MVWD Approves Changes To Water Resource Policy

By VERNON ROBISON

The Progress

The Moapa Valley Water District (MVWD) Board of Directors has approved a policy revision clarifying the district’s limited obligation to those who are subdividing lots without immediate plans to provide water to those lots. The new language states clearly that, even if a customer makes a payment in lieu of water rights to subdivide a lot, the district is not bound to provide water to the lot until a meter for the lot is purchased.

In a board meeting held on Thursday, June 9, MVWD General Manager Joe Davis explained that he had seen a need to update the language in the district policy pertaining to Payment in Lieu of Water Rights.

Davis reviewed that the MVWD Water Rights Dedication Ordinance had gone into effect in 2005. This ordinance committed the district to provide water to all lots existing at that time. But to subdivide a parcel into any new lots, land owners and developers would have to dedicate adequate water resources to the district needed to service the new lots.

To assist in minor subdivision projects, the MVWD board also passed the Payment in Lieu of Water Rights policy. This allowed a finite amount of water, about 600 acre feet from the district’s Logandale Well on Wells Ave., to be offered on a limited basis for small developers. Customers wishing to subdivide parcels could pay a fee in lieu of dedicating water resources. Thus they would use a portion of the Wells Ave. resource.

In recent years, however, water resources have become tighter. With regional litigation currently underway over the limited resources in the Lower White River Flow System, from which the district draws much of its water, it has become uncertain just how much water the MVWD will have at its disposal in the longer-term. So Davis said it was time to tighten down some of the language in this policy.

“We are getting a lot of subdivision maps that come in lately,” Davis told the board. “They are making the Payment in Lieu of Water Rights, subdividing their lots and then not purchasing meters. That leads to a situation where they might come in 20 years from now looking for a meter and it is possible that we might not have resources anymore.”

Davis said that the new language makes it clear that until these customers actually purchase a meter, there is no guarantee that there will be water held in reserve for the lot.
“We are signing their parcel map so they can subdivide, but until they purchase a meter, there is not a will-serve; no guarantee,” Davis said.

Board members were in general agreement with this measure. But the item did bring more in-depth discussion about whether this language would ultimately solve the problem.

Board chairman Randy Tobler felt that the board should possibly considering a requirement to purchase the meter at the time of the Payment in Lieu of Water Rights.
“We have seen how it is,” Tobler said. “Customers do this and then come in 10 years down the road and they don’t remember that document right there. They will just say it is unfair. That happens all the time. Wouldn’t it be cleaner to have them just buy the meter right then?”

“In a perfect world, you would have them purchase a meter at the same time,” Davis agreed. “The issue is that then they have the monthly base fee to pay for infrastructure that is associated with it. And if they are trying to subdivide for something in the distant future, they would end up having to pay that fee every month for the next 10 or 15 years, or whatever it is.”

Board member Kelby Robison said that requiring customers to buy meters at the time of subdivision, before they have any intention of building on the lot, starts to look a lot like the old discontinued practice of banking meters. This was a practice that caused the district troubles in the past.

Davis said that the problem was really symptomatic of a much bigger issue that will have to be dealt with in the future. That issue is that the district has a limited resource.

“The fact is, we have a finite amount of water that is available to this community,” Davis said. “There is a lot of dispute just how much that is. But eventually there is going to be a day of reckoning where we will not be able to serve every single parcel that comes along out there. The reason I brought this up is that here we are signing something – I am putting my name to it – and ten years from now we might not be able to issue a meter on it. This language is just to put everyone on notice of that.”

Davis admitted that the proposed language was not the final solution. But it was meant as a “happy medium” to be in place until legal action regarding the LWRFS was heard and decided and the district is more certain of what water resources it has to deal with, Davis said.

In the end, Board member Ryan Wheeler made a motion to approve the proposed changes to the Payment in Lieu of Water Rights policy. The motion was adopted with a unanimous vote of the board.