Who Should Pay The Rural Sewer Bill?
Published Mar. 12, 2008
Last week the inevitable occurred. Members of the area’s environmentalist movement began pumping irrational and illogical dialogue into what had been a perfectly rational and logical discussion regarding the needed updates of aging rural sewer systems in Clark County.
The County is currently considering a modest increase in sewer rates across all ratepayers of the Clark County Water Reclamation District. This increase would help pay for needed replacements to deteriorating rural systems, like the one here in Overton. It is estimated that about $114 million is needed over the next five years to build treatment plants in the rural areas of the county. With the current rate structure, that would send the annual rates of an Overton household from $91.32 to $400. But under the universal rates being proposed, these rural improvements could be easily funded with no more than a $4 or $5 increase across all county ratepayers. The effect is much less significant because there is a much larger population over which the costs can be spread.
Well, that certainly sounds sensible enough. But what was the reaction to all of this common sense from the ‘enviros’? They are concerned that the sewer improvements will just spur on more growth in rural areas at the expense of city dwellers. In a March 5 article printed in the Las Vegas Sun, Launce Rake of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada was quoted as saying, “My concern is that the greatest factor affecting surface or ground water quality is population increase, and that effectively the existing residents of the urban area will be subsidizing continued explosive growth.”
Well, in reference to growth, it’s hard not to agree that Southern Nevada was a much more pleasant place when Las Vegas was a town of only 200,000 people compared to its current 2 million. But who of those 2 million are we going to send home, now? And just how shall we close the gates to future growth?
We also might point out that the ‘explosive growth’ which Rake refers to, at least as it has applied to the Moapa Valley and other rural areas, has consisted mainly of those ‘existing urban residents’ who have decided to moved out of town seeking a more rural way of life.
More to the point, Rake might do well to go back to Economics 101. It is not the building of infrastructure that causes growth, it is high demand in the free market. That kind of demand cannot be regulated by a denial of public services. This would be disastrous. If the high demand is there, growth would occur anyway; only in a chaotic and haphazard fashion. In addition, Moapa Valley residents have learned that the building of infrastructure is not a leading indicator but, rather, a trailer to growth; usually an all-too-distant trailer. For proof of this we point to our perpetual Moapa Valley Flood Control project, our two lane highway which provides the only access in and out of the community, our overtaxed volunteer fire departments and, yes, the old Overton sewer ponds. None of these things have provided adequately for even the past ten years of growth, much less what may be coming down the pike.
In the end, growth in the region is inevitable. But it’s not necessarily a negative inevitability. Commissioner Bruce Woodbury is fond of saying that growth, in and of itself, is neither good nor bad; it is how well one plans for growth that defines its quality. Indeed, growth can be a positive thing. It has, in fact, brought much that is good and prosperous to the region. This has, in turn, reached out and benefited nearly everyone; including, we might venture to say, those environmental advocates who are so opposed to it. Finally the most outrageous inconsistency in the environmentalist complaint against the new sewer rate structure (and we are amazed that we are the ones to bring it up) is the simple matter of what is best for the environment. Setting all of the above growth arguments aside, the fact remains that, most of the rural sewer systems in the county were built in the 1960s or 70s. As such, they are seriously outdated. The ponds in Overton, for example, are in dire condition. Dangerous contaminants are being absorbed into the ground water causing potentially serious health hazards and damage to the environment. Usually, such a case would be a rallying point for the environmental movement. They would rise up, get involved and solve the problem no matter what it cost. So where are they?
Federal and state environmental regulations have given a mandate that these aging facilities be replaced. The problem is that it is an unfunded mandate. Someone has to pay for it and pay dearly. The extreme cost of the new system would be excessive and unfair for the people of Overton, many of whom have lived here for generations, to bear alone. They now need a portion of the benefits that growth brings, and has brought, to help bear that cost. And they should have it.
In the end, the environmentalists can’t have it both ways. After all, you don’t get something for nothing. There is always a cost. Having clean water and a healthy environment in Southern Nevada entails a staggering price tag. Past, present and future growth can, and should, step up to help pay the bill.
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