another and a stop in a locally owned restaurant can feel like a family reunion. Those who weren't born in the city moved there for perhaps the only small-town atmosphere left in Clark County.

"People love Boulder City because of what we are," Anderson said. "That's why people move here, and they jealously protect that."

There's more than a little irony in the fact that Boulder City was started to house the workers who built Hoover Dam and Lake Mead.

Seventy years later there's still no gambling and limits on liquor sales are stringent . Visitors taking time off from the bright lights to head to the dam support the city's main industry, tourism. Many stop for a meal or a souvenir .

Now the city will have to find a way to keep the water flowing.

"Boulder City is a little town," Tobler said. "But we're in big-town politics."