County, North Las Vegas closing in on channel deal

Clark County and North Las Vegas may be closing in on a deal that could settle several long-festering disputes, including the use of a county storm channel by the city's new sewage treatment plant.

County Commissioner Larry Brown on Tuesday said recent talks have resulted in a tentative agreement that is being passed back and forth for review by the two jurisdictions.

Brown said the draft deal covers the city's release of treated wastewater into the county-owned Sloan Channel, the development of a county park at Nellis Dunes and annexation of vacant land along Interstate 15.

He said the soonest some sort of agreement might be ready to present to the commission and the North Las Vegas City Council is late next month, and even that is optimistic.

But both Brown and North Las Vegas City Councilman Robert Eliason said real progress has been made since negotiations resumed in December.

"I'd like to see it resolved as quickly as possible," Brown said. "I think we've got the legal folks comfortable with it. Now we have to get the electeds comfortable."

By most accounts, that has been the problem all along.

Both Brown and Eliason blamed politics and a lack of trust for allowing the fight to linger as long as it has.

City and county officials wrangled for months over use of the Sloan Channel, which provides the only outlet for North Las Vegas' $300 million wastewater treatment facility. The fight came to a head in June, when the city started discharging treated wastewater without the county's permission.

That triggered a flurry of lawsuits.

The dispute continues to delay the final dissolution of the Clean Water Coalition, a regional agency originally formed to build an $800 million pipeline to carry the valley's treated wastewater to Lake Mead.

The coalition was gutted and the proposed pipeline officially scrapped in September, but the shell of the agency lives on because disbanding it requires a unanimous vote that North Las Vegas has yet to allow.

The coalition board met Tuesday to adopt a tentative budget for the coming fiscal year, which starts July 1.

If the county and the city can't settle their differences in time, the coalition is slated to spend about $175,000 on essentially "nothing" next year, Brown said.

Chip Maxfield, former full-time general manager of the coalition, said the single largest line item in next year's budget is roughly $30,000 to audit the agency's books. The rest of the money would go to legal and administrative fees, including the $150 an hour Maxfield said he is paid for the roughly six hours of coalition-related work he still does each month.

Coalition board members plan to take another stab at dissolving what is left of the agency when they meet again in late May to adopt their final budget.

Brown said under the current version of the proposed deal between the city and the county, North Las Vegas would pay for or take over maintenance of the Sloan Channel and assume liability for any damage the flow of wastewater might cause.

According to Brown, the draft deal also would do the following:

■ Divvy up several hundred acres of vacant industrial property along I-15 to settle a dispute over annexation between the two jurisdictions.

■ Guarantee that the county would continue to provide sewer service to, and collect roughly $1 million a year from, Nellis Air Force base for at least the next decade.

■ Help clear the way for the Nellis Dunes area at the northeastern edge of the valley to be designated as a county park.

If the agreement wins approval, Brown said it could help reduce redundancy and increase cooperation between the city and the county, especially when it comes to wastewater infrastructure.

Two of the key players in the fight, Commissioner Tom Collins and North Las Vegas Mayor Shari Buck, both acknowledged Tuesday that some progress has been made. But they also expressed skepticism and fatigue.

"Everybody's making their best effort, and I'd say it's certainly closer now than it was six weeks or two months ago," Collins said.

If some sort of deal isn't reached soon, Buck warned, the city is prepared to take its chances in court.

"Unfortunately, things keep getting added in -- things we're just not going to do," she said.

Contact reporter Henry Brean at hbrean@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0350.