Las Vegas news briefs

Tuesday, Dec. 15, 1998 | 11:42 a.m.

Bail was cut from $100,000 to $15,000 each for Montana contractor Rick Tabish and his employee, Michael Milot.

Tsafos had previously slashed the bond of the third defendant David Mattsen, a Binion ranch hand, to $15,000.

All three men, already free on bail, are charged with trying to steal an estimated $4 million in silver that Binion had buried in Pahrump. The alleged theft was broken up by Nye County sheriff's deputies less than 36 hours after Binion was found dead at his Las Vegas home on Sept. 17.

Both Tabish and Milot showed up in court Monday with their lawyers for the half-hour bail hearing.

A preliminary hearing on whether to bind the three defendants over for trial is scheduled for March.

Homicide detectives in Las Vegas are investigating Binion's death.

WATER -- Las Vegas residents will have a chance to comment at a public workshop Thursday at 7 p.m. on the state's program to assess water sources.

The workshop on the Source Water Assessment Program is be at the Las Vegas Valley Water District, 1001 S. Valley View Blvd.

The state is required to develop the document under the 1996 amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act. The Nevada Health Division will submit a final document by Feb. 6.

The document is a road map for developing, protecting and improving water sources that contribute to public water supplies.

The state is gathering information on areas that provide water sources, identifying drinking water contaminants and potential threats to water, offering information to local, state and federal officials with responsibility for land use decisions and those effects on public water and seeking ways to reduce contamination threats.

BAD AIR -- Heavy weekend traffic and still, cold air added up to an unhealthful level of carbon monoxide in Southern Nevada's air Saturday night.

It was the first unhealthful level -- at 126 -- of carbon monoxide recorded in Clark County this year. Any level above 100 is considered unhealthful, said Michael Naylor, director of the Health District's Air Pollution Control Division.

The unhealthful level was recorded at a monitor on East Charleston Boulevard in the Sunrise Acres Elementary School yard.

Moderate levels of 88 at Las Vegas City Hall and 78 at East Sahara Avenue near Eastern Avenue were also recorded on Saturday night.

Naylor said no health advisory or request to stop burning fireplaces had been issued. Windy weather is expected to clear the air, he said.

There was one unhealthful winter pollution day in 1997 during the last two weeks of December, Naylor said.

Christmas shoppers driving to malls and cold night air contribute to the chance for more bad air in the next two weeks, he said.