By Vernon Robison

Moapa Valley Progress

Jason Abbott of Sage Plumbing back fills a trench after installing the first sewer connection for an existing home into the new Moapa Valley sewer line. Photo by Vernon Robison.

The new Moapa Valley sewer pipeline received its first customer last week. Local residents Bill and Sallee McCrea, who live on Moapa Valley Blvd. near Bader Ave., were the owners of the first existing home to hook onto the new line which was completed earlier this year.

According to Jason Abbott owner of Sage Plumbing, the company contracted by the McCreas to do the work, the hookup will solve a real problem that is rather common in that neighborhood.

“This particular area has a very high water table,” Abbott said. “That can cause trouble with saturating the leachfield on the septic system making it so that the tank doesn’t drain properly. Hooking into the sewer fixes all that.”

Abbott ran a new sewer line from the McCrea’s home, 150 feet, to the sewer stub-out on Moapa Valley Blvd which is six feet deep. The total cost for the job was $7500 which included all materials, labor, excavation, permits and hook-up fees. Also included was the abandonment of the existing septic system and all the permitting involved with that. Abbott said that the price of such a job can vary based on the distance from the home to the hook-up as well as on any obstacles that may fall in the pipe’s path.

The hookup fees only for connecting an existing home to the new sewer line is currently set at $1,600. This fee was established by the Clark County Water Reclamation District (CCWRD) back in 2008 as part of its universal rate package.

The existing home hookup fee is currently much lower than that required of a new home being built. This is meant to encourage existing homes to hook in to the sewer earlier while the fee is low, CCWRD officials said.

For a new residence the hookup cost is set at $2,066. That new home hookup charge is scheduled to go up to $2,195 next summer. But there will be no increase to the existing home hookup fee yet at that time, officials said

Some in the community have expressed a concern that one or two residents hooking onto such a large system, wouldn’t provide enough flow for the sewer line to work properly. But CCWRD officials said that this is not the case.

“The system is now fully functional and able to accept hookups now,” said CCWRD spokesman Marty Flynn. “It was designed well above the minimum slope, meaning that flow, however small, should make it all the way to the lift station and cleanse any solids along the way.”

Flynn said that the district would monitor the line closely in the early years and flush the line on occasion as needed until there are enough hook-ups to increase the flow.

A bid was recently awarded to Las Vegas Paving for the next phase of the pipeline project. That phase, set to begin construction in the next few months, will take a line from the Yamashita Bridge running north on Yamashita Road, and hook into the Moapa Valley High School.

“The high school flow will significantly assist in cleansing the line and will reduce, or eliminate, the need to flush the line,” Flynn said.

Existing homeowners are not being required to hook into the new sewer line unless their septic system fails. But local plumber Bruce Whitney of Whitney Water said that there are clear advantages to homeowners hooking in early, advantages in addition to the lower hookup fees.

“Septic systems are going to fail,” Whitney said. “It is just a question of when. Hooking into the sewer system takes away the uncertainty. Also, once they are on the sewer, people don’t have to worry about their septic tanks filling up and needing to be pumped or problems with their leachfields and other issues.”