A joint powers agreement, integrating Reno, Sparks, Washoe County, the South Truckee Meadows General Improvement District, the Sun Valley General improvement district and the Truckee Meadows Water Authority, was approved by the state attorney general last week.
Also last week, Sparks was the last entity to approve the resolution, creating a new authority for water resources in the greater Reno/Sparks area.
“We were looking at creating a more total water management deal,” Lori Williams, General Manager for TMWA said. “What people will see is a more coordinated approach”
The Interim Western Regional Water Commission met Friday to determine its operating plans and procedures.
The new commission is responsible for the regional management and conservation of water and interprets that responsibility broadly.
Some of the preliminary work plan items include planning for conjunctive use by public water providers, a conservation plan that includes agreements between all water providers and developing an integrated water resources management plan for the North Valleys.
The official work plan will be approved in April.
According to the legislation that created it (SB 487), the commission is responsible for addressing the supply of municipal and industrial water, quality of water, sanitary sewerage, treatment of sewage, drainage of storm water and control of floods.
The bill also authorizes the commission’s board of trustees to plan a program for scheduling the delivery of water supplies held by certain water purveyors, develop a plan for the establishment of service territories by which those purveyors may provide new water service if each of the public purveyors agree to the plan, impose a fee for the planning and administration of certain activities and plan for water conservation by various means.
The commission will have between $1.2 and $1.5 million at its disposal. The money is not the result of a new fee to customers, but the accumulation of an existing 1.5 percent fee that has comes out of consumer’s current bills.
The tax brought $813,841 into the commission’s coffers between July 1, 2007 and Dec. 31, 2007. Staff projects that the revenues from the water surcharge will top $1.4 million by June 30, 2009.
Revenues from the tax have risen consistently since 2000.
After expenses, the commission projects that it will have a balance of $2.6 million cash on hand.
According to Williams, consumers will not see a difference in their bill because of the commission’s formation.
“This commission’s goal is simply to do a more efficient job of managing our water resources,” Williams said.
Williams explained that the programs and services that customers see now would remain the same, but those services would see more of a coordinated approach.
“New developers would see that coordinated approach,” Williams said. “Instead of one agency driving one boat and another agency driving another direction, we will all be in this together.”
Williams said she hopes that the average consumer will not see a lot of change.
“I guess the more efficiently we use our resources, the more we can leave in lakes and streams,” Williams said. “The effects (of the new commission) aren’t really tactile things that consumers can see.”
“The whole goal of the agreement was integrating for water efficiency,” said Wayne Sidel, Public Works Director for the city of Sparks. “We want to optimize, integrate and make the water run as far as we can.”
Seidel said that the agreement benefits Sparks through shared resources and opportunities to improve regional efficiencies.
Water projects that effect two jurisdictions will now have to pass through the commission for approval.
“You could realistically have every one of these entities help with one project now,” Seidel said.
The commission is slated to be official by April 1.
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