Director of BLM seeks better local relationship

Jeff Schweers

Friday, May 22, 1998 | 9:46 a.m.

For too long, the Bureau of Land Management has acted as a "bureau of last mission" for Las Vegans hungry for vacant land to develop, the bureau's director, Pat Shea, said during his first visit to Nevada.

"In the past, Las Vegas used the BLM as a land bank," Shea said Thursday during a two-day trip to Clark County that included meetings with local politicians and business leaders.

That land shortage is compounded by the fact that 70 percent of Nevada is owned or managed by the federal government.

"When they ran out of space, they came to us for more space," Shea said. "We can allow for development to sustain economic growth while preserving conservation."

To do that, Shea said, he hopes to forge a stronger relationship with local governments.

"In the past, that relationship was not always the best," Shea said.

He said he hopes his visit demonstrates the open deliberations he seeks as a hallmark of his administration. "I wanted to personally demonstrate my commitment to working with the state, county and local governments."

Shea came to drum up support for the agency's Resource Management Plan, due for release June 14. The plan has been eight years in the making and will guide for the next 20 years how some 3.3 million acres in Clark and Nye counties will be managed.

Shea's trip included visits with the Clark County Commission and Mirage Resorts Chairman Steve Wynn.

The county is backing a congressional measure that would give it more say in BLM decisions. Wynn, who sits on the California-Nevada Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, has an interest in a BLM educational program that involves sending local schoolchildren to Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area.

Following a one-hour meeting Thursday morning at which Shea urged preservation of the Red Rock vistas, commissioners said they were impressed enough by Shea and his message to believe there would be a better working relationship with the BLM.

"We heard a number of things in the plan that are great," Commission Chairwoman Yvonne Atkinson Gates said, "allowing for further development to occur and protection of the desert tortoise."

Jeff Steinmetz, an environmental-protection specialist and team leader for the plan since it was commissioned in 1990, said recovery of the desert tortoise was "an overriding factor" in the plan's development.

The BLM has held eight meetings with 150 different residents in Clark County and received 400 comment letters since the first draft was published in 1992, with most public comments supporting recovery efforts for the desert tortoise.

The plan also includes directions specific to special management areas for wild horses and burros, wilderness study areas, livestock grazing allotments, cultural resources and other BLM programs.

"This gives management direction for a lot of different programs," Steinmetz said. "This is not just about lands disposal."

Commissioner Mary Kincaid praised the BLM for the "the cooperation we're getting now," especially from Southern Nevada Regional BLM Manager Mike Dwyer.

"One of the things we heard today is, before they release land for a specific use, they would talk to us," Kincaid said.

The County Commission supports the Southern Nevada Land Management Act, a bill designed to give local officials a say in deciding which lands the BLM can sell in Clark County.

The legislation being pushed by U.S. Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., and Rep. John Ensign, R-Nev., has won support of Senate Republicans. Ensign and Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., successfully got the legislation through the House last year.

The bill would allow for 27,000 acres of land in the Las Vegas Valley owned by BLM to be auctioned off in a competitive bid to ensure the federal government gets fair market value. The proceeds would be split 85-15 between the BLM and local governments, which would be able to use the money for education and water and sewer projects.

Jo Simpson, chief of external affairs for the Nevada BLM, said the bill was only tangentially related to the resource-management plan, which establishes a disposal boundary for land sales.

"The plan lays out which land the BLM has identified as land we'd like to dispose of," Simpson said. "The Southern Nevada lands bill proposes how that process will work."

BLM officials have objected to a piece of the legislation that would give local governments an overriding veto power on pending land sales.

"We want the city and county to feel free to fully participate," Shea said, "but at the end of the day we want to make sure we are the formal decision."

But Commissioner Lance Malone, who has proposed a public-lands exchange commission to review proposed land sales, said it's crucial that the county have a say in where, how and when BLM disposes of land because the impact on traffic, schools, water and fire protection will be felt by local residents.

"We're not going to be better off," Malone said. "In fact, we'll be in a worse position than we are now."

-- Sun reporter Denise Cardinal contributed to this report.