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March 29, 2024 8:11 am
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Neighbors Caught In Tangled Web Of Flood Problems

By VERNON ROBISON

Moapa Valley Progress

The Nevada Division of Water Resources required this old mill pond levee to be breached which has caused flooding to a neighborhood in Overton. PHOTO BY VERNON ROBISON/Moapa Valley Progress.

The trouble started four or five years ago when the residents of one Overton neighborhood noticed a big change during heavy rains. Around that time, folks living in the area just north and west of the Overton Power District office, between Catherine and Bryner Avenues, began seeing flood waters inundate their properties; rising in areas where it had not before. Each time it rained, they experienced increasing amounts of water flowing through their yards carrying red mud and clay which covered lawns, gardens, driveways and pastures.

Of course, this was puzzling to the residents of the area who were not accustomed to this type of flood flows.

“I’ve lived here in the valley for fifty years,” said Mary Sue Ely-Scott who lives at the end of Catherine Ave. “This kind of flooding has never happened in this area before.”

Ely-Scott said that in the last winter rain she saw over four inches of muddy clay cover her yard, killing trees and destroying much of her lawn. Before the water finally started to subside it had risen to within a half inch of flooding the inside of her daughter’s home next door, she said.

“It is heartbreaking,” said Suzie Causey as she describes the layer of dry cracked clay that now covers a large part of her yard. The Causeys also live on Catherine. “This is not the yard that I bought 11 years ago when we moved here.”

But as the residents of the area began investigating into the root cause of this new flood flow, they found that the situation is anything but simple. Rather they have found themselves caught downstream from what seems to be an impossible predicament.

In the hills just to the west of these Overton residents, just over the railroad tracks, is a large network of, what were once, milling ponds. Decades ago, that area was home to a large silica mining operation which included a mill. A system of dikes and basins were built, going back to the 1930s. Those settling ponds were filled with water and used for sand slurry in the mill operation.

But for the 70 years or more since the settling ponds were built, they have provided yet another unintended, yet beneficial, purpose. These ponds have acted as a retention basin for flood waters coming from the hills to the west. Neighborhoods to the north and the south of that area have always received flooding from the numerous washes that drain out of those hills. But the area just to the east of the old mill has always remained relatively free of flooding. At least, it has up until lately.

In any case, the sand mill operation was closed down sometime in the early 1970s. And no one had given it much thought since then.

In more recent years, a parcel of land running directly adjacent to the west side of the railroad tracks was purchased by local construction company Eagle View Contractors. According to an Eagle View representative, the company purchased the land because there was a large metal shop building already on the property. They planned to use that shop in a smaller materials operation at the site. But the economy slowed shortly after the purchase and those plans never materialized.

It turned out, though, that a small corner of the Eagle View parcel also included the eastern end of some of those settling ponds and the associated earthen dikes.

In 2007, Eagle View Construction suddenly received a notice from the Nevada Division of Water Resources regarding one of those dikes. Chad Leavitt of Eagle View said that the notice stated that the dike on their property was illegally impounding water in that area. No permits existed, nor had engineering ever been done on the old earthen structures. Therefore they were determined to be out of compliance, according to the notice.

The document required Eagle View to breach the levy in question, Leavitt said. What’s more it listed severe penalties if the company failed to do so. These included heavy fines and even imprisonment, Leavitt said.

“Given the consequences, we breached the levy,” Leavitt said.

The company sent in a backhoe operator who, in very little time, created a gaping hole, about eight feet wide, in the dike.

Of course, the very next rainstorm after that was the beginning of the flood problems for the neighboring property owners just to the east. The residents of the area brought an appeal to the Moapa Valley Town Advisory Board (MVTAB) and Eagle View was confronted about the problem. But there was little they could do about it.

“We were stuck between a rock and a hard place,” Leavitt said. “It was frustrating because we know it was affecting the residents of that area and we certainly didn’t want to cause them problems. But our hand had been forced. It was one of those examples of government in action.”

But the trouble hasn’t ended there. Earlier this year, Eagle View received another notice from the Division of Water Resources. According to that document, the Division had sent an inspector to the area in early February. He had done a thorough inspection of the entire system of ponds and levies and had deemed the whole thing as unsafe. It recommended a sweeping series of additional levy breaches in the area.

But most of the dikes and ponds being discussed in the notice are not on the Eagle View property. Rather they lie on federal BLM land to the west. As such, the state cannot really force the hand of the BLM to take action on them. But there is one small segment of a levee that remains on the Eagle View property. So the most recent notice requires Eagle View to breach this levee as well. And it must be resolved by March 2014, according to the document.

Of course news of this latest notice brought fears of worsened flooding into the neighborhood. So last month, Moapa Valley Town Board member Judy Metz worked with staff from Commissioner Tom Collins’ office to convene a meeting of all interested parties in the issue. The meeting included representatives from the NV Division of Water Resources, Clark County Public Works, Eagle View Construction, Commissioner Tom Collins, Muddy Valley Irrigation Company and Moapa Valley Water District.

According to the minutes taken during that meeting, Robert Martinez of NV Division of Water Resources explained that the reason for the required breaches was public safety. He stated that it was unclear what, if any, engineering had been done in building the ponds. Thus, the Division could not ensure safety if they should remain in place.

Metz expressed frustration in the meeting that these actions had been taken without consulting the community at all.

“I don’t know why there were no discussions with anyone about the initial breach and where the water would go afterwards,” Metz said. “There should have been an opportunity for the town to put a plan in place for the movement of water prior to the actual breach taking place.”

Now that additional breaches are being required Metz said she wanted to know what plans were being made to ensure the new water doesn’t cause more problems.

“The State has no answer for this,” she said. “They are only thinking that if the ponds ever fail, the problem could be catastrophic and they think that is a larger issue than the flooding being caused by the breach. The people being flooded don’t necessarily agree with that, though! All they know is that they are getting flooded now and were not being flooded before. If the ponds have been there for this long, why couldn’t we keep them in place until a solution is determined?”

Martinez stated that the problem was in the above-ground levees. He stated that if detention basins were created at ground level or below, that it would not be an issue.

Collins suggested that the county start excavating in the areas above the levees to capture water in below-ground detention basins. But that would require approvals from the BLM. The meeting was left unresolved with Collins’ staff pledging to speak with BLM officials and to determine if permits could be granted to do excavations of this kind.

All of this leaves the residents of Catherine Avenue rather unsatisfied.

“I just want to be made whole again,” said Causey. “I want us to be put back where we were before this problem. Whatever it takes up there, to make a berm or dig a basin; there has got to be a fix.”

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1 thought on “Neighbors Caught In Tangled Web Of Flood Problems”

  1. We live on breedlove last place on the left on this day 9/14/22 we got flooded with about of foot of water this is the second time in three years, so far I have lost seventy ft.of fenceing,and it has washed all the soil I had haul in. Over one thousand dollars worth.this is how stupid the state is.i know I am retired from the State of Nevada

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