Nevada is well known for its water wars over the past two centuries, but Douglas commissioners dreamed up an entirely unique version.
Commissioners occasionally demonstrate a gift for obfuscation (fancy word for "pulling the wool over our eyes").
It doesn't seem to make a difference who sits in commission chairs. One former expert at that was a county commissioner for 12 years and several times chairman, and presently wants to take those characteristics to the state assembly. All of which bears upon what I'm about to criticize. Some think I'm too harsh and cynical seeing a conspiracy behind every government bush. So I looked up "conspiracy" in a Webster dictionary, defined as "a plan or agreement formulated especially in secret, by two or more persons to commit an unlawful, harmful, or treacherous act."
How does that apply to water? I hear you ask. Well, the county operates eight separate unconnected water systems. For comparison let it be known that other water users in Minden and Gardnerville enjoy water rates under $30 a month.
The biggest county-owned systems are in Carson Valley serving some 2,000 homes and businesses paying slightly over $50 monthly which adequately covers debt service for the infrastructure pipes, wells, and equipment, as well as reserves for future maintenance. They will soon also have to absorb modest increases to meet lower arsenic standards.
On the other hand, about 1,000 county water customers around high-maintenance Cave Rock and Zephyr Cove have been grossly under-charged for years. They were blessed with millions in state grants to help defray their infrastructure costs, but have ridiculously high infrastructure costs per household, and failed to build up reserves to pay for future maintenance.
Now the future has arrived, and darned if commissioners don't want to help those poor folks at the Lake make up the shortfall of prior years and pay for renovating their systems in future as well. Who will pay? Ah, there's where Webster comes in.
To subsidize the high-cost systems, commissioners are considering consolidation of all eight unconnected systems into one administrative system, doubling the rates of Valley water users and saving up to $250 a month for each high-cost Lake customer.
Sound sensible? Or "harmful," even "treacherous," in Webster's words. When someone is harmed, someone else usually gains. If not explained to the loser's satisfaction, does that not fit the definition of "conspiracy"?
Former county government unquestionably under-charged high-cost customers and under-provided for future costs. Who done it? And why? Probably a permanent mystery. What is absolutely clear is that folks having the power of wealth received unjustifiable concessions. Conspiracy might be too kind a word.
In June three or more "conservative" Republican commissioners will decide whether to continue crass favoritism of the past and implement a socialist philosophy that every user should pay the same for water regardless of the cost of delivery, letting lake customers permanently off the hook. I'll stick with Webster. Until a commissioner offers some logic.
Jack Van Dien is a Gardnerville resident.
