SNWA employees Sharon Kennemer, left, and Greg Williamson, center, discuss with Moapa resident Bill Parson plans for a new access road off U.S. 168 to property in the Warm Springs area. Photo by Mike Donahue.

By Mike Donahue

Moapa Valley Progress

A contentious brouhaha between a Moapa couple, Bill and Linda Parson, and the Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) over a right-of-way on a private drive near the Parson’s home is apparently over – at least for now.

The dispute ended when the Parsons announced that by the end of June they will erect a fence to limit access on the drive in question, Sinclair Road at approximately 4185 Highway 168, and SNWA last Thursday revealed plans to finish an alternative access road “by the end of August or first of September,” according to Sharon Kennemer, SWNA senior right of way agent.

The disagreement started some three years ago after SNWA purchased approximately 1,200 acres in the Warm Springs area of Moapa, Bill Parson wrote in an announcement about his fencing project. Part of the purchase included a house and acreage abutting Parson’s property that had been owned by the Sinclair family.

Parson said in an interview with the Progress last week that SNWA immediately began using a private drive on his property as an access to the Sinclair property.

“At that time they (SNWA) erroneously assumed that the private drive, commonly known in the area as Sinclair Road, was a legal right of way,” Parson said. “They refused to stop using the road and about 2 years ago actually told me to not only give them a right of way but to file the appropriate paperwork and pay for it myself.”

Parson strenuously objected refusing to give SNWA a right of way and demanding the company and its contractors stop using the road for commercial traffic.

Although much of the private drive that runs between Parson’s and his neighbor, Linda Brown, is on his property, Parson said SNWA authority dispatched surveyors in an attempt to show that Brown actually owned a major portion of the road. She had previously given permission to use the access.

“When I asked them what they were doing, a company representative said the neighbor had asked SNWA to do the survey,” Parson said. “But when I said, ‘Well I’ve got some land up north I’d like to have surveyed,’ she (the company representative) said we don’t do survey’s for private individuals. First they do, then they don’t.”

In any event, the road was determined to be primarily on Parson’s property and SNWA in April 2011 told the Moapa Town Advisory Board it planned to construct a private access road on a different right of way owned by Clark County. That easement was the actual site for a county road, Layman Road. The road existed and had been used to access the Sinclair property for years until it was washed out a few years ago.

Unfortunately, SNWA apparently couldn’t begin construction because the easement was county-owned property.

“No one knew, or at least no one at SNWA would or could say when the schedule for this construction was going to take place and we were kept completely in the dark about everything,” Parson said. “And all the while they were continuing to use Sinclair Road.”

Last week, the Parsons announced in a letter sent to a host of people and agencies that they intended to fence the road and block all access to the Sinclair property, because “SNWA has no schedule for their (sic) alternative road, and no set completion date, rather a general intention to eventually complete the design, review, approval, contracting and construction.”

Agencies that were sent the letter that was received by the Progress via email on June 6 included SNWA, the Clark County Commission, Moapa Town Advisory Board, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Geological Survey, Metro Police and others.

In a chance meeting with Kennemer and Greg Williamson, SNWA civil engineer, last Thursday as Parson was escorting the Progress on a tour of his property, he finally learned the planned SNWA construction schedule.

“We just got notification last Thursday or Friday (June 2-3) that Clark County has vacated Layman Road,” Kennemer said. “Now that the county has given up ownership to the right of way, we will start construction. We anticipate finishing the new private road by the end of August or first of September.”

While it was welcome news, Parson vowed to diligently review any construction plans and how the road might possibly affect his property including the potential for the same flooding that washed the original road out in the first place.