Bill for new LV airport clears key hurdle

Benjamin Grove

Thursday, Sept. 23, 1999 | 11:04 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Legislation that paves the way for a new Las Vegas airport 30 miles southwest of the city cleared an important hurdle in Congress today.

A bill, introduced by Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., that would provide the land for the airport this morning passed a House subcommittee on National Parks and Public Land.

The bill would provide for the sale of 6,395 acres owned by the Bureau of Land Management to the Clark County Department of Aviation for an auxiliary airport primarily for cargo. The land is in a dry lakebed in the Ivanpah Valley west of Jean and Interstate 15, north of Primm.

The legislation now faces the full Resources Committee, then a full House vote. Last year, a similar bill was wrapped into an omnibus parks funding bill, but the House killed that bill.

Sens. Richard Bryan and Harry Reid, both D-Nev., also have introduced similar legislation this year in the Senate.

"The cornerstone of this legislation has always been the incredible growth rate of Las Vegas and dealing with the level of physical capacity of McCarran," Gibbons said after the vote.

The Nevada lawmakers are looking to ease pressure on McCarran International Airport, which figures to get more passenger and cargo traffic as the city continues a meteoric growth rate. McCarran handles about 30 million passengers a year. The proposed Ivanpah airport, which also could handle passengers, would not open for at least a decade.

The airport proposal faces criticism from environmental groups, such as the Sierra Club of Southern Nevada, which has voiced concern about noise, air and light pollution from the airport on the neighboring Mojave Desert Preserve.

The Bureau of Land Management, which owns the land, is concerned the airport would restrict the current multiple uses of the land, including mining claims, grazing rights, utility corridors, three major power transmission lines, threatened tortoise habitat and hiking trails.

'The environmentalists have opposed it from the beginning, and they will continue to oppose it,' Gibbons said. Gibbons said that studies would be completed to assure those concerned that environmental impacts were negligible. Gibbons also stressed that the bill includes wording to provide the BLM with fair market value for the land.