By CHRISTOPHER KING
Moapa Valley Progress
Residents of Moapa awoke to the sounds of multiple semi trucks rolling down Henrie Road on Monday, June 4. At the time, no one was quite sure of what they were doing. But it turned out that the trucks were filled with pig manure. And it was all being dumped on a piece of property at the end of Henrie Road, near the Meadow Valley Wash.
The property is owned by Roke LLC, a Utah-based company involved in clean up of the former R.C. Farms site in Las Vegas. The large pig farm which had operated in the Las Vegas valley for decades, was recently sold to developers Century Communities, Pulte Homes and Beazer Homes. Seeking to build new homes on the site, the owners had contracted a cleanup of the old farm area.
For some reason, Moapa was about to be the recipient of all of the waste material from the site. No one from Roke LLC was available for comment on the subject.
Berdette Clark, a resident near Henrie Road said that there were almost thirty semi truck loads of manure dumped in the spot. Mounds of manure were left on the property which also had trash and other rubbish intermixed with it.
“We live in a rural area so we are used to manure,” said Clark. “But it is just rude and disgusting to haul over 30 semi truck loads to our neighborhood and dump it especially with all that trash mixed in it. Moapa is not their personal dump.”
Finally, concerned citizens contacted the Southern Nevada Health District (SNHD) to file a complaint about the action. According to SNHD officials, a notice of violation was issued to Roke, LLC.
Moapa residents said that the SNHD staff moved very swiftly with an investigation. The same day that the complaint was filed supervisors began investigating the matter.
SNHD issued Roke LLC a formal Cease and Desist order. The company is being required to pay to have the manure cleaned up from the Moapa site and a fine was assessed.
SNHD officials said that there were specific concerns about dumping this material in such close proximity to the Meadow Valley Wash. They were concerned that the hazardous substances could leak into the water table in that area causing contamination of water resources in the area.
4 thoughts on “Illegal Dumping Causes Stir Among Moapa Residents”
This is a false miss leading story we were simply bringing manure to reclaim Farmland and some of the manure had a little bit of paper and plastic which we picked out and removed and there’s no problems. Before any manure was brought there the plan from the beginning was to flatten the manure and remove any paper or plastic. Too bad someone is miss leading the community as there never ANY Intention to bring trash to Moapa!
Roke, LLC has nothing whatsoever to do with the clean up of the pig farm.
I have seen the cleanup operations at RC Farms and can tell you everything is cleaned/screened before it is taken offsite. Whatever property owner is receiving this organic soil should be paying for it. Now plants will be able to grow in this dessert location.
I live in pilot valley nevada and have farmed here for 23 yrs and in last 2 and half weeks have had over 500 head of cows eat a years worth of hay depositing over 50 tons of manure in my yard and is ongoing . The health issue is methane e. Coli salmonella and different bacteria’s that not only harm me but all things I raise on my farm and is a fire hazard along with fact of dumping noxious weeds in my yard along with an infestation of fox flys