Environmentalists threaten suit over air pollution plan

Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2000 | 11:04 a.m.

Under the cloud of a possible lawsuit by environmentalists, Clark County commissioners may withdraw an air pollution control plan from the hands of the federal government.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency has already said the plan to control fine airborne dust is not acceptable, but has not formally given the plan a "disapproval stamp."

That stamp would start an 18-month sanctions clock. After that period, the region could lose federal highway funding. Six months later, larger federal oversight of building approvals could be imposed on the region.

Withdrawing the plan would give the region more time to prepare an acceptable plan, said John Schlegel, Clark County Comprehensive Planning director. He said the EPA is likely to disapprove the plan this month.

Pushing the EPA to formally disapprove the previous plan, submitted in 1997, is the Sierra Club, a national and local environmental group. The group filed an "intent-to-sue" notice Oct. 30, threatening a lawsuit to force the EPA to hit Clark County with sanctions because of the lack of an approved plan.

The lawsuit would force the EPA to declare Las Vegas "an emergency situation," which would immediately halt spending of federal funds for road construction projects in the Las Vegas Valley, said Jane Feldman, conservation committee co-chairwoman for the local Sierra Club group. The group can file the lawsuit two months after the intent-to-sue notice. The group also has threatened a lawsuit to stop widening of U.S. 95 in the valley's northwest. Locally and nationally, the Sierra Club argues that highway construction encourages sprawl -- and sprawling construction contributes to airborne dust, members here say.

Schlegel agreed that the lawsuit, if filed and won, would stop new highway construction. He said the commissioners can forestall that action by withdrawing the dust-control plan submitted in 1997.

The region would still face sanctions for failure to submit a plan, but they would not immediately threaten highway funding, he said.

But EPA environmental engineer Ken Israels said Monday that withdrawing or not withdrawing the plan would start a nearly identical timetable, giving the region about 18 months before road funds get lost.

Schlegel and Israels said they hope to have an approvable plan from the county in place before the clock reaches zero hour for federal highway funding.

Schlegel said an informal version of the plan should be ready for review by the federal agency in January. He said the plan should be ready for formal submission in June.

Sierra Club members said the federal government already has given the county too much time to prepare an acceptable plan. Withdrawing the 1997 plan for consideration isn't the answer, said Peggy Pierce, conservation committee co-chairwoman of the local Sierra Club group.

"After 22 years of violation of the federal clean air standards and two previous failed attempts to correct the problem, this will leave Clark County with no plan in place to lessen air pollution that is particulate matter of 10 microns or smaller," Pierce said in a written statement. "This is the type of pollution that is responsible for aggravated asthma attacks, chronic bronchitis and other respiratory ailments that are suffered in abundance in the Las Vegas Valley.

"The Sierra Club had announced its intention to sue the EPA ... to force the EPA and the county commissioners to get serious about the brown air that chokes this valley and its residents," she said. "The withdrawal of this most recent failure is an attempt to stop that process."

Jane Feldman, co-chairwoman of the group's conservation committee, said Sierra Club members will attend today's County Commission meeting to try to block the withdrawal of the previous plan. It is scheduled for the consent agenda, indicating that it would not be an issue for discussion.