MARK WAITE / PVT Ted Cornell, Mountain Falls lead contractor, cuts the ribbon of a new sewer plant while Paul Burris, Utilities Inc. regional vice-president looks on at left, and Nye County Commissioner Butch Borasky observes at right. Advertisement

Representatives of Utilities Inc. and Mountain Falls Ltd. cut the ribbon Friday on a new sewer plant to serve the Mountain Falls community.

The sewer plant has a capacity of treating 750,000 gallons per day.

Paul Burris, regional vice-president of operations for Utilities Inc., said it's enough to eventually serve 3,200 homes in Mountain Falls.

Mountain Falls has 380 homes, of which 350 are occupied, project manager Ted Cornell said during a tour with local officials. Mountain Falls Ltd. paid for the construction of the plant and donated it to Utilities Inc., Burris said, as part of $6 million worth of infrastructure for the development.

Burris said the sequential batch reactor wastewater treatment plant actually went on line Dec. 3, the third sewer plant operated by Utilities Inc. in Pahrump.

The treated effluent water is pumped to the main pond at Mountain Falls where it's used to irrigate the golf course, he said. Previously the course used just potable water for irrigation.

Burris said a lot of local contractors took part in building the plant.

A backup generator will allow Utilities Inc. to keep operating in case of a power outage, Burris said. The plant will be manned eight hours per day, but after hours, an automated system will contact wastewater plant operators if the readings go outside the parameters.

A computer tells operators if Mountain Falls is drawing down the main pond to irrigate and what the water level of the pond is.

Burris called it one of the more up-to-date types of sewer treatment plants.

"They're used in an atmosphere where land is limited because the footprint of a sequential batch reactor for these type of plants is small," Burris said. "You want to get that cost of land down as much as you can."

Before the Mountain Falls plant went on line, Burris said Pahrump Utilities processed the sewage at its plant. Burris said Utilities Inc. and Pahrump Utilities are interconnected with water and sewer lines.

After a de-watering process separates the water, the sludge is hauled away in a dumpster to the Nye County landfill where it's buried.

"We're actually meeting all EPA standards with sludge," Burris said.

Near the end of a tour, Burris held up a clear beaker of treated effluent water. It smelled of chlorine, but looked almost like drinking water.

Nye County Commissioner Butch Borasky sees the day when utility companies in Pahrump would be able to pump the treated effluent water back into the aquifer, where it would filter through the gravel and come back drinkable like a project in Orange County, California.