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<br />Las Vegas Area Taps Lake Mead to Satisfy A Growing Thirst (4/24/2000) <br /> <br />Page 3 of7 <br /> <br />II <br /> <br />000783 <br /> <br />remains when passing across the pre-existing intake. Other officials believe <br />that some gets sucked in. "I don't think anybody knows for sure. I think it's <br />safe to say that it may," says Douglas W. Karafa, a Clark County Sanitation <br />District civil engineer. <br /> <br />Search This Site <br /> <br />L <br /> <br />III <br /> <br />A cryptosporidiosis outbreak in 1993-94 terrorized local aids sufferers and <br />others with weakened immune systems, killing 41. The federal Centers for <br />Disease Control and Prevention suspected the lake intake but never <br />pinpointed the path of the fecal-borne protozoa nor found any deficiencies in <br />SNW A's pre-existing lakeside treatment plant. "Presently, there are no known <br />adverse impacts to the drinking water supply that is taken from Saddle <br />Island," emphasizes Kim Zikmund, an agency project manager. Just 400 ft <br />from the pre-existing 600-mgd intake, SNW A built a second 600-mgd intake <br />that Mulroy dedicated to public acclaim in January. <br /> <br />"NO-SERVE" From the intake's concept to completion took just seven <br />years, and 10 years from Mulroy's 1990 decision to stall new construction <br />around Las Vegas. Shortly after she received a 1989 promotion to become <br />general manager of the Las Vegas Valley Water District-the first woman to <br />head a major municipal water agency in the West-Mulroy stopped issuing <br />"will-serve letters," commitments of water needed by developers seeking <br />building permits. Expecting to run short of water by 2005, she continued the <br />no-serve moratorium for one year while consultants evaluated local water <br />needs and supply. In 1991, Mulroy corralled seven feuding water and <br />wastewater agencies to pool water rights and create the Southern Nevada <br />Water Authority, which the Las Vegas Valley Water District began running <br />in 1993. <br /> <br />"We went from a blank sheet of paper in 1993 to $1.3 billion finished or <br />under construction in 1998," says second-in-command David A. Donnelly, <br />the water district's and SNW A's deputy general manager, citing a figure that <br />includes soft costs. With $860 million in construction work awarded since <br />1995, the authority figures on letting a total of$1.4 billion worth by 2017. <br />For now, its current bid plans extend only through 2004 for an estimated $221 <br />million worth. <br /> <br />For all the largess so far, open-shop contractors remain riled by Mulroy's <br />approval of a union-preferential project labor agreement in 1996, after a 1995 <br />labor strike at a reservoir excavation. The Associated Builders and <br />Contractors sued SNW A, then lost last year in Nevada Supreme Court (ENR <br />6/21/99 p. 10). Though forced to use union crews, open-shop bidders <br />obtained 38% of the dollar volume of all the construction contracts to date, <br />say SNW A officials. <br /> <br />SNW A's largest contract-the largest public-works contract ever in <br />Nevada-was awarded in 1998 to Lake Mead Constructors, a joint venture of <br />two regional subsidiaries of Omaha-based Peter Kiewit Sons' Inc. Including <br />the record-size $ 147-million contract to build the River Mountains plant and <br />its $31-million change order, Kiewit holds nine contracts totalling $427 <br />million. <br /> <br />So far, change orders add up to just 6% of the system-wide construction <br />volume of $860 million, according to SNW A And thanks to savings from <br />unexpectedly low bids and negotiations of design fees and change orders, <br />SNWA expects to spend $134.5 million less than the $2.2 billion once <br /> <br />http://www.enr.comlnew/c42400.asp <br /> <br />05/15/2000 <br />