County Commission delays North Las Vegas sewage vote

North Las Vegas will have to wait a couple more weeks to find out whether it can flush.

On Tuesday, the Clark County Commission delayed a vote to allow North Las Vegas to discharge treated sewage from its new $240 million wastewater treatment facility into an open, county-owned flood control channel. The plant is supposed to open in May.

Commissioners continued the matter to March 15 so more residents who live near the channel can be notified about the city's plan to discharge about 25 million gallons of effluent a day from the new plant into the Sloan Channel, where it would flow several miles into the Las Vegas Wash, then downstream to Lake Mead.

Postcards about the matter will be sent to residents, Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani said.

She and Commissioner Tom Collins, whose districts include parts of the channel, have fought the city's plan to discharge there, saying constituents walk and bike in the channel and that the city should not have built the plant in the first place.

"This has been controversial since Day One," Giunchigliani said Tuesday. "It was ridiculous they built this" plant.

North Las Vegas, which now contracts with Las Vegas and the county for wastewater services, decided to build its own plant about seven years ago so it could control its own sewer rates.

Without the channel, wastewater from the plant -- located outside the city on land leased from the U.S. Air Force at Carey Avenue, south of Nellis Air Force Base -- would have no place to go. The city had planned to discharge its 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.

Now, "we're stuck with this animal that's already been created," Collins said.

North Las Vegas officials have defended their plan to use the Sloan Channel, saying the treated wastewater will be cleaner than storm water and other runoff that already flows through the channel.

The city also must work out an agreement with the county concerning the channel's long-term maintenance. The city plans to pay the county $50,000 annually for that maintenance.