Officials seek cure for Fremont stench

Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2004 | 9:34 a.m.

For 10 years, tourists, locals and business operators downtown have periodically endured an offensive odor emitting from storm drains along Fremont Street.

The Las Vegas Public Works Department has been frustrated trying to clean up the sewer-like stench with periodic washings and flushings of the underground pipes and the applications of sweet industrial fragrances.

The Las Vegas City Council is set to vote Wednesday on a contract with Brown and Caldwell Environmental Engineers and Consultants of Las Vegas, which proposes to use a closed-circuit TV camera on wheels to traverse about 11,500 linear feet of 18-inch to 42-inch wide pipes to try to pinpoint the source of the chronic aroma.

The job, which is limited to finding the origin and providing the city with options of how to eliminate the pungent fume, will cost taxpayers $96,731.

"We decided about three months ago that we needed to take some serious action on this," Las Vegas City Engineer Charlie Kajkowski said. "Enough is enough. It's time to find the cause and stop treating the symptoms."

Although the smell is most noticeable from Las Vegas Boulevard to Third Street, a broader zone of the drainpipes bounded by Main Street, Bridger Avenue, Las Vegas Boulevard and Stewart Avenue will be searched, Kajkowski said.

The search is widespread because "the pipes underground connect for several blocks and the odor travels up the pipes and comes out where it (the storm drain) comes up," Kajkowski said.

The original stench now is partially masked by the industrial fragrances that city workers have long used to quell its potency, Kajkowski said.

"We also have done cleaning and flushing of the system with deodorizing chemicals, but it has remained a persistent propblem," Kajkowski said. "The cost has been mostly in a lot of man hours."

The city chose Brown and Caldwell because it has the sophisticated television equipment needed for such a search and because the firm specializes in renovating sewers and storm drains, Kajkowski said.

Kajkowski said the odor has been a persistent and unpredictable problem, getting stronger at times and fading out at other times. The smell occurs year-round and the heat of summer, cold of winter and other weather factors do not seem to play a role in strengthening or weakening the stink.

The proposed contract with Brown and Caldwell is on the council's consent agenda -- a large group of items considered routine and passed by a single vote with no discussion unless a council member brings it forward for discussion.

The contract reads in part that "the goal of the assessment is to identify the source(s) of an ongoing odor condition that may be emanating from the storm drains. The assessment will identify structural and operation features of the pipelines that may be the sources of the odor conditions."

The small, closed-circuit camera would search more that 8,500 linear feet of main line storm drainpipes and nearly 3,000 feet of lateral storm drainpipes to the drain inlets, the contract says.

If the contract is approved, a final report on the source of the odor would be due Feb. 1, according to a proposed timetable accompanying the agreement.