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Welcome to The Executive Exchange, a premier podcast series for on-the-go senior executives. Each episode features short, impactful podcasts where industry leaders share key insights and experiences from the water industry.
[00:00:00] Piers Clark: Welcome to the Exec Exchange 15 minute podcast in which a leader from the water sector shares a story to inspire, educate and inform other water sector leaders from across the globe. My name is Piers Clark and today my guest is Doa Ross, Deputy GM for Engineering at not one but two utilities, Las Vegas Valley Water and Southern Nevada Water Authority. And we're going to learn more about why there are two utilities there as part of this podcast, in particular looking at how do you run a water utility when you are living in a part of the world that is absolutely parched for water.
Doa, thank you very much for joining us.
Doa Ross: Thank you very much for having me, Piers.
Piers Clark: Now, we always start with, uh, trying to understand a little bit more about the background of our podcaster. So tell me about your journey. How did you get to where you are today?
[00:00:54] Doa Ross: Well, I have always been interested in math and science, and in particular, I realized I kind of had a soft spot for trying to save the world. I can't save it all as one individual, but I did realize quickly that if I enter into the world of civil engineering, I could make a pretty good start and especially when it comes to water. I grew up in Los Angeles, but I moved to Las Vegas my senior year of high school and Las Vegas has become the home for me, but, as you mentioned, it is an extremely parched community. So civil engineering, specifically in the water sector, is where I wanted to focus. And there is no other place I would want to work than the Southern Nevada Water Authority Las Vegas Valley Water District. The mission here is amazing. It is about truly delivering safe, reliable drinking water to this entire parched desert area and to continue with economic development. So it's been an amazing journey. I've moved my way up through the organization doing a little bit of engineering design, development review, infrastructure management, and then eventually into executive management.
[00:02:07] Piers Clark: So when did you join, when did you join Southern Nevada Water?
[00:02:11] Doa Ross: In 2000. So I've been here now 24 years.
[00:02:15] Piers Clark: Just for those people who don't know high school is 17 18 when you said you came to Las Vegas in high school.
[00:02:21] Doa Ross: That's correct. That's correct.
[00:02:23] Piers Clark: Wonderful. All right. Let's talk about why are there two utilities? Why have you got two names?
[00:02:28] Doa Ross: So first and foremost, the Southern Nevada Water Authority is really the regional authority for all of the water resources in Southern Nevada, and they're responsible for infrastructure, resource planning, environmental sustainability, uh, all sorts of stuff. Conservation is what we're most known for, and it's one regional voice on the river for all the water. That speaks for all of Southern Nevada and Southern Nevada Water Authority treats the drinking water. It's all they do is drinking water. They treat the drinking water to deliver it to the different retail entities that ultimately serve the 2. 3 million residents that live in Southern Nevada. Plus the 40 million or so visitors that like to call Las Vegas home for at least one weekend a year. From those retail customers, um, there are City of North Las Vegas, City of Henderson, Las Vegas Valley Water District, City of Boulder City, even providing water to Nellis Air Force Base. Las Vegas Valley Water District is the largest of the retail customers and that is who we are. We serve 70 percent of that 2. 3 million residents.
[00:03:39] Piers Clark: Excellent. So, Southern Nevada Water Authority is the bulk water provider and, uh, Las Vegas Valley Water is, is the ultimate retailer. And you just do water supply or do you do wastewater as well?
[00:03:53] Doa Ross: That's correct. Just drinking water.
[00:03:55] Piers Clark: Now, the one thing that anyone who's ever visited Las Vegas will remember is you fly in and you cross over Lake Mead and you can look down and you can see, you can see the Hoover Dam. Let's talk about the Hoover Dam and the importance of that particular asset to your day to day life.
[00:04:14] Doa Ross: Sure. Well, Las Vegas actually was originally founded because we had water coming up out of the ground. It was sort of that stop on the old Spanish trail, Lewis and Clark. It was, it was a great spot between California, Utah, Arizona that had water in the ground so people would stop and drink it. As Las Vegas started developing, they pumped a lot of that water out of the ground.
That resource is very limited. So, ultimately, we had to turn towards the Colorado River. The construction of Hoover Dam created the Lake Mead, which is the largest man made reservoir in the United States. And Lake Mead is where we obtain our source of water. 90 percent of our water now comes from Lake Mead, which is Colorado River water. Hoover Dam's critical though, because Hoover Dam is that last major dam. Lake Mead's the last major reservoir. To begin delivering water downstream to California, Arizona, and ultimately ending in the country of Mexico.
[00:05:17] Piers Clark: Yeah, so, something goes wrong with that asset it's not just Nevada that's suffering it's many millions of people, not just inside the United States, but, but beyond. And, of course, you've experienced over the last 15 years climate change and the increase in droughts has gone through the roof. I think I heard somewhere you'd had a nine year drought which feels to me like nine years of drought isn't a drought nine years is a new norm, isn't it?
[00:05:44] Doa Ross: Yeah, it's actually we're now in our 22nd year of the drought. As a matter of fact, uh, 2002 was the driest year on record for the Colorado River, and it's not just us here in southern Nevada. It's all seven states within the Colorado River Basin. Just the Colorado River is not getting the amount of water it historically has when you look back way long time ago, 50, 60, 75 years ago , what we've seen over the last 22 years between climate change , and unfortunately, just the hydrology is we are receiving less water, and we're finding that conservation is more important than ever, because this is not just a supply management problem, it's a use and operational and demand management solution more than anything.
[00:06:33] Piers Clark: So let's talk about how you actually deal with that then. So let's start with what's happened at the Hoover Dam and the draw off points and what you've had to do there, because that's about managing the resources in the Colorado River. So let's start by talking about that one and then we'll come to the conservation efforts.
[00:06:49] Doa Ross: Absolutely, as I mentioned, back in the 60s that the U. S. government built the first intake for Southern Nevada to be able to receive water from Lake Mead into Las Vegas. Well, that elevation, we knew that we were going to be bumping that elevation eventually with climate change. So in the 90s, Southern Nevada Water Authority built another intake, a second intake, at a lower elevation and figured that would be able to help us come along. At the turn of the century, though...
[00:07:20] Piers Clark: And can I just, just to make sure that the people listening follow this, what we're talking about is the wall, the inside wall of the dam. You have an intake and an off.
[00:07:31] Doa Ross: No, no, no, no. Actually, this is separately. So this is within the lake, which is basically formed by the dam. So we haven't touched the structure of the dam, but I'm getting to the point where you're trying to get to. So we have intake number one, intake number two built in the 90s. At the turn of the century, as I mentioned, when we saw the driest year on record, we modeled what would happen with climate change and the ultimate elevation of the lake as we would see it. There's a problem that happens if elevation of the lake gets to 895 feet above sea level, that is actually a point where physically water can no longer go through Hoover Dam. It's what's called dead pool. So you think of the drain in your bathtub, you know, if there's a spot That's it. If water can't get through the dam. So nobody is going to reconstruct the dam or try and drill into it. It's truly one of the largest pieces of infrastructure this country owns. But if we hit what's called dead pool, then California, Arizona and Mexico no longer have access to water at all from the Colorado River because it just won't be heading their way.
So what we did was we decided if Lake Mead ever hit dead pool, we need to make sure that we have access below dead pool. So, in 2005 we modeled it , we did construction of the third intake.
And that elevation sits about 20 feet below dead pool. What that did to us in Southern Nevada, is it made us the strongest with access to water on the Colorado River.
[00:09:14] Piers Clark: But how does that stop? Doesn't that stop the water flowing downstream?
[00:09:18] Doa Ross: It doesn't stop it . Well, the dam would stop. If water elevation hit dead pool, the dam stops water from going downstream, but we can still grab it because our intake is lower than that.
[00:09:28] Piers Clark: I see. I see what you mean. You're the strongest and that you can still keep Las Vegas going.
[00:09:33] Doa Ross: Infrastructure solved that problem for us.
[00:09:38] Piers Clark: So, when are you modeling that that's going to happen?
[00:09:42] Doa Ross: Well, fortunately, with communications and collaborations with the other states, the goal for everyone is to leave elevation in Lake Mead much higher. So, the good thing is we have that infrastructure should we need it. Fortunately, through a lot of conservation efforts with everybody in the river, we are not going to be seeing that anytime soon. It is a promise between all the states that we're just not going to get there.
[00:10:08] Piers Clark: Excellent. So let's talk about some of the other things that are going on .
So I get the critical asset that you've got and how you've modified it, not once, not twice, not three times, but four times over its its last 60, 70 years. Let's touch on, some of the other things that are going on that enable you to have that confidence that you might not ever need to go to dead pool.
[00:10:31] Doa Ross: Well, one thing that's really important for us is that we actually have a great partnership with our wastewater treatment facilities. So all the water used indoors, think of all those hotel rooms, houses, schools, businesses. Any water used indoors is captured by the wastewater treatment collection system. It goes to those treatment plants. They have advanced treatment to treat it to near drinking water standards. It returns to our river called the Las Vegas Wash wetlands, ends back out in Lake Mead, and we essentially are recycling our water. It's indirect potable reuse.
[00:11:05] Piers Clark: Indirect potable reuse. That's the, that's the phrase I was, I knew you were heading towards. Yes. And public perception of this, how much do the residents of Las Vegas sort of own this problem?
[00:11:20] Doa Ross: They really do. Everybody understands we're all in it together. So our goal, our messaging for conservation is to save the water that's used outdoors. Preserve that, conserve that, because it's lost for good. So the residents do everything. They're volunteering to take out their grass. They're using only car washes that recycle the water. They're doing everything they can. The people here really have embraced it and have rallied around us, and we've saved so much water because of their efforts.
[00:11:52] Piers Clark: We've got to get to the stage where, certainly in places like Las Vegas, you become a bit of a social pariah if you're seen, if you're seen abusing water, it's something that your neighbors will, will shun you for.
[00:12:05] Doa Ross: We quite literally have an app for people to report other people so they can get investigated.
[00:12:11] Piers Clark: Doa, thank you for that. As you probably know, we always finish with a question about what advice would you give your younger self? If you could go back 20 years, what advice would you give yourself?
[00:12:25] Doa Ross: You know, this is interesting because I just had this conversation with my daughter, who's a senior in high school right now, she's 17 , and she was doing an assignment that says, tell us the 50 pieces of best advice you've received in your lifetime so far. I said, you're not old enough to receive 50, 50 pieces of advice, but she's been collecting a pretty good piece. She asked me the same question and I told her actually when I was her age, working in an office just as a student doing office work, the office manager lady that was there told me if I could give you one piece of advice as a young woman. It's get your career first and then build your family second because you can always fall back on your career should you decide to step away from it to take care of a family. It's harder to build a career after the fact at a much later age and I took that to heart. And I went straight into college, went straight into building my career, got that all situated before getting married and having a family. And it really is the best advice that was given to me. It goes straight to my heart. And to this day, I thank her. Anytime I see her son, she's already passed away, that lady, but I see her son and I tell him all the time because of his mother, I've made choices in my life to set myself up for success.
[00:13:40] Piers Clark: Well, it's spectacular for you to share that. Thank you.
You have been listening to the Exec Exchange with Piers Clark. Today I've been talking to Doa Ross, the Deputy General Manager of Engineering at Las Vegas Valley Water and Southern Nevada Water Authority. Please join us next time. Thank you.
[00:14:00] Doa Ross: Thank you.