Horsford visits Overton, listens to local leaders

By VERNON ROBISON

The Progress

Rep. Steven Horsford, D-NV, held a listening session with community leaders on Tuesday morning, April 23 in the Overton Power District (OPD5) board room in Overton.

In attendance at the session were representatives from Moapa Valley Water District (MVWD), Virgin Valley Water District (VVWD), OPD5, Moapa Valley Fire District (MVFD), local Metropolitan Police, Perkins Field Flying Club, Moapa Valley Revitalization Project (MVRP) and more.

A good portion of the meeting was devoted to celebrating federal grant funding received by MVWD and VVWD with the help of Horsford.
“I’m glad that we were able to secure two major funding commitments for these local water utilities,” Horsford said. “This funding will improve quality of life, access to water for households, businesses, farming and the community.”

MVWD grant funding
At the meeting, Horsford made a presentation of a ceremonial check to MVWD general manager Joe Davis for $2.4 million to partially fund replacement of a critical 24-inch water transmission line for the district.

This major line has been determined to be faulty and has fallen victim to premature corrosion due to incorrect installation techniques employed back in the early 1990s when it was constructed.

The line makes up the primary – and in some areas, the only – pipe connecting the lower Moapa Valley communities of Logandale and Overton to the district’s water sources in the Warm Springs area.

District officials have targeted its replacement as a high-priority capital project. But with the price tag of its replacement so high, they had recently sought federal funding through Horsford’s office in the form of a Community Project Grant, an 80-20 matching program.

The district had been approved for the $2.4 million grant to replace 9,000 feet of the pipeline.
In the meeting, MVWD general manager Joe Davis expressed deep appreciation for the work that Horsford had done on the district’s behalf.

But he also pointed out that this was only a small portion of what needs to be replaced on the line. In fact, there will be another 22,600 feet of the critical line still needing replacement.
Davis explained that his staff had initially only asked for funding on the 9,000 feet because the original language in the grant application was incomplete.

“When the application first came out, it said that you had to have a shovel-ready project, which we had,” Davis said. “But also you had to spend the money within 12 months.”

Since much of the pipeline is on BLM land and would require an intensive environmental process for right-of-way approvals, the staff immediately recognized that those portions would never meet the tight 12-month timeline, Davis said.

“So we applied for only the sections that were on private ground that we knew we could meet the time requirement,” he added. “That was only the 9,000 feet, even though we knew there was another 23,000 feet in the ground that needed replacement.”

Since that time, the grant has loosened up on its 12-month timeline, Davis said. If an extended federal environmental process is required on a project, the grant money can be held in reserve, as long as the process is current and ongoing, he explained.

“If we had known up front that there would be more flexibility in the timeline for the funding, we would have asked for more of the funds so that we could complete more of the project,” Davis said. “We are hoping, with your help, to regroup and make another try and expand the project.”

Horsford said the final appropriations were still not final on the Community Project Grant program. He advised that MVWD apply for more funding to include the rest of the project. In addition, he pledged to support the district in seeking other sources of federal funding if needed.

VVWD grant funding
VVWD general manager Kevin Brown talked about the $5.7 million in Community Project Grant funding that Horsford had helped his district to obtain.

Roughly $3 million of that funding was to help build a new arsenic treatment facility at one of the district’s newly developed well sites. The rest of the funding was to be divided between two key waterline replacement projects in Mesquite.

Brown stated that the grant funding had still not been received by the district for the projects. Rather, the funds were being held up by environmental regulations and requirements through the EPA, he said.

“Our projects were shovel-ready two or three years ago,” Brown said. “They are not really in areas that are environmentally sensitive. But they have still been in the EPA review process for almost 16 months now.”

In that time, inflation and other factors had increased the estimated cost of the projects by about $1 million, Brown said.
“The longer it takes to get our projects through this review process the more they cost,” he said. “And unfortunately, the federal grant money we receive on it is not increasing along with that inflation. So our ratepayers are going to have to pick up that million dollar difference.”

Davis stated that the MVWD was facing a similar quagmire on its grant funding for the 9,000 feet of pipe replacement.

Horsford said that he would set up a call with EPA officials and have both Brown and Davis with him on the line to discuss the issues. “We will get a definitive resolution so that you can move forward,” he said.

OPD5 access to federal grants for rurals
OPD5 officials spoke to Horsford about difficulties the district had experienced in accessing grant funds set aside for rural portions of the state.

OPD5 engineering manager Randall Ozaki said that a $4 million grant program being administered through the Governors Office on Energy had been established specifically for rural energy infrastructure.

Ozaki explained that OPD5 had applied for the rural funds as part of the Nevada Rural Electric Association (NREA) which includes 11 rural providers throughout the state. But all of the funding was granted to NV Energy for its rural infrastructure, Ozaki said.

“One of our concerns is that (NV Energy) has a very minute portion of their system that is rural,” Ozaki said. “All of our systems are rural. Yet we got none of that money. It was all given to them.”
Ozaki asked that the selection process for the funding have added transparency and suggested that perhaps an NREA representative should be added to the selection committee.

Horsford said that he would contact the Chairman of the Governors Office of Energy and discuss this idea.

MV Fire District mandates
MVFD Chief Stephen Neel expressed concerns about federal safety regulations being considered that could make things difficult for small volunteer fire department operations.

Neel said that the district strives to comply with National Fire Protection Assocation (NFPA) as much as possible. But recent regulatory moves by OSHA had been made to adopt these standards as federal regulation.

“That makes it no longer a standard, but a law,” Neel said. “This becomes an unfunded mandate which really hurts volunteer fire departments that don’t have the funding for all of the equipment needed to comply.”

Neel suggested that an exception should be made for volunteer firefighting organizations like the MVFD.
“Rural communities that have been historically left out or left behind, need to be treated equitably in funding and resources; and in the process of being at the table,” Horsford said. “We can’t do these things and expect a one-size-fits-all approach.”

Perkins Field improvements
Perkins Field Flying Club member Tim DeBerardinis spoke to Horsford about the future of the Overton Airport.
He expressed appreciation for helping to secure funding for the $16 million runway/taxiway project which is ongoing now.

But he pointed out that the project does not include new pilots lounge facilities, nor does it anticipate future hangar needs at the airport.
DeBerardinis requested that grants be made available for further general aviation improvements at the airport.

Horsford responded that he would work to keep grant accounts funded for small airport improvement. But these funds are administered by the FAA to eligible airports through requests from municipal governments, in this case Clark County Department of Aviation, he said.