A $99,350 contract was awarded March 26 by the Bureau of Reclamation's Lower Colorado Region to Las Vegas Paving of Las Vegas, Nevada, for the placement of steel pilings across Las Vegas Wash. As a member of the Las Vegas Wash Coordination Committee, Reclamation is participating in restoration of the Wash.

A total of 370 pilings will be used to form the infrastructure for a weir about three miles southwest of Lake Las Vegas. Each 20-foot long and 2-foot wide piling, will be driven approximately 16 feet into the Wash bed to create two 455-foot long rows to be built almost end-to-end across the wash.

The 4-foot portion of the pilings left above ground will be covered with rock, or "riprap," forming a weir across the Wash to regulate water flow. This will be the fourth weir Reclamation has built in the Wash to control erosion.

Work on the weir is scheduled to begin Apr. 12, after the pilings are delivered to the site. Completion of the project is expected by the end of April.

A Reclamation crew from Provo, Utah, has been working at the weir site since early February, readying the site for the pilings. They will remain on the job until mid May.

Reclamation also collects and samples water quality in the Wash, in its tributaries and seeps and measures the flows of the tributaries to establish baseline water quality data for those flows.