Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Still no penalties over stormwater runoff

CARSON CITY — A meeting was held between state and federal officials last week, but it’s still up in the air whether the Environmental Protection Agency will penalize Nevada for water pollution violations.

Suzanne Skadowski, a spokeswoman for the EPA, said “there was no enforcement action” taken at the Tuesday meeting that focused on stormwater runoff into the Truckee River in Sparks and the Clear Creek Watershed near Lake Tahoe.

The state Transportation Department was cited by the federal agency in 2011 for failing to take adequate steps to prevent stormwater runoff from its maintenance stations.

Another meeting will be held in January.

Gov. Brian Sandoval warned last week that the state could face “tens of millions of dollars in enforcement” penalties.

The Transportation Department has spent $1.5 million in improvements since the 2011 citations, but a recent inspection by the EPA found there were still violations.

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