Group rips plan’s review period

Wednesday, Aug. 25, 1999 | 10:45 a.m.

The Sierra Club is asking for more time to review and comment on the draft Carbon Monoxide State Implementation Plan to reduce pollution in the Las Vegas Valley.

The Clark County Board of Commissioners initiated a 15-day review and comment period on Aug. 17 for the draft plan.

"We feel that the length of this review and comment period is wholly inadequate and reflects a willful mismanagement of the public participation process," wrote Margaret C. Pierce and Jane Feldman of the Sierra Club's Southern Nevada Group.

"The plan was developed by the Clark County Comprehensive Planning Commission over a three-year period," they wrote in the Tuesday letter. "It is over 50 pages long with a 500-page appendix. A 15-day review and comment period would be barely adequate or people who are experts in the field of air pollution. It is an impossibly short period of time for lay people to fully grasp this document."

They asked that the comment and review period, now scheduled to end Sept. 1, extend to Sept. 30.

County planners said that probably won't be possible.

"We are locked into a schedule and the schedule is going to put the plan into the hands of the County Commissioners on Sept. 21 for adoption," senior planner Rick Mater said. People who haven't submitted written comments can speak at the public hearing scheduled for Sept. 21, Matar said.

The plan originally was due to the federal Environmental Protection Agency in May, but gaps in information on pollution generated at McCarran International Airport caused a delay, planners said. Further delays could jeopardize federal funding for roads and other needs in Clark County.

"We have promised EPA to put the plan in their hands Oct. 1," Matar said.

The plan also must be reviewed by the state government in Carson City before it goes to the EPA.