EPA grant will help Las Vegas clean up contaminated sites

Erin Neff

Friday, Aug. 6, 1999 | 11:16 a.m.

Calling it a boon for both the environment and the economy, the city of Las Vegas accepted half a million dollars from the EPA on Thursday to help spark revitalization of slightly contaminated sites downtown.

The check handed over by Environmental Protection Agency Region 9 Administrator Felicia Markus is the first ever granted in Nevada under the "brownfields" program.

The city will use the $500,000 grant to establish a revolving loan fund to provide low-interest loans to businesses to redevelop brownfields -- abandoned or under-used industrial areas where potential developers are scared away by real or perceived contamination.

The money can be spent to test such sites for contamination and to assist developers in cleaning the sites once the contamination is determined.

The city's brownfields area encompasses 5 square miles stretching from Sahara to Owens avenues and Martin Luther King Boulevard to Stewart Avenue. The former National Guard Armory at Eastern and Stewart avenues will likely be the first site where money is chosen to be spent.

Initial soil testing last year revealed small levels of diesel fuel contaminants at the armory.

Ground water testing at the site is expected to take place next week, according to Tom Mix, the regional special assistant for EPA and state Superfund program development.

"You want to create incentives for developers to take on an area," Mix said. "We're dealing with the shadow that Superfund casts when some of the sites only have perceived contamination."

Superfund sites involve heavy and harmful levels of contamination, placing liability on property owners to clean them up.

Mix said as a result of Superfund publicity nationwide, developers shy away from any potential environmental problem when in reality, many less-contaminated sites can be fully cleaned.

City Manager Virginia Valentine said she was "very excited" the city was one of 45 communities nationwide to receive more than $30 million in similar brownfields grants.

"It will allow us to increase our downtown business inventory," Valentine said.

The old armory, which was recently demolished, will be redeveloped by the city as a small business "incubator" and senior center. When the armory was demolished, City Councilman Gary Reese said the planned $8 million to $10 million development will be a "cultural gateway to east Las Vegas."

The planned center will be built in Spanish-style architecture and will be spread out on the 3.8-acre site.

"I know how important the EPA's fusion of funds into the city will be," added Mayor Oscar Goodman. "This will help us fill in these sites with development instead of the folks going out to the suburbs."

Allen Biaggi, administrator of the state Department of Environmental Protection, called the grant award a "milestone event for environmental protection in Nevada."