Spring Mountain preservation agreement signed

Tuesday, April 14, 1998 | 10:17 a.m.

A handful of Southern Nevada residents saw their efforts to preserve 57 creatures living in the Spring Mountain National Recreation Area signed into history Monday after working more than six years to balance nature and recreation.

For many people such as Lois Sagel, who led the public's efforts to expand the area's preservation, the conservation agreement reverses the loss of 75 percent of all species that ever existed.

"It is a bright beacon to reverse the intolerable trend of lost species that will affect us all," Sagel, chair of the Citizens for the Spring Mountain Recreation Area, said.

Sagel's group brought attention to the 316,000 square miles of mountain range 35 miles west of Las Vegas and its unique blend of special butterflies, birds, flowers and insects.

"The Spring Mountains are the backyard Galapagos of Las Vegas," said Bob Maichle, who represented off-road recreationists in the negotiations.

The politicians credited Southern Nevada residents from recreationists to environmentalists who worked together on the agreement to protect the Spring Mountain oasis. It is the first conservation agreement in the nation of its kind because it encompasses so many creatures.

The Spring Mountains have provided a cool retreat for Las Vegas Valley residents since ancient times, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt said.

More than 1.2 million residents and 4 million tourists a year hike its trails, ski its slopes and camp in its Alpine meadows where the Palmer's chipmunk plays and rough angelica, found nowhere else on earth, grows in moist gravel there.

"That's why this can, will and should be a model," Babbitt said of the agreement. "This is not just jobs or the environment."

The agreement balances nature and human needs, he said.

Babbitt along with Sens. Harry Reid and Richard Bryan, both D-Nev., shared the spotlight at the Mount Charleston Hotel as the agreement was signed to protect plants, animals, birds and insects on federal lands.

For Reid, whose efforts got the Spring Mountains designated as a national recreation area in 1993, it was a major step. He will present a Nevada Public Lands bill to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on May 7 that would return funds raised through Bureau of Land Management exchanges in Nevada back to the state for environmental protection.

An earlier version introduced in the House by Rep. John Ensign, R-Nev., who is challenging Reid for his Senate seat, failed.