All of the funds Nye County receives from the U.S. Department of Energy for the land value of Yucca Mountain could be tapped to pay for the new jail, including the educational endowment meant for the Nye County School District.

That was the consensus at the Tuesday Nye County Commission meeting, during which commissioners also seemed convinced the 40-acre location at the east end of Mesquite Road would be better than the current Basin Road location.

The Mesquite Road site would allow 40 acres, instead of about 12 acres on Basin Road.

"This is the farthest we've ever gotten with our detention project," Nye County Sheriff Tony DeMeo told commissioners. "Right now we're actually talking where the location is going to be and future expansion."

Commissioner Joni Eastley said it wouldn't make sense to build the jail on Basin Road, though it would cost more to put in the required infrastructure on East Mesquite Avenue, $28 million for all the suggested improvements instead of $18 million.

Commissioner Candice Trummell suggested building the sheriff's administration building, a booking office for prisoners and an adult detention facility, for roughly $15.5 million.

When Tom Metscher of Nye County Juvenile Probation walked in later that day, they decided to scale back the 133 beds planned for the adult detention facility to allow for a juvenile detention facility.

But Metscher said it's a tremendous liability to transport juvenile prisoners all the way to Hawthorne or Lake Tahoe.

DeMeo said the adult detention facility was "a litigation nightmare to Nye County."

Various types of prisoners are housed together in the jail, the sheriff said: "super max" inmates, Latin gang members, even a couple juveniles on one occasion.

The current 31-bed jail was purchased in 1988 from a detention center facility in Colorado and was intended as a temporary facility.

In some places only tin foil separates males and females. Eighty-five percent of the prisoners transported to the Tonopah jail are from Pahrump, DeMeo said.

Eastley said the Mesquite Avenue site would allow "one stop shopping" with eventually animal control and other county services.

A report estimated the Basin Road site would only be usable until 2024, she said.

DeMeo said Pahrump grew by 11 percent in the last year. Plans call for 20,000 new homes in Pahrump Valley in the near future, he said.

A report by Kitchell and Associates estimates the number of annual jail bookings would increase from 1,901 in 2005 to 2,793 by 2024.

"If we do just detention up there (on Mesquite), the square footage on Basin, it's no value. We need to get rid of the jail we have now. Like the sheriff said, it's a litigation nightmare. We've been patching for 10 years," Nye County Buildings and Grounds Supervisor Bob Jones said.

Commissioner Patricia Cox said the county still doesn't know if the Payment Equal to Taxes the county receives for the land value of Yucca Mountain will be guaranteed for another five years.

But she said it would be ill advised to go deeper into debt on medium-term obligations.

Interim County Manager Ron Williams said about $10 million is available in a special projects fund out of the PETT money, for which the county was only going to use the interest. Another $6 million is available in the balance of three other PETT funds, he said.

"We as a board and me individually have all been resistant about taking money out of our endowment funds. However, if we're going to the Mesquite site, which I agree with Commissioner Cox would be ideal, this money would be an investment alone, putting in $3.5 million in infrastructure," Trummell said.

"I felt long enough if you're hungry enough you have to cut off a slab of the sacred cow and feed yourself," Eastley said. "The original intent was not to touch the principal but I don't think anyone anticipated the growth in the southern part of the county."