State Route 28 repair could cost $300,000

It could cost between $200,000 and $300,000 to fix the stretch of State Route 28 destroyed over the weekend when a sewage pipeline burst underneath it.

However, details on the cause of the break, the official cost of repair - and which organizations will pay for it - will take a couple weeks to determine, said Brad Johnson, engineering manager for the Incline Village General Improvement District.

"It's a procedural thing," Johnson said this week. "We have to have conversations and meetings yet internally and with NDOT (Nevada Department of Transportation)."

Lake Tahoe's east-shore highway was closed to traffic Saturday morning to Monday evening after an IVGID treated sewer water pipeline broke underneath State Route 28, about two miles east of Sand Harbor.

The incident affected both lanes, "with a large portion of the highway missing due to the amount and pressure of the fluid eruption," according to the North Lake Tahoe Fire Protection District.

"We don't know why it leaked," Johnson said. "It didn't fail in a traditional (location), at failing joints - it was in the centerline segment of the pipe."

The failed pipe was an older pipe that is not up for replacement in the $21 million effluent export pipeline project, which is co-funded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Johnson said.