City Council defies SNWA

In what came as a bit of a surprise to some observers, the city council voted unanimously this week to move forward with a turf reduction program at the Municipal Golf Course that will see the facility use about 20% more water than allowed under their own ordinance passed in 2022.

In their vote, the council opted, instead of actually getting below the mandated water budget, to just pay the fine.

Council member Steve Walton — who is also Boulder City’s rep to the SNWA board — said, “We’re looking at maybe, roughly 110 acre/feet overage from the four acre/feet in the water budget. In the ordinance, there is a fine structure.” After noting that the city would be basically fining itself (the city-owned utility would be fining the city-owned golf course), Walton got to the nut of it all.

“So let’s talk about, if there is an overage over the four acre/feet water budget, how we anticipate covering the fine and what those monies would be used for.”

The intention is to charge golfers a little more per round, $1.53 per round to be exact.

Public Works Director Gary Poindexter said, “That money would be used for other water conservation programs.”

An existing plan that would have removed 39 acres of turf in non-playable areas of the course and that would have gotten the course’s water use under the level set by the Southern Nevada Water Authority and adopted by ordinance by the city council in March of 2022, set off impassioned and loud protests by residents whose homes back up against the course.

After a meeting in July where that plan was presented and a group of about 80 residents tore into the plan and called for the city to make no changes to the course, city staff came back with a new plan. This new plan would mean that only 12 acres of turf would be removed and almost all of that would come from creating a 10-foot wide turf-free buffer zone between the course and the back walls of the homes around the course.

The way water usage for a large facility like a golf course is figured is in a measurement called an acre/foot. This is the amount of water that would be used to cover one acre of land in one foot of water. It’s about 326,000 gallons.

Due to the current drought conditions that have already seen Nevada lose part of its paltry share of Colorado River water (Nevada gets about 1/100th of what California gets and gets far less than any other state using the river), SNWA took some drastic steps regarding golf courses.

First, they outlawed the development of any new courses in Southern Nevada. And then they took an axe to the amount of water existing courses can use.

The original water budget asked courses to keep their water usage at a level less than six acre/feet per year, per irrigated acre. Then, in 2021 as the drought got worse, they slashed that to four acre/feet of water per year per irrigated acre.

To bring all of that back to Boulder City, the municipal course has been using about seven acre/feet per year per irrigated acre. It is far and away the most water-hungry course in the greater Las Vegas area.

Much of that is due to an old, leaky and inefficient irrigation system. The city is using one-time funding from the federal government under the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) to replace that system, which will result in some water savings.

But not close to enough to get under the SNWA water budget.

For reference, the Municipal Golf Course is 133 acres. At almost seven acre/feet per irrigated acre, the course is currently using about 830 acre/feet per year. Replacing the irrigation system is expected to take that total down to about 706 acre/feet per year. But the the SNWA budget, at just four acre/feet per irrigated acre per year would cap the allowable usage at 532 acre/feet per year.

The plan presented in July that inspired the outrage of residents would have gotten the course down to about 499 acre/feet per year, which is under the SNWA cap.

Walton said, “The water budget was approved in 2022, by ordinance, by Boulder City. So this is not SNWA exclusively. This water budget now resides, by ordinance, for Boulder City as adopted by the city council.”

The council voted to adopt the water budget in March of 2022.

Strangely, there was almost no discussion of water conservation other than a passing reference by Councilmember Sherri Jorgensen.

“Thank you for the work that has been done on this,” she said. “Thank you for listening to the residents who live there. I believe we do need to be responsible for the resources that we do have. That is clear. And one of those is water in the desert. And there’s many different ways to be responsible.”

But one of those ways is not to remove turf if it is going to impact the view, in Jorgensen’s words, “outside your back door.”

Poindexter laid out the timeline.

“We’re seeking approval tonight so we can get started on design,” he said. “We’re looking at design completion in February. In March going out to bid (for the actual construction), which would include site visits, we’re looking at four to six weeks. Sometime in April we would be coming back with the completed bid for council approval and then the end of May or June, starting construction.

Poindexter noted that if work does not begin by June, it would have to be put off until January of 2026 in order to not interfere with special events scheduling. He reported that nine holes will be left open as the work continues.