Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Fatal accident closes water line

A fatal accident that occurred while contractors were installing water-flow measurement devices Wednesday shut down a major water line serving Henderson overnight.

About 1 p.m. Wednesday worker Luigi Conti, 56, of Switzerland was killed at the site, according to city officials and the Clark County coroner's office. Authorities this morning would not say how Conti died.

A 2-inch gash to the water line was repaired by 3:30 this morning, and city officials said about four hours later residents were allowed to resume their regular water use.

State and water authority officials refused comment on the type of accident and barred reporters and photographers from the scene, at the River Mountains Water Treatment Plant in Henderson. The plant is at 1350 Richard Bunker Ave., northeast of Boulder Highway and Racetrack Road.

Henderson Police referred questions to the Nevada Occupational Safety and Health Enforcement Section, the state affiliate of the federal Occupational Health and Safety Administration. An investigator from the agency was on the scene Wednesday and this morning.

"We just opened an investigation," said Tom Czehowski, OSHES chief administrative officer. "We're barred from making any comments on an open investigation."

Investigations on workplace fatalities commonly take weeks or months to complete.

Southern Nevada Water Authority spokesman Vince Alberta said the accident occurred while workers were installing a "hot tap" flow-measurement device on the line. A hot tap is when the installation occurs on a line that is in service, with hundreds of pounds of water pressure in the pipe.

He said the contractor is Rittmeyer Ltd., a Swiss company specializing in water flow and control systems.

The water line, 108 inches in diameter, is buried and stretches for 27 miles. The 3-year-old line, called the "South Valley lateral," delivers 150 million gallons a day to Henderson water users.

Kurt Segler, Henderson Utility Services director, said the lateral is a key water line that serves 60 percent of the city's developed area in the southwest. It runs from the River Mountains Water Treatment Plant along Horizon Ridge Parkway.

They began calling for voluntary conservation measures for about half the city of Henderson late Wednesday afternoon.

"We have declared the emergency over," Sherri Collier, senior analyst for the Henderson Utilities Department, said this morning. "We are back to normal conservation status."

That means people still have to follow the new water-use restrictions, including day-of-week and time-of-day restrictions for lawn irrigation, Collier said.

Segler said 35,000 to 40,000 users were affected by the accident. Casinos, golf courses and other heavy water users were immediately contacted and asked to cut back on irrigation. He said the big users readily complied.

This is not the first time OSHES inspectors have looked at water-related accidents in Henderson. The agency investigated a September 1999 trench collapse on a treatment plant under construction by the city.

Ken Egbert, 36, was killed when the walls of a 20-foot-deep, 25-foot-wide trench collapsed as workers laid pipeline in an $8 million treatment plant expansion.

The project general contractor, Utah-based Ellsworth-Peck Construction Co., had been cited for failure to comply with national OSHA standards numerous times for work at construction sites in Nevada, Utah, Colorado and Wyoming. The company ultimately was fined $23,000 for the accident.

Alberta said the water authority's safety record has been good, with no workplace fatalities until now.

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