State hopes to develop plan to protect resources

Monday, July 17, 2000 | 10:29 a.m.

Workshop

The Nevada Department of Conservation and Natural Resources has scheduled a public workshop to hear what natural resource issues are important to Las Vegas residents and visitors. It is the first step in a three-year process to develop the state's first natural resource plan.

LI>Place: Nevada Division of Forestry office, 4747 W. Vegas Drive

State officials want to know how much of a beating open land is taking from Nevada's rapid population growth.

Over the next three years state agencies expect to develop a natural resources plan that will identify problems and propose solutions to deal with the effect the rising population has had on plants, animals and air and water quality.

Nevada's population has doubled since 1986 to more than 1.8 million people competing for scarce resources.

A series of workshops has been held around the state since April to find out how the public wants to protect the natural resources. The last one will be in Las Vegas on Tuesday night.

State officials intend in the plan to temporarily erase borders between state, federal and local land to come up with a strategy to protect all public lands such as parks, watersheds and open spaces where mining and grazing have damaged the desert.

"Initially, we are pretending as if there are no political boundaries," Ed Skudlarek, a state natural resources planner, said, noting that the initial public hearing in Las Vegas is a chance for residents and representatives from all levels of government to tell the state about the area's critical needs.

Every two years the state's Department of Conservation and Natural Resources has produced an in-house list of threatened resources, but no comprehensive plan has ever been written.

In 1998 all state agencies contributed to the inventory effort, and now they are combining to create the statewide plan, a process expected to take three years.

Boundaries between federal, state and local land have increased tensions between rural counties and the urban areas, Skudlarek noted, especially since more than 80 percent of Nevada is owned by the federal government. Private and state lands are fragmented within the federal holdings.

In Northern Nevada ranchers are combating invasive plant species and wildfires. In the past decade species from outside the state such as cheat grass have taken root. In addition, more than 2.4 million acres of wild lands inside Nevada's borders have been burned since 1996.

Around urban areas such as Las Vegas, more people demand open spaces to hike, horseback ride and hide from the city bustle, Skudlarek said.

State planners will present a short description of the process, then invite those attending the workshop to identify their concerns and propose possible solutions, Skudlarek said.

"The input we receive from the workshop is essential to ensure that the plan contains conservation and sustainable development strategies that will complement the economic needs and quality of life goals for the local community," he said.