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Water treatment plant goes high-tech $200 million worth of upgrades improve capacity
Las Vegas Sun
Copyright 2004 Las Vegas Sun. All Rights Reserved.
Monday, May 24, 2004
By Stephen Curran
Las Vegas officials today celebrated $200 million in improvements to a public
utility many area residents prefer not to think about. City leaders, including
Mayor Pro Tem Gary Reese, were on hand this morning at the Las Vegas Water
Treatment Facility to tout its recent expansion, which includes new high-tech
processes to treat the more than 66 million gallons of sewage a day that come
through the plant.
The move is part of an agency effort to plan for growth throughout the city.
Planners estimate the expansion will help the plant keep pace with growth
through 2015, said David Mendenhall, environmental manager for the Las Vegas
Department of Public Works.
The project, part of an "almost constant" series of improvements to the plant,
was funded through sewer system user charges and connection fees, Debby
Ackerman, a spokeswoman for the department, said.
Mendenhall said, "Since 1989 we've pretty much always been under one form of
construction or another."
The most notable addition to the 160-acre plant is an expanded Biological
Nutrient Removal system, which uses biological instead of chemical methods to
treat the water, he said. The city, already under federal pressure to meet
stricter standards to remove nutrients from the water before it reaches Lake
Mead, had been using an ammonia-based process to filter toxins, Ackerman said.
The newer system, although more labor-intensive, cuts chemical costs, she said.
Scientists are also looking into future systems that could filter toxins from
prescription drugs in waste products, Mendenhall said, but added that such
advances are at least 10 years away, as researchers determine the impact of
such chemicals in the water supply.
"It's really a growing field of research," he said. "But they're nowhere near
having that. That (10 years) might be generous."
Las Vegas Public Works handles wastewater for Las Vegas and North Las Vegas.
Henderson has its own treatment facility, as does Clark County for the
unincorporated urban areas.
Handling about 110 million gallons a day, the Clark County treatment facility
is the largest in the state, takes effluent from unincorporated parts of the
county, including The Strip, Laughlin and Blue Diamond, said Marty Flynn,
spokesman for the Clark County Water Reclamation District.
That facility is also bracing for growth and is now accepting bids for two
large-scale projects that would increase that plant's capacity to 130 million
gallons a day, said Bill Shepherd, compliance and regulatory affairs
administrator for the reclamation district.
The expansion will help plan for growth anticipated in the unincorporated
county until 2030, Shepherd said.
"Obviously we try to stay ahead of the growth," said Shepherd, who estimated
that 7,500 people move into the Las Vegas Valley each month. "That (the growth)
is amazing to me."
The expanded Las Vegas plant can now treat up to 91 million gallons each day,
he said.
Other changes include a new centralized building, which houses a high-tech
control room for monitoring the facility and a westside satellite plant, he
said.
Las Vegas' Water Pollution Control Facility is slated to receive an award this
week from the Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies, the fifth straight
year the sewage treatment plant will be honored for its complete compliance
with environmental rules.