Columnist Ken McCall: Troubled water pipeline project finally nears end

Ken McCall

Friday, Feb. 7, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

THE NEXT TIME you think your street has been torn up too long, consider the plight of the poor folks on Valley View Boulevard.

The people who live and work between Oakey Boulevard and Alta Drive can't remember driving the area without dodging heavy equipment, concrete barriers and impatient, merging drivers.

I know. I'm one of them. From the second floor of the SUN office you get a great view of the Las Vegas Valley Water District's struggle to get the West Valley Lateral water line into the uncooperative ground.

It's even worse near Oakey where a crane has been parked next to a steel-lined trench has been open for what seems like an eternity.

Actually, though, work started on this ill-starred phase of the water pipeline project a mere 11 months ago. And while the project was supposed to be done before the beginning of the year, says spokesman Bobby Shelton, the district's contract with Tab Construction actually runs until May 2.

"He's really not late," Shelton says. "It's just that he's been in that one area for what seems like forever."

While much of the rest of the work is ahead of schedule, Shelton says laying the 2,200 feet of 60-inch pipeline between Oakey and Charleston "has really caused us a problem."

The difficulty: geology from hell.

First, Shelton says, the contractors hit more and harder caliche mineral formations than expected. Then, even worse, they hit a combination of very soft soil and a lot more groundwater than expected.

Every time the contractors dug a trench it would cave in, he says. The project had to be redesigned. It got so they had to dig a short section, then hurry in and put in steel walls to prevent cave-ins, then lay the pipe. Then start the process over.

Besides that, Shelton says, "if something could go wrong, it did."

"It's been a very frustrating project from the beginning."

District spokeswoman Stephanie Stallworth says the project provided a bit of levity at the last Southern Nevada Water Authority board meeting. After an update by Doug Selby, the authority's director of engineering, Las Vegas City Councilman Arnie Adamsen joked, "Please, you guys, if you're going to put in pipe, make it very, very big pipe so we won't have to dig up Valley View again."

To which Selby replied: "Don't worry Mr. Adamsen, there is no more room to lay any more pipe under Valley View.

"It has been what we call just a very, very haunted project."

The good news? The haunting -- and the heavy equipment -- should be gone by the first week of March.

* Politics is never easy -- even on the smallest retail scale.

Just ask Gloria Gonzalez of Justice for Home and Condo Owners. Only six meetings into the new group's life, it already has a competitor.

Kate Davis, originally listed on the group's letterhead as legislative coordinator, has now decided to form another group -- Home Owners United for Equality.

Davis, who was trounced last fall by David Goldwater in the Democratic Assembly District primary and who has a 3-year-old lawsuit against the association in her condominium complex, says she and several others have formed a nonprofit corporation that will be an advocate for homeowners.

Why split into factions already?

"There were many of us," Davis says, choosing her words carefully, "who have a different strategy for trying to get legislation passed for homeowners rights."

Nevertheless, Gonzalez and company are forging ahead. They are coordinating with state Sen. Mike Schneider on proposed bills and planning to travel to Carson City in April to testify at legislative hearings.

"We've accomplished a lot for six short meetings," Gonzalez says.

The next step, she says, is to try to get an "audience" with Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa. Everyone, including the attorney general, claims they can't help with homeowners association complaints because it's not in their jurisdiction, Gonzalez says.

"There's no one to turn to," Gonzalez says. "That's one of the bills we want -- some kind of agency."

Their next meeting is set for Feb. 26.