Water intake project budget increased

The first shovel of dirt has yet to be turned, but the costs keep piling up for the Southern Nevada Water Authority’s third straw at Lake Mead.

The project, which involves drilling a tunnel several miles long underneath the bed of the reservoir, now is projected to cost $817 million, an increase of about 25 percent over the previous estimate of $650 million.

Set to go on line by the end of 2011, the new intake will allow the authority to continue drawing water even if Lake Mead shrinks below the level of the two existing intakes.

The project is considered crucial to protecting the Las Vegas Valley’s water supply, roughly 90 percent of which comes from the Colorado River by way of Lake Mead. One or both of the existing inlet pipes would be forced to shut down if the lake level falls another 80 feet.

Marc Jensen, director of engineering for the water authority, said the $167 million cost increase can be traced to several factors, including the rising cost of construction materials and “a lot of competition globally in underground construction.”

The need to complete the intake as quickly as possible is also driving up the cost. Jensen said project engineers recently determined that the 20-foot diameter tunnel under the lake needs to be extended by 3,000 feet to avoid areas of rock that would be too risky or too time-consuming to drill through.

The water authority’s Capital Improvements Plan was amended on Thursday to reflect the cost escalation, which is not expected to immediately affect water rates of local customers.

The authority board also signed off on a $665 million budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1. The spending plan includes $308 million in new construction, more than a third of which is earmarked for the third intake.

The bulk of construction money next year will be spent on projects related to the district’s efforts to tap groundwater and surface water in rural Clark, Lincoln and White Pine counties. Specifically, the authority expects to start work in the coming year on two major projects in northern Clark County:

• A pipeline that will deliver groundwater to Las Vegas from wells in two basins near Indian Springs.

• A pipeline that will deliver groundwater from the Coyote Spring Valley, where the authority will conduct a pumping test, to the Moapa area, where it will be used by water customers or emptied into the Muddy River and allowed to flow into Lake Mead.

In a related move, board members approved a $250 million addition to the authority’s Major Construction and Capital Plan. Some $150 million of that will be set aside for the purchase of more water rights like those that came with ranches the agency has bought in White Pine County over the past year.

“Any opportunity to buy water rights, that’s what that money is for,” said water authority Deputy General Manager Dick Wimmer.

The budget for the next year also includes 20.5 new positions, nearly half of them dedicated to the water development projects across eastern Nevada. The current staff of the water authority includes 363 full-time employees and another 40 or so who divide their time between the authority and its largest member agency, the Las Vegas Valley Water District.

Wimmer called the additional staff included in next year’s budget “a pretty modest increase considering the challenges we’re facing in the coming year.”

The authority’s budget for the current fiscal year is $555.1 million. Last year’s spending plan totaled almost $643 million, and the year before it came in at about $478 million.