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May 4, 2005
Beatty funds not for mosquito abatement
By RICHARD STEPHENS An article in the Pahrump Valley Times on the county's funding of the mosquito abatement effort in Beatty reported that, "The Beatty Sanitation District also appropriated $10,000 to contribute to the mucking solution." Weeks said he wanted to make sure that the board and the public understood that the District's decision to contribute the money to the project was not "for mosquito purposes." The District has several water and sewer lines that cross the riverbed. It is in the interest of the District to protect those lines from the kind of damage that would result from erosion in the case of flooding. Since the District has agreed to ongoing maintenance of the riverbed, not only to control mosquitoes, but to keep a channel open in case of flooding, the District contributed the money "to protect our infrastructure in perpetuity," said Weeks. The Water and Sanitation District is also facing substantial costs in a state-mandated upgrade of the town's sewer ponds. Weeks recently received a six-month extension on a $50,000 Community Development Block Grant for engineering on the project. The county set aside $150,000, and the District will pick up the remaining $200,000 of the $400,000 estimated cost of the upgrade. The District will also be upgrading its computer equipment at a cost of about $10,000. This will include a new server and two workstations, along with needed support. The District's current computers are so slow, said Weeks, "that it takes them 40 minutes to do a backup." They are still running the Windows 98 operating system. |
