Nye County approved an additional $35k for its RV removal project.

Last November, the Nye County Commission approved a new project targeting illegally dumped and abandoned RVs and similar travel trailers and with six months of the effort bearing success, another round of funding has been approved for its continuance.

The first round of funding totaled $35,000, to be paid out of the county’s Local Assistance and Tribal Consistency grant dollars. Of the original allotment, commissioner Ian Bayne, who pushed for the project, reported a remaining amount of roughly $16,000. His request for an additional $35,000 from LATCF was discussed at the commission’s Tuesday, June 2 meeting.

Before the board spoke on the matter, public comment was opened and much of it was against the agenda item. Several residents who spoke expressed their concern over the idea of spending money on junk RV removals when the county is already experiencing budgetary woes.

“I don’t want to see any money on this. In fact, I don’t want to see you spending any money at all until we get our finances back to sound. Every item having to do with spending needs to be denied or the last two meetings that I went to were just a farce,” resident Dwight Lilly declared, referring to two commission meetings that had addressed the fiscal year 2026-2027 budget, which required major cuts to balance.

However, Pahrump Fire and Rescue Fire Chief Scott Lewis said there was another side to the issue that he felt it was important to consider - the price of emergency response.

“The number of fires that we are experiencing with these discarded trailers is really impressive, and I don’t mean that in a positive way,” Lewis told the commissioners, noting that one such fire had occurred just the night prior. “The cost [for the request], I understand and that’s something you’ll have to decide. But there is a flip-side cost, which is the cost of operating at these incidents.

“That’s costing us fueling, manpower hours for both fire and law enforcement… The risk to our community is great,” Lewis continued. “So, we need to come up with a way, and maybe there is an alternative funding source – I don’t know, that’s really for you to decide – but I don’t want everyone to think it’s just a waste of money because we have had some positive results from taking some action.”

“I was actually at that fire yesterday and… there were two police officers with two vehicles, we had numerous trucks that went up there,” Bayne remarked, while commissioner John Koenig, who could see the fire from his home, added, “I’m guessing there were at least six vehicles that were there at one time, which means there were probably 9 or 10 fire and police there also.”

Commissioner Bruce Jabbour thanked Bayne and Koenig for supporting the project, noting, “He [Bayne] brought it forward because people were screaming that people are dumping in Pahrump, to help… So we are listening to you, we are being proactive.”

As for the status of the junk RV removal project, Bayne said the hurdles the county had met in terms of disposing of them once removed had been cleared and to date, much of what has been accomplished has centered around the heart of Pahrump. With additional funding, he was aiming to see the project expand into other areas with a prevalence of abandoned and junk trailers.

Bayne then made the motion to allocate $35,000 of the remaining $1.7 million in LATCF funds to the junk RV removal project.

“Based on what I saw last night and knowing what it costs to do that… I’ll second it,” Koenig said.

The motion passed with all in favor.

Contact reporter Robin Hebrock at rhebrock@pvtimes.com