New water treatment facility will help, but it's still years away - Las Vegas Optic

New water treatment facility will help, but it’s still years away | Community | lasvegasoptic.com

This photo, taken on June 21, shows the Gallinas River flowing very high under the Bridge leading onto Bridge Street in Las Vegas.

Aging infrastructure and inefficient equipment helped contribute to Las Vegas’ latest water crisis, and unfortunately the permanent solution is still several years away from being completely functional.

In its emergency meeting last Sunday, City of Las Vegas officials established that its current water treatment plant is only equipped to treat water at a turbidity level up to 20 Nephelometric Turbidity Units (NTU). Following the flooding last Friday, the water in the reservoirs that feeds into the city’s water treatment plant was measured at more than 200 NTU, rendering the reservoirs useless until the water settles and drops to its normal NTU rating.

Issues related to turbidity at this scale did not exist until the aftermath of the 2022 Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire. When the city’s water treatment facility was constructed in the 1970s, it was designed to handle typical turbidity levels in rivers. The amount of turbidity skyrocketed in the summer of 2022 and forced the city to take action to handle its new reality.

According to estimates given following the 2022 fires, experts indicated the city could be dealing with fire debris and increased turbidity for more than a decade.

By the end of 2022, it had secured $140 million from the federal government to plan, design and construct a new water treatment facility designed to handle the type of turbidity and debris it now faces. However, a project of that magnitude takes a significant amount of time. Initially, it was quoted at 4-5 years. However, in a 2023 interview with Source New Mexico, now-former utilities director Maria Gilvarry said the realistic timeline was 5-7 years for the new system to be fully operational.

“There’s a long process in making sure that what is right for the city of Las Vegas is the right system,” Gilvarry said at the time. “This is not going to be a rushed decision.”

As of now, the plan is still on track, and money is being provided as promised by the federal government. But it is still at least four years away from completion, forcing the city to explore temporary solutions for the time being.

Although the fire forced the city to take immediate action, the underlying causes of a water crisis like this stems from New Mexico’s lack of water options, something that John Rhoderick, director of the water protection division at the New Mexico Environment Department, highlighted in a 2023 interview with Source New Mexico.

He said Las Vegas, like many other New Mexico communities, needs to find alternate sources of water and not just rely on groundwater, which can be unpredictable, as this latest crisis proves.

“This is a crucial component for every community when it comes to resiliency — to not have just one single source of water,” he said. “And many, many of our communities are relying exclusively on ground water.”

Alternate solutions have been discussed, but have not led to any definitive plans. More than 78 percent of New Mexico relies solely on ground water, putting the entire state at risk of running into a water shortage similar to the one Las Vegas currently faces.

Source New Mexico contributed to this report.