Plenty has been written -- and will continue to be -- on the apparent shenanigans and favoritism

surrounding the land deals that led to the Royal Links Golf Club being developed adjacent to the city sewage treatment plant in the eastern valley, and then to the current proposal that a deed restriction be lifted so housing can be built there.

The public is owed a thorough investigation of what went on. State Attorney General George Chanos' announcement last week that his office will probe the goings-on is a welcome one. We trust any wrongdoing will be exposed and punished.

But it's easy to get lost in the intricacies of how city officials apparently acted in ways that benefitted developer Bill Walters, and ignore a major point. In an action it has temporarily rescinded only in the face of public outcry, the Las Vegas City Council two weeks ago voted to OK the construction of homes next to a sewage treatment plant.

How can there be any justification for planning and zoning at all -- why should any resident put up with such inconvenience, with such an infringement on his or her property rights -- if the system isn't even effective in preventing top-dollar homes from being built adjacent to an existing sewage treatment plant?

It's like one of Gary Larson's old "Far Side" cartoons, captioned "Trouble brewing," in which the diapered inmates of Doreen's Day Care are seen crawling toward the single fence that separates them from the extremely attentive denizens of Ed's Dingo Farm.

It's all well and good to say "caveat emptor" -- that if no one wants such homes, the edifices will sit unsold, and that anyone who buys them and later complains should simply be told: "Tough luck."

But in today's real world, courts and city councils are likely to stand firm in such convictions about as long as it takes to plug in the TV lights.

No, whether by lawsuit or lobbying, the sequence of additional taxpayer expenses that are likely to flow from such a stupefyingly derelict decision are as predictable as the outcome of handing teenage boys a bottle of whisky and the car keys (apologies to P.J. O'Rourke).

First, in a land-hungry valley, the homes would be built. (What will the developers call their new neighborhood? "Polecat Acres"? "Septic Estates"?)

Next, they'll be purchased by buyers either oblivious or unable to resist a bargain price. Then, almost immediately, the whining will begin: "It's a matter of the health of our children; the government cannot fail to act!"

Millions will be spent in attempts to "remediate" the odor problem. When that fails, dozens of homes will be purchased -- at full market price -- by the taxpayers, and bulldozed. Finally, with face-saving explanations that the old plant was "out of date and too small anyway; we knew we'd have to do this pretty soon," the whole facility will be moved at enormous expense even further out into the wilderness, whereupon Mr. Walters or his heirs and successors will presumably approach the city or county with a plan to build ... a new golf course.

How on earth can city officials claim with a straight face "We have to enforce the codes; everyone has to be treated the same" ... and then OK the construction of new homes next to a sewage treatment plant?

Remember: If they can build homes next to a sewage plant, they can build a sewage plant next to your home.