TONOPAH -- County auditor Dan McArthur will be asked to do a cost-benefit analysis on a county takeover of Pahrump Utility Co.

County Manager Rick Osborne said owner Tim Hafen approached the county to consider a takeover. Osborne hopes to have a report for the county commission by June.

Pahrump Utilitly Co. was formed when Hafen began developing subdivisions on the south end of Pahrump. Hafen said it services about 650 customers and includes the Cottonwoods subdivision, Artesia, the Pleasant Valley subdivision started by Concordia Homes of Southern Nevada, Beazer Homes' Tesora at Pahrump subdivision and the planned project by Adaven originally called Mountain Falls South.

"I'm trying to give our board enough information to make an informed decision," Osborne said.

"The advantage, I don't know if there is one, other than governments typically exist to provide services to their citizens. If there's potential for the county to provide a service for the citizens that is both efficient and cost effective, that would probably be a good decision the board could move forward on. But we have a lot of information to discover before they can make that decision," he said.

There was almost no discussion on the agenda item. Hafen made the trip up to Tonopah for the county commission meeting but didn't end up testifying.

"In my mind, they would be buying a going concern that shouldn't be a burden on the county," Hafen said later.

But he said the utility system isn't operating in the black. Pahrump Utility was just granted a rate increase by the Public Utilities Commission. The company wanted to generate a 149 percent increase in sewer revenues and 238 percent increase in water revenues with the new rates.

"With the facilitiles we have in place, we got lots of excess capacity in both the water and the sewer system. I feel good about our system. It isn't going to need any upgrading in quite a while," Hafen said.

Pahrump Utility has a sewer treatment plant capable of handling 600,000 gallons a day just up the street from the new Floyd Elementary School on South Jane Street. Hafen said that plant is permitted to handle quadruple its present customers.

The company also has a 40-acre site on Turner Boulevard and Hafen Ranch Road for a possible future sewer treatment plant.

"A private utility is extremely controlled by the Public Utility Commission. It's a lot of constant expense," Hafen said.

Two years ago Hafen blasted a county proposal to hire Farr West Engineering for a study on a valleywide water and sewer General Improvement District. Hafen said there were too many questions at that time, like any plans to build facilities, whether to extend water and sewer service to areas not served by private utilities, the proposed rates and any intentions to buy out private utilities. He suggested a takeover of private utilities include all the infrastructure, not just "cherry picking" the best ones.

Hafen said when the cost of providing water and sewer services throughout the valley, engineering costs, securing water rights and facilities are added up, establishing a valleywide water and sewer general improvements district could cost a billion dollars.

Farr West proposed developing a sewer master plan, mapping and inventorying existing facilities. The study would have explored the creation of a single municipal sewer system; development of a policy on requiring connections to the municipal sewer system; and generating public awareness of groundwater contamination by individual septic tanks.

Former Nye County Public Works Director Samson Yao urged commissioners to study establishing the GID, after the county already approved 19,000 units of development which would add up the cost of acquiring water and sewer infrastructure in the future.

Farr West owner Brent Farr said phase two of his study would involve negotiations with the three Pahrump utility companies, but he still didn't get the $400,000 contract.

Since then construction has come almost to a standstill around the valley. The county still has $350,000 set aside for a sanitary sewer study and $400,000 for a water resources study in the budget from the payment equal to taxes.