Major sewer rehab begins

Tuesday, March 8, 2005 | 8:47 a.m.

Contractors for Clark County's sewer agency are beginning what officials are calling the largest pipeline rehabilitation effort in the agency's history this week.

The work will start with pipelines on West Desert Inn Road, from Wynn to Industrial roads. Marty Flynn, with the community services office of the Clark County Water Reclamation District, said the effort is part of a larger project to rehabilitate 11 miles of pipeline in the district's service area, which includes most of urban unincorporated Clark County.

He said the project is the largest rehabilitation effort in the district's history, and will continue in future years until 50 miles of sewer pipeline are checked and repaired.

Throughout the summer, work is scheduled to take place along major east-west roadways, mostly east of the Las Vegas Strip, on Sahara Avenue, Flamingo Road and Tropicana Avenue.

Officials said that because most of the work will take place underground with access through manholes along Desert Inn and other roads, traffic disruptions should be minimal.

However, if severely damaged sections of pipeline are identified, excavation and replacement could be necessary and would mean tearing up the street.

To complete the rehabilitation, sewer lines are video-inspected and cleaned, and then a composite liner is fed into the line from an access point. Once in place, the liner is treated, and workers cut access ports for lines into the main line.

Throughout the procedure, bypass pumps will ensure there is no interruption to sewer service for customers along the construction route, according to the agency.

Although the work starting this week has been planned for several years, Flynn said a sewer line collapse on Las Vegas Boulevard near Treasure Island, which blocked traffic for days in late February 2004, is an example of what can happen if the pipelines are not maintained.

"It's reflective of what happens if you don't rehabilitate lines in time," he said.

Flynn said the 11-mile job should be complete in September and would cost $13.2 million, paid for through connection fees and regular sewer charges. The three main contractors on the project are Las Vegas Paving, Florida-based Poly-Triplex Technologies and Missouri-based Insituform.