From News Carson City:

Carson City water rates may have to go up enough to pay a $31 million bill to make city water more reliable, drinkable and able to keep up with expected build-out over the next 20 years.

Consultant Ira Rackley, a long time veteran of Northern Nevada water issues, told the City Supervisors today that Carson City’s ground water and river and stream supplies are barely keeping up with demand, especially during the summers. He said although the city technically has enough water, consumption is likely to outstrip demand in some instances when equipment fails or we get into a deep drought. Throw in climate change and you get quite a wild card, according to Rackley.

Rackley says his predictions won’t come true for another five years or so, but it’s time the city begin thinking about making system upgrades that overcomes the town’s biggest water supply problem. Arsenic and uranium in the water. He says filtering those naturally occurring chemicals out is very, very expensive. But if we lower the levels of those two elements through blending good water with not so good water, we can accomplish the same thing.