Developer told to halt drainage of foul water

Thursday, Sept. 3, 1998 | 10:46 a.m.

Palm City, under development by Rhodes Homes, will have to stop running contaminated ground water off its 530-acre development, says a Henderson official.

State and local environmental officials investigated the property at the edge of the Las Vegas Wash which leads to Southern Nevada's drinking water supply last week to find out if ground water carrying pesticides, herbicides and traces of radiation had reached the wash.

Nevada Division of Environmental Protection officials examined the site last week and found no evidence that the contaminated groundwater threatened the drinking water supply in Lake Mead.

The Las Vegas Wash contributes about 1 percent of the waters contained in Lake Mead, so the low levels of pesticides, herbicides and radioactivity in the ground water are unlikely to pose a threat to the local drinking water collected six miles downstream, state enforcement Officer Jim Williams said. The state did not require Rhodes to get a discharge permit at this time, he said.

The ground water surfaced where Rhodes is trying to construct a golf course in an old gravel pit. The water disappears underground east of the property.

But Curt Chandler, Henderson's flood control manager, said Rhodes will have to keep the contaminated ground water on its own property. "I don't know how they are going to do it," he said.

Rhodes plans to contain the water as part of its flood control project.

Paul Kenner, Rhodes' director of land development, said the company was building a drain under the 18-hole golf course to keep the contaminated water underground.

Federal Bureau of Reclamation officials also checked on the progress of the development last week. Bureau spokesman Bob Walsh said Rhodes had not bulldozed its property, but had placed a water line across federal land without obtaining an access permit.

"It was an honest mistake," Walsh said.

The developer is responsible for returning to the land to its original state. If Rhodes fails to restore the property, the bureau will charge the developer for the restoration.

Essentially the bureau's land has a pipeline passing over the surface, so the developer will have to smooth the surface and replace any vegetation removed, Walsh said.

Kenner said Rhodes would apply to the Bureau of Reclamation for an access permit to its land. The pipe delivers 275 acre feet of water a year from the Las Vegas Wash to the construction site where 5,000 residents will live some day.