Sewage spill prompts warning to visitors to Desert Breeze Park

Tuesday, July 6, 2004 | 8:54 a.m.

Clark County officials warned anyone who visited Desert Breeze Park for July Fourth festivities that they may need to scrub themselves and their clothes after raw sewage spilled into the parking lot.

"It happened kind of late," Clark County spokesman Erik Pappa said of the sewage that bubbled up from a manhole after an estimated 20,000 people attended a picnic and fireworks show on Sunday.

A three-person crew from the Clark County Water Reclamation District spent from 11 p.m. Sunday until 3 a.m. Monday unclogging a sewer pipe, district spokesman Marty Flynn said.

Much of the debris in the pipe appeared to be rocks, but Flynn said he did not know how they got into the pipeline.

The sewage streamed out of the park onto Spring Mountain Road.

"It looked just like runoff, a small stream going down the curb," Flynn said.

"People were walking right through it," he said.

Once the line was cleared of debris, the Reclamation District disinfected the pipeline and the stream of sewage.

Reclamation officials do not believe the sewage contaminated the Las Vegas Wash or its tributaries, Flynn said.

"It was not enough to carry very far," he said.

However, reclamation and Regional Flood Control District representatives planned to meet today to trace where the sewage might have gone, Flynn said.

Anyone who might have come in contact with the sewage flow in the parking lot should scrub themselves with soap and water and wash their clothes with detergent, Flynn said.

Anyone who walked through the sewage stream should disinfect their shoes. Chlorine bleach works wells as a disinfectant, Flynn said.