Pahrump Water issues?

[olecapt]

Originally Posted by SharkyV12

The bowl idea reminds me of the aquifer we have on Oahu, as do many islands around the world. The fresh water floats on top of a salt water layer, in the "bowl". If you drawn down the fresh water faster than our local rainfall can recharge it, the fresh water becomes contaminated. If that continues to long, to much, it can take decades for the aquifer to become useable again.

I remain somewhat skeptical, but a news report I saw said the rain that falls TODAY will take 20 years to reach the aquifer. I wonder how long it takes in Nevada for the snow melt to make it to the "bowl"? What happens if the Nevada bowl is drawn down to low? Contamination of some kind?

It varies by aquifer. The reported flow time for a molecule of water to get from the mountains into the LV valley aquifer is tens of thousands of years. I would suspect Pahrump to be similar.

Most of the Aqufers simply drop. That can however causer surface problems in particular areas. The aquifers are segregated into layers by mother nature. If your aquifer drops too low you may need to drill to the next...which may be hundreds of feet deeper.

Most of the LV valley wells are reasonably deep and have litte trouble with contamination. Those that are not have problems with contaminants and flow.

[NVDave]

Originally Posted by SharkyV12

The bowl idea reminds me of the aquifer we have on Oahu, as do many islands around the world. The fresh water floats on top of a salt water layer, in the "bowl". If you drawn down the fresh water faster than our local rainfall can recharge it, the fresh water becomes contaminated. If that continues to long, to much, it can take decades for the aquifer to become useable again.

I remain somewhat skeptical, but a news report I saw said the rain that falls TODAY will take 20 years to reach the aquifer. I wonder how long it takes in Nevada for the snow melt to make it to the "bowl"? What happens if the Nevada bowl is drawn down to low? Contamination of some kind?

The time for water from the surface to join the water table depends on the transmissivity of the material between the surface and the water table. In some places in Nevada, the alluvium is mostly decayed rock, sand, silt, with very little clay. Formations like this can transmit water through a hundred feet relatively quickly - say a few years. Once you start putting clay in the way, things really slow down. There are formations in some valleys where they have "caliche" - a calcium carbonate formation that is nearly impenetrable to water. There are valleys in Nevada where there are "perched" water tables - the caliche might be only four to 20 feet below the surface and your surface water table is what you have on top of the caliche. I've seen ranches in central Nevada where they depend on this formation - they plant deep-rooted grasses and alfalfa on top of the perched water table and that's it. Just leave it. You graze it off and take what you get - which is, understand, much better than everything around the perched table.

Once you go deeper, the "contamination" isn't what most people would think of - ie, human-induced pollutants. But as you drill through different layers of water, you run into different mineralizations, and some of these mineralizations would cause water, should you have to comply with the EPA standards, to require post-extraction treatment. Arsenic, for example, is quite common in many intermountain water tables, and it can be high in some areas of a valley and low in other areas. In some cases, you'll be over a fault and you might have geothermal water, which will have very different characteristics than the surrounding areas' water.

And when you're at the base of a mountain that has pediments for the base, you can have somewhat ephemeral aquifers - ie, you're getting the snowmelt as directly as anyone can, filtered by the sand/rock on the way down the mountain. But once the snow is done melting, your water might just drop out the bottom of your local water table to much lower depths.

When you over-draw a Nevada aquifer, there are several things that happen in both your hydrology and the regulatory status of your basin.

First, if the water table drops and stays depressed, at some point the State Engineer's office issues a "designation" for the hydrographic basin. This means that no new non-domestic wells can be drilled; eg, if you want a municiple, industrial, stock or irrigation well, you're going to have to find someone with an existing perfected water right and buy them out.

The hydrographic basin in which Parump sits is designated. It is one of the few (but increasing) number of basins designated in Nevada.

In terms of Nevada hydrology, in over-allocated basins, you will of course see your water level drop and at some point you're looking at deepening your well or re-drilling it. In some cases, you'll find that you can't obtain more water by going merely a hundred feet deeper - you might have to go many hundreds of feet deeper.

Too many people move to the intermountain west from the east, thinking that water is a simple matter. After all, in most places east of the Mississippi, you dig or drill a hole 200' and you have water nearly 100% of the time.

In Nevada, you might have to go 300' in some valleys to perfect even a domestic water well that produces 5 GPM. Here in Wyoming, were we moved, the hydrology is vastly different than Nevada and it is entirely common to see domestic wells punched 800' deep for 2 GPM of water production, if that, and the surface water has to fight its way through hundreds of feet of clay, coalbeds, gas pockets, etc to join a potable water aquifer.

[LadmoFan]

Originally Posted by olecapt

The problem is your town water comes from a well. The water table thing is pretty well known.. hard to do anything about as there are permits galore around...date to when they grew cotton in Pahrump...the aquifer is likely oversubscribed 3X.

The disclosure is required by Nye County I believe and is a standard disclosure in all Pahrump transactions. So I suspect it represents reality.

If Pahrump gets a lot bigger it could turn into a real problem. If not you wait for 200 years and then do something...or shut her down.

We are thinking of escaping LOL California when hubby retires. Were looking at Arizona, where I was born, but are now thinking of Pahrump. I am concerned about the water situation. Is it required that real estate agents disclose the actual water problems for a house? Does the town engineer have any info about the water recharge rate? Can you put in the housing offer something about purchasing the property if the water checks out OK?

If the ground is collapsing because the water table is not being replenished that's not a good thing. I would love to know the recharge rate, etc. if possible.

thanks,

[scirocco22]

Originally Posted by LadmoFan

We are thinking of escaping LOL California when hubby retires. Were looking at Arizona, where I was born, but are now thinking of Pahrump. I am concerned about the water situation. Is it required that real estate agents disclose the actual water problems for a house? Does the town engineer have any info about the water recharge rate? Can you put in the housing offer something about purchasing the property if the water checks out OK?

If the ground is collapsing because the water table is not being replenished that's not a good thing. I would love to know the recharge rate, etc. if possible.

thanks,

This article will give you some insight on the recharge rate but it reiterates what others in this thread have already implied, it's not if but when Pahrump will run out of water:

DRI researcher wonders when Pahrump will run dry

[LadmoFan]

Thank you for your most excellent reply. I read the article and it looks like there is a current shortfall of 6,000 acre feet of water per year. Not good. Especially since it doesn't seem like there is a central water company, most homeowners are well dependent, meaning they will be responsible for re-drilling wells.

[tiger_6]

The area was formally used for cotton farming and water flowed freely, now the water table has dropped; someareas of Pahrump are now subject to subsidence, as is much of Southern Nevada. The realtors will plead ignorance, but that is why they are realtors. They will tell you what you want to hear, but due dillegence is the buyers responsibility.

[olecapt]

Originally Posted by tiger_6

The area was formally used for cotton farming and water flowed freely, now the water table has dropped; someareas of Pahrump are now subject to subsidence, as is much of Southern Nevada. The realtors will plead ignorance, but that is why they are realtors. They will tell you what you want to hear, but due dillegence is the buyers responsibility.

That is silly...everybody buying in Pahrump gets a mandatory disclosure that basically says Pahrump is running out of water.

You think RE Agents get to ignore a mandatory disclosure?

Subsidence exists in parts of southern Nevada generally dictated by the local geology. It is not terribly wide spread. New occurences are very rare at the moment mostly because much of southern Nevada including the Las Vegas Valley is not overpumping at this time.

[Clarks]

Olecapt, I owe you an apology I figured you were simply a Real Estate Agent (reminds me of Shakespeare's line from Richard III "First let's kill all the lawyers" since lawyers in those days handled real estate transaction, he really meant something a mite different) and as some guy named Haverman posted, "you are a nut" I figured that was sufficient to explain your character. I was wrong, my apologies. I see that you were an electrical engineer, which reminds me of another story, I met a woman once who divorced her husband while they were still in college, she said she did so because she was at a party with many of her husband's classmates, all engineering students, she had an epiphany, that she would have to shoot herself if she spent anymore time among the socially dysfunctional engineering students. So she divorced.

So again, my apologies, your character was predetermined, you are an engineer. I used to carry knockout drops, incase I was at a party and met an engineer, I would take the drops, pass out and avoid the dysfunctional monologue that was bound to come.