Water called safe following 8 million-gallon sewage spill

Federal and state environmental protection agencies are investigating a spill of up to 8 million gallons of untreated sewage into Lake Mead from a North Las Vegas lift station after a power failure last week.

Scientists have been testing the drinking water three times a day since Friday but have not detected any bacteria counts that threaten public health, Southern Nevada Water Authority microbiologist Peggy Roefer said.

"We're getting Colorado River water right now. It's very good quality water," Roefer said, noting that the sewage is settling at a level of about 30 feet from the surface and the drinking-water intake is at about 100 feet.

Roefer said the water authority will continue to test drinking-water supplies three times a day for the next two weeks.

It was the sixth sewage spill in Southern Nevada since July when severe storms caused treatment plants and other facilities to fail and dump contaminated water into Southern Nevada's drinking-water supply.

Last week, the raw sewage flowed into the Las Vegas Wash from Pecos Road and Owens Avenue. The wash empties into Lake Mead six miles upstream from Southern Nevada's drinking-water intake pipes at Saddle Island.

North Las Vegas Public Works Director Gary Holler disputed the amount of spilled sewage, claiming it could have been as little as 95,000 gallons.

North Las Vegas sends between 40 million and 50 million gallons per day of waste water to the city of Las Vegas treatment plant. City workers check the lift station twice a day, but no one knew the electricity was out. Sewage was diverted to an alternate pipeline late Wednesday.

NLV crews also disinfected the spill, Holler said.

"We're going to make sure this can't happen again," Holler said Monday. The lift station is temporary until next summer. NLV plans to spend $10 million to replace it, he said.

Until then, the city is hiring an alarm company to help it heed any power outages on the dedicated electrical line. No one knows how long the power was out last week, Holler said.

The Nevada Division of Environmental Protection will file a violation notice against the city of North Las Vegas for dumping the sewage, James Williams said. "The problem went on for several days," he said. Penalties could reach $25,000 per day per violation.

Dick Serdoz of the NDEP's Las Vegas office said state officials were still investigating the size of the spill. The Las Vegas office was not notified of the spill until Friday, he said. By then, the lift station was back in operation.

A second sewage spill near the Stadium Mobile Home Park on Russell Road dumped up to 2,000 gallons of sewage into the wash, Serdoz said. Flooding collapsed a cinder block wall at the park, and some of the blocks fell and fractured a pipe maintained by Clark County.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency in San Francisco is tracking the sewage spill and actions taken by the state, said Daniel Meer, EPA Clean Water Act enforcement officer.

"If we feel further action is necessary, we will step in," Meer said Monday.

While any efficient treatment system for waste water can occasionally spill sewage, the North Las Vegas spill is a large one, Meer said.

The EPA cracked down on the way the Hawaiian island of Maui handled its sewage. After hundreds of small spills, the EPA ordered a long-term solution to Maui's sewage spills and better treatment technology, said David Schmidt, EPA spokesman in San Francisco.

The Lake Mead Water Quality Forum, a group of federal, state and local water officials, is working on a plan to notify downstream users of Lake Mead water when a sewage spill occurs. More than 1 million residents and 30 million visitors a year to the Las Vegas Valley drink, swim, boat, fish and scuba-dive in Lake Mead.

A Nevada Division of Wildlife biologist said no fish kills were reported after the sewage spill.

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