Large wastewater treatment project may not get much stimulus funds

At an estimated cost of $828 million, the sewer outfall project is expected to create more than 1,400 jobs over a five-year period as workers drill an eight-mile tunnel through the River Mountains, construct a power plant and run pipeline from Las Vegas to the bottom of Lake Mead.

By some estimates, it is the single largest wastewater treatment venture Nevada has ever seen.

But despite lobbying efforts by the coalition, the project is unlikely to receive more than a few million dollars in stimulus help.

"It’s not enough money really for us to get the program started," said coalition General Manager Doug Karafa. "It’s money, we’d never turn it down, but it’s not a whole hell of a lot."

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, as the stimulus measure is known, includes nearly $3.9 billion for wastewater projects nationwide. Nevada’s share is less than $20 million, and only a fraction of that is expected to trickle down to the Clean Water Coalition.

The coalition had hoped to start work this year and complete construction by 2013. At the moment, though, the project is in a holding pattern.

"We’ve got things ready to go. Half of the project is bid ready," Karafa said. "We’ve slowed down because of the economy."

They are also waiting to see what else the federal government might do to help. Coalition officials still hope to receive up to $50 million in federal money through the Army Corps of Engineers. The money was authorized for the project as part of a 2007 water bill, but it has yet to be appropriated.

"That would be a real shot in the arm for us," Karafa said.

Roughly two-thirds of the project’s total cost was expected to come from new customer connection charges, but that pot of money has all but dried up with the local economy.

It’s a shame the work has to wait, Karafa said. "Now is a great time for bids. Metal prices are down, and, yeah, we’d like to put people to work."

The project is known officially as the Systems Conveyance and Operations Program, but most people call it SCOP, which they pronounce as "scope."

It is being developed by the Clark County Water Reclamation District and the cities of Las Vegas and Henderson, the three agencies that make up the coalition.

SCOP is designed to protect local water quality through 2050 and beyond by piping treated effluent from the valley’s sewage treatment plants to a spot at the bottom of Lake Mead more than three miles from shore.

Right now, the valley’s daily wastewater load of about 200 million gallons gets treated to near-drinking water standards and is released into the Las Vegas Wash to flow downstream to Lake Mead.

The new system will allow about twice as much wastewater to be injected into the lake with greater efficiency while dramatically reducing the load on the erosion-prone wash.

The valley must release effluent into the lake to ensure its own water supply. For every gallon of wastewater that ends up in the lake, Nevada earns return-flow credits allowing it to almost double its annual share of the Colorado River. Without the credits, the state’s river allotment would not be enough to meet water demand in Southern Nevada.

Karafa said the coalition, and Nevada as a whole, might have gotten caught up in the government’s rush to get stimulus money into people’s hands as quickly as possible.

Rather than take the time to design a whole new distribution scheme, federal officials decided to send the money out through existing channels, in this case the Environmental Protection Agency and various clean water revolving funds at the state level, Karafa said.

Adele Basham is a supervisory engineer for the Nevada Department of Environmental Protection, which oversees the state’s revolving funds for clean water and drinking water projects. She said the stimulus money for wastewater work was parceled out using the same old federal formula that officials in booming areas of the Southwest have been trying to get updated for several years.

"It’s very old. It’s probably 15 years old at least," Basham said of the formula. "It doesn’t reflect current population numbers, that’s for sure."

On a per capita basis, Nevada ranks 46th out of 51 states and the District of Columbia for the amount of money the state is getting for the clean water fund from the federal stimulus bill.

Nevada’s $19.5 million comes to $7.50 per resident, while No. 1 Wyoming, getting the same $19.5 million but with a much smaller population, gets nearly $37 per resident, according to an analysis of federal data provided to the state budget office.

The $19.5 million that went to Nevada, seven other states and the District of Columbia was the minimum amount of clean water funding paid out under the stimulus package. The largest sum, $437 million, went to New York, while California got $283 million and Ohio got $223 million.

Review-Journal writer Molly Ball contributed to this report. Contact reporter Henry Brean at hbrean @reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0350.