Crews working to kill odor on Strip

Molly Ball

Friday, June 11, 2004 | 10:55 a.m.

County sanitation officials were working to get rid of a smelly situation Thursday on the Strip, as an expensive, behind-schedule sewer repair project neared completion behind Treasure Island.

Repairs on a collapsed sewer pipeline at Spring Mountain Road and Industrial Road, near the Treasure Island and Mirage parking lots and the Fashion Show mall, have in recent days emitted a noticeable sewage odor, causing some Strip pedestrians to hold their noses.

"Oh sure, I smell it," Robert Brown, a tourist from North Attleborough, Mass., said on Thursday afternoon as he crossed Las Vegas Boulevard in front of Treasure Island. "But when you're just passing by it's not too bad."

County officials said the February pipeline collapse that prompted the emergency repairs is the largest the county has seen and will cost more than $1 million to fix.

"We are in the final stages of getting a new manhole put into the line," Marty Flynn, spokesman for the Clark County Water Reclamation District, said on Thursday. "Once that is in place we will have the odor issue resolved, hopefully by Friday (today)."

County officials were alerted to the odor by a complaint from Treasure Island last weekend, Flynn said. MGM MIRAGE spokeswoman Yvette Monet confirmed this. "The problem was a little bit worse over the weekend," she said.

On Thursday, the stench could be smelled at the intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard and Spring Mountain Road but not on the Treasure Island property.

A worker at the site, who asked not to be named, said heat and wind intensified and spread the smell.

The 30-to-36-inch-diameter pipeline, which handles at least part of the sewage from Caesars Palace and the Mirage, collapsed unexpectedly on Feb. 24 and the repair was declared an emergency so that work could be begin right away.

Flynn said there was no spilling or seeping of sewage into groundwater.

"We monitor that extremely closely," he said. The problem pipe had never been inspected with an in-sewer camera, but was in an area that the county was concerned about, Flynn said.

"We've never had any (collapse) on this scale before," Flynn said. "We hope our inspection schedule catches these things before something like this happens."

The pipe was about 27 years old and made of unlined concrete, a material that is no longer used because of its tendency to deteriorate.

Originally, officials thought the repair would be quick and painless, Flynn said.

"The repair definitely took longer than was initially intended, because once the contractor started looking at the pipe, the condition of the pipe and where the pipe ran, it became very complicated," he said.

In particular, the pipe could not be cleanly excavated for inspection because it is surrounded by the foundations of the Spring Mountain Road overpass. Flynn said the contractor, Las Vegas Paving, finally had to hire workers with mining experience to break up and remove the deteriorated pipes.

The repair is to be done in two weeks, Flynn said. After that, traffic will be restored to normal. On Thursday, traffic was limited to one lane in each direction on Spring Mountain Road, which becomes Sands Avenue as it crosses Las Vegas Boulevard.