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North Las Vegas, county move to resolve water treatment rift
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MIKE JOHNSON/LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
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LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Updated: May 6, 2011 | 7:16 a.m.
North Las Vegas and Clark County officials are making a final push to resolve their dispute over the city's new wastewater treatment plant before the city plunges into even deeper financial trouble.
North Las Vegas "literally has a financial gun at its head," former U.S. Sen. Richard Bryan, representing the city, told the County Commission on Tuesday. "I'm trying to avoid a train wreck here."
The entities also could wind up facing off in court.
At issue is the city's plan to flush treated sewage from the $240 million plant, which is mostly complete, into an open, county-owned flood control channel. Without the channel, wastewater from the facility essentially has no place to go.
The commission in March voted against allowing the city to use the Sloan Channel. Critics such as Commissioners Tom Collins and Chris Giunchigliani, whose districts include parts of the channel, have fought the city's plan to discharge about 25 million gallons of effluent a day into the channel, from where it would flow several miles into the Las Vegas Wash, then downstream to Lake Mead. Constituents walk and bike in the channel, they say, and the city was foolish to build the plant in the first place.
The facility originally was scheduled to open this month. Until it does, the city must pay Las Vegas roughly $15 million a year to continue treating its wastewater. Also, the city must pay the bond debt on the project, some $15 million in fiscal year 2012. The city, which is dealing with a $22.6 million shortfall, can't afford both bills.
"We're under the gun now," Mayor Shari Buck said.
Giunchigliani showed no signs of budging in her opposition.
"I don't think our constituents should be paying for North Las Vegas' inappropriate judgment," she said.
Other commissioners seemed more conciliatory, or at least opposed to dumping the matter on the courts.
"This may be the last chance to address it ... outside the courtroom," Commissioner Larry Brown said. "Can we save this before the courts are going to tell us what we can and cannot do?"
City defends plan to use channel
North Las Vegas decided to build its own plant in 2005 so it could control its own wastewater rates.
The city planned to discharge the effluent via an $860 million regional pipeline, but that project was put on hold because declining growth and advances in sewage treatment had reduced the need for it.
City officials have defended the plan to instead use Sloan Channel, saying treated wastewater will be cleaner than storm water and other runoff that already flows through it.
They also say releasing effluent into the channel is no different than sending it into the Las Vegas Wash, which the valley's other wastewater treatment facilities already do.
The city has agreed to pay the county $50,000 a year to maintain the channel.
City and county officials have squabbled over whether North Las Vegas has the right to discharge into Sloan Channel without the county's permission. The city has received authorization to discharge into the channel from the state's Division of Environmental Protection. But the division told the Review-Journal that its permission "doesn't supersede local authority" over use of the channel for discharge.
Collins recently floated the idea of asking the Clark County Water Reclamation District to build a pipeline -- at a cost of roughly $50 million -- to carry the treated effluent along the same route. That would save the county money in the long-term because "if development returns," the county wouldn't have to expand existing sewer lines into unincorporated areas of the county that are closer to the North Las Vegas plant, he said.
That idea didn't appear to gain much traction with other commissioners.
"I don't really want to spend water (reclamation) money and get paid back with credit or a gift certificate for water treatment," Commissioner Steve Sisolak said.
Commissioners also have expressed concerns that the city might try to take over treatment of sewage from Nellis Air Force Base, which would cost the county about $1.25 million a year in revenue.
The new plant is located outside North Las Vegas on land leased from the Air Force at Carey Avenue, south of the base. City officials have pledged they would not pursue the Nellis revenue at least until the county's contract with the base expires in about nine years.
Critics call NLV plan impractical
Critics have said it was impractical for North Las Vegas to build the plant in the first place. But city officials said they wanted the city to be able to set its own sewer rates, and they couldn't have foreseen the cancellation of the regional pipeline or the economy's impending nosedive.
"I think to cut your neighbors a little slack, 2005 was a very different environment economically," Bryan said. "North Las Vegas was facing one of the largest expansion rates in the country, as was Clark County."
City and county staffers will work together over the next several weeks to try to come up with a solution, and the matter should come back before the commission in June.
Whatever happens, Buck said she is confident the plant will be up and running shortly.
"I really hope it doesn't come to litigation," she said.
But if it does, Collins believes the county would prevail.
"Anybody can sue anybody for anything," he said. "North Las Vegas is not in a favorable position."
Contact reporter Lynnette Curtis at lcurtis@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0285.
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It's all about the money. NLV built their own plant because Las Vegas was gouging them on the treatment costs. Someone should ask many millions Las Vegas will be losing?
Treated effluent is cleaner than stormwater and the B.S. Collins is feeding everyone. What an embarassment both he and Shari Buck are to the community. Get out and take your dirty LDS politics with you.
Tom Collins is a bully. He was at the NLV city council meeting on 5/04/11 pressuring the Mayor and Council into accepting the IAFF contract. A contract that over 2 years gives back to the city $351,000, when NLV is 22.6 million dollars short this year and probably more next year. So Tom pushes the Puppet Buck and she pushes the council and the voter gets screwed again. Well at least one church group is happy right Tom and Sheri
Where is the Grey Water plan? Come on Juggle Head Officials, devert the treated water to parks, green belts .....
Create a new swamp, flood North-East las Vegas - no one will miss it!
Can't you be charged for trespassing if your in a flood control channel?? I see sign posted along other flood control channels stating such....
Ya, it's about the money. NLV wasted their residents' tax money and desperately need all of CC to help them out. Sorry. If I'm eating ramen noodles cause I'm broke and the neighbors finish their lobster and can't pay the tab they need to deal with it. This should not be allowed to cost CC anything other than attorney fees, and that should be ordered to be paid by NLV when this is resolved. Maybe NLV can make this an academic or museum project on what a water treatment facility could be rather than is. Sorry for the humor, but NLV kind of messed this up on their own.
As usual, the City of NLV is blowing a smoke screen. Everytime a member of the City opens it mouth, a lie comes out. NLV cannot be trusted...they build a plant with no way to dump, they keep paying the director while he was working in NC, and they keep trying to make their workers pay for their malfeasance. The City of NLV cannot be trusted to tell the truth and are trying to take money from the County, trying to hide the money they hoped to get from Nellis AFB. NLV cannot be trusted and be held accountable for their screwups.
25 Million gallons of water each day, in that channel, is A LOT of water. For a three month period in the early 2000's, during the "rainy season" I was hospitalized in LA and literally spent all day watching their local news. It seemed like every day, there were idiots in the storm channel, hiking, biking, riding motorcycles, driving cars, and falling in, let alone kids playing. And this was a storm channel which only flows in rainy weather. I am guessing I saw TV coverage of more than 1 storm channel drowning each month, let alone the rescue helicopter staff pulling idiots out of the storm channel every time it rained. The difference here is that 25 million gallons of water flowing in the channel flowing through each day, rain or shine, is going to be a huge liability risk for Clark County, as it will be repeatedly sued for not keeping the channel secure and for "negligently allowing" people to drown. And all North Las Vegas offers for the County taking the costs of securing the channel, and getting sued when people die, is to be $50,000 per year. Frankly, I don't care that it's 25,000 gallons of pristine clean water. The City Council and Mayors of North Las Vegas have been morons in building this sewage treatment plant without having their own, dedicated outflow line to the Las Vegas Wash. Storm drainage channels are not sewer outflow channels, and were never intended to be. I suggest that North Las Vegas take their 25,000 gallons of clean sewage water, inject it into the ground, and pump it back out again as drinking water. That's the sensible thing to do as the Colorado River drought continues. However, when you've got SNWA's Pat Mulroy wanting the 25,000 gallons per day, so her mathematical schemes balance, and the morons who have been running North Las Vegas for years pressuring the County Commissioners, it's going to take a whole lot of internal fortitude for the Commissioners to "just say No".
CNLV is still paying its "former" Utilities Director for advice on finishing this plant even though he now works for a South Carolina utility. What does he have to say?
The city of many smells. Pig farm if the wind blows one way, asphalt plant if the wind blows another, food processing if it blows another and the garbage dump if it blows the other. Now poopy water weaving everywhere no matter what way the wind blows. Nice!
I wish they would be honest and just come out and say it is about the county losing money. They lost the ability to claim it is about the public when they proposed that reclaimed water be used for parks. So, reclaimed water is safe enough for kids to play in at a park, but not safe enough to flow down a wash?
Just be honest for once and say "It's my wash and you can't use it!"