A trash dump that turned into an environmental nightmare in 1998 is finally headed for closure after eight years of impasses. But closure might come with an increase in local garbage bills to fund the final $20 million of cleanup work.
Once a settlement is reached and the site is finally covered with two feet of earth and rocks, the county intends to end its lease of the land from the Bureau of Land Management and acquire the property.
The wash empties into Lake Mead, the valley's primary drinking water supply. Authorities feared that toxic compounds and metals buried in the dump might escape into groundwater layers and eventually Lake Mead. Months before the flood, in April 1998, nearby residents complained about the rotten-egg smell of hydrogen sulfide gas emanating from the dump in concentrations hundreds of times higher than are considered safe. During a visit to the site that month, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he had "never smelled a toilet this bad."