Minden board OKs water agreement

An agreement with Minden to provide water to three communities north of town goes before the Indian Hills General Improvement District board of trustees 6 p.m. Wednesday.

Indian Hills trustees meet at the district offices, 3394 James Lee Park Road. The district has been blending Minden water with its own to reduce its arsenic levels to below federal levels since 2011.

Minden Town Board members approved an agreement 4-1 on Tuesday to wholesale water to Douglas County, Carson City and Indian Hills.

Vice Chairman Matt Bernard was the sole vote against the agreement, according to Town Manager Jenifer Davison.

The agreement essentially writes off $2.3 million in infrastructure built by Minden to serve the three other entities.

Instead, the town will make up the expense by selling Douglas and Carson additional water rights.

Davidson said the town spent about $12.3 million to dig wells, install distribution lines, a water tank on Amber Way and pumping and telemetry controls for the town’s water system.

Most of that money was raised by selling water rights to Carson City in 2010.

“The difference of $2.3 million is the subject of negotiations now,” she said.

The Amber Way tank and the water line along Buckeye Road that connects it to Minden’s system were the first two capital improvements completed as part of the water system, Davidson said.

Construction of two more recent wells put the town over the $10 million it raised from Carson City by selling of 1,250 acre feet of water in 2010, Davidson said.

The city is paying the town $1.5 million to purchase an additional 187.5 acre feet of water. Douglas County is paying $800,000 for an additional 100 acre feet of water. Douglas County’s water utility serves Johnson Lane, Genoa, Sheridan in Carson Valley. It is not the largest water purveyor in the Valley.

An acre foot is the amount of water it takes to cover an acre to the depth of a foot. There are 325,851 gallons in an acre foot, which is generally considered by the federal government to be the amount of water a household uses in a year. In portions of the desert Southwest, where water limits are enforced, that amount is reduced to a quarter acre foot.