North Las Vegas files federal lawsuit in sewage battle

North Las Vegas is taking its sewer scuffle with Clark County from the outhouse to the courthouse.

The city filed a federal lawsuit late Thursday in the battle over its discharge of treated wastewater into a county-owned flood control channel. The lawsuit asks the court to rule North Las Vegas has the authority to discharge into the channel despite county objections.

After months of feuding with the county, the city early Thursday began discharging from its new $300 million wastewater treatment plant into the Sloan Channel. From there the wastewater flows several miles to the Las Vegas Wash, then downstream to Lake Mead.

When county officials promised to seek a court order to stop the city, North Las Vegas made its next move, said Richard Gordon, a lawyer for the city.

“When an injunction was threatened, we felt it was appropriate to ask the court to sort this out,” he said.

A federal court has jurisdiction because the dispute involves property rights on federal land, he said.

The wastewater plant is outside North Las Vegas on land leased from the U.S. Air Force at Carey Avenue, south of Nellis Air Force Base.

The county has contended the city can’t legally use the channel unless it gets county permission. But North Las Vegas officials maintain they always had the right to discharge there and simply tried to be good neighbors by seeking county approval.

The county has known about potential plans to use the channel for years, city officials said, and twice approved plans that included using it as an option. County officials, meanwhile, have said those approvals were for regional plans, and the city now must have the county’s specific OK to use the channel.

Some commissioners have voiced safety concerns because constituents walk and bike in the channel . They also cited a lack of cooperation from the city.

But city officials said the wastewater is safe to touch and treated to near-drinking-water standards before it enters the channel. They also said releasing it there is no different than sending it into the Las Vegas Wash, which the valley’s other wastewater treatment plants already do.

North Las Vegas officials decided to start the discharge after county commissioners voted Tuesday to again delay action on the matter, this time until July.

“We tried as hard as we could to work things out with the county, but we just ran out of time,” Mayor Shari Buck said.

The plant includes sensitive equipment that can deteriorate if left idle for too long, she said.

County officials knew that, she added.

County Commissioner Tom Collins said the whole situation disappointed him.

“We both represent the same people, and it seems like we could be working better together,” he said.

The plant was scheduled to open in May. The city has been paying Las Vegas roughly $30,000 a day to treat its wastewater. The city also must pay the bond debt on the plant of about $18 million a year including interest. North Las Vegas is dealing with a $30.3 million budget shortfall for 2012.

North Las Vegas officials decided to build the plant around 2004, so they could control their own wastewater rates.

The city had planned to discharge the effluent via an $860 million regional pipeline, but that project was put on hold because declining growth and advances in sewage treatment reduced the need for it.