Pahrump Fairgrounds secondary well project initiated

Despite recent public criticism of the long-planned recreational facility, Nye County and the town of Pahrump are forging ahead with development at the Pahrump Fairgrounds and officials are ready for the next stage, with design and construction management services for a secondary water well system now under negotiation.

A Request for Proposal (RFP) for these services was issued in April and the county received just one response, Nye County Utilities Superintendent Darren Tuck reported at the Nye County Commission’s July 1 meeting. The response was from DOWL LLC at an estimated cost of around $212,000.

“And we’d just love to see this project get going,” Tuck remarked.

“The scope of this RFP is to provide comprehensive design and construction management services for the development of a new well system at the Pahrump Fairgrounds. The selected firm will also be responsible for preparing regulatory permit applications, construction documents and providing technical oversight throughout construction to ensure compliance,” backup information included with the agenda item detailed.

Initially, the secondary well was not intended to be more than a backup for the primary water well but Tuck noted that this has changed.

“This water system is a three-phase project. We’ve finished phase one, which is the existing well that is there. We’re going to do the secondary well, that’s phase two. And then I wanted to see about phase three, later on, to connect the two wells and make it one system that is going to give us adequate water throughout the fairgrounds, for anytime in the future,” Tuck remarked.

Because of this change, Nye County Contracts and Grants Manager Stephani Elliott said the county is in the process of obtaining approval to reallocate a portion of the total $700,000 in Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds that were awarded for the entire project.

“When we had applied for this grant, we were under the impression we were going to have to move electrical lines. Now that some of that is being negotiated, we’d like to move part of the electrical portion to the required engineering and design,” Elliott stated, adding that she did not anticipate any issue in gaining approval to do so.

She also noted that she is quite confident that the CDBG dollars remaining after the design, construction management and any electrical work would be sufficient to cover the cost of the well construction itself, too, a segment of the project that will be put out to bid separately in the future.

Nye County Commissioner Ian Bayne took issue with the $212,000 price tag attached to DOWL’s proposal, citing the board’s rejection of Bayne’s own proposal to fund an animal shelter initiative due to concerns about the county’s financial situation. However, Bayne’s proposal had requested $200,000 from the county’s remaining $1.7 million in Local Assistance and Tribal Consistency Fund grant dollars, which are unrestricted and being kept as a budgetary buffer. The fairgrounds secondary well project, on the other hand, is funded through CDBG dollars, which can only be used for the purpose for which they were awarded.

“Since this is CDBG grant funds that are allocated for exactly this, I would like to make a motion,” commissioner Debra Strickland stated as the discussion drew to a close.

She motioned to award the project to DOWL LLC in an amount not to exceed $212,000 and to have staff begin negotiations for the design and construction management services. That motion passed 4-1 with Bayne the dissenting vote.

CDBG dollars have played a major role in the development of the Pahrump Fairgrounds in recent years, providing funding for key elements such as drainage studies, detention basins, water and wastewater systems, along with the most recent round of funding for the secondary well project. From 2018 through 2024, Nye County has received over $1.93 million from the CDBG program for fairgrounds development.

Readers can find previous coverage on the Pahrump Fairgrounds online at pvtimes.com

Contact reporter Robin Hebrock at rhebrock@pvtimes.com