Carson City water rates may have to go up enough to pay a $31 million bill to make city water more reliable, drinkable and able to keep up with expected build-out over the next 20 years.
Consultant Ira Rackley, a long time veteran of Northern Nevada water issues, told the City Supervisors today that Carson City’s ground water and river and stream supplies are barely keeping up with demand, especially during the summers. He said although the city technically has enough water, consumption is likely to outstrip demand in some instances when equipment fails or we get into a deep drought. Throw in climate change and you get quite a wild card, according to Rackley.
Rackley says his predictions won’t come true for another five years or so, but it’s time the city begin thinking about making system upgrades that overcomes the town’s biggest water supply problem. Arsenic and uranium in the water. He says filtering those naturally occurring chemicals out is very, very expensive. But if we lower the levels of those two elements through blending good water with not so good water, we can accomplish the same thing.
To succeed at the blending strategy, Rackely told the Supervisors water from Marlette and Hobart Lakes must come on line in a very reliable way. Pipeline upgrades and extension in the Carson Range, immediately west of Carson City is a must. Pipeline inter-ties with valley distribution systems need to be constructed. A new water treatment plant dedicated just for Lakeview and Timberline needs to be built. And a process of using mostly surface water in good water years, and groundwater in drought years needs to be established. Couple that with an intertie pipeline between Douglas County and Carson City, as well as Lyon County and Carson City, and it should meet the water demands of Carson City through it’s build-out population of 80,000.
The $31 million price tag is what we get when we add up all the new construction costs minus the savings for not having to treat arsenic and uranium contaminated water. It also takes into account income from four hydro-power generators placed at strategic locations along the various mountain pipeline routes.
Today’s first glimpse of Carson City’s water future did not consider one crucial element which Rackley told NewsCarsonCity.com will come up later. And that is water rates. If water is not priced high enough, everybody will use too much of it. Some Carson government watch-dogs have suggested for years that Carson City doesn’t have a water supply problem, it has a pricing problem. That City Hall sells it way too cheap. People move here from California to retire, and they want to grow the same landscaping here that they had there. They end up running their hoses and sprinklers for hours to get that look. One customer even waters a four acre parcel up in Lakeview. And he’s a local.
Water rate comparisons of cities and counties around the west vary all over the map. But it’s been well documented that Carson City’s water rates have traditionally been among the lowest in northern Nevada. Don’t be surprised if discussions on water rates become a central feature in any discussion that calls on Carson City residents to raise their water rates sharply just to get the same amount of water. However, Rackley says if we don’t build the improvements in the mountains, the alternative is to treat our uranium and arsenic wells at even higher cost…more than the cost of the mountain improvements. Pay me now or pay me a whole lot more later. But in in the meantime, if water rates are raised to more accurately reflect the actual cost of providing water to city residents and businesses, consumption would very likely drop, and thereby eliminate the need for all those system improvements. Critics of that idea say that the city ought to make the improvements so that it’ll know that Carson City is getting every drop of water it can to fully serve the community. After that you can raise water rates even higher to make that water supply last even longer.
Rackley says extra blending water from Marlette and Hobart reservoirs high in the Carson Range should be on line by this time next year. That extra pure mountain water will blend with valley wellwater to keep the town’s drinking water supply within federal health standards. City officials say those standards have been met and are being met today…but sometimes its a real challenge to keep the blending process of good wellwater adequately with poor well water, to stay within limits. And that when you’re blending water, it means the total water output is less. So instead of 18,000 gallons a minute going out the pipes in the summer, the city can only shove out 15,000. So that’s another issue on quantity being affected by quality constrains on the system.
Rackley says he’ll have another report back to the city in the near future so the Board can decide what path it wants to take to make sure Carson City has enough high quality water to keep the town and its surroundings physically and economically healthy.
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