Editorial: Keeping pace with our growth

Friday, March 10, 2000 | 9:56 a.m.

For a tourist-based economy such as ours, it is essential to have a top-flight airport. Las Vegas is fortunate that local officials consistently have worked to make sure that McCarran International Airport obtains the needed improvements to keep pace with the influx of tourists flying into the city. To provide some perspective, the passenger count at McCarran rose from 19.1 million in 1990 to 33.6 million by 1999. Despite a recent expansion to handle this growth, aviation officials believe that McCarran may reach its capacity by 2008.

These concerns are the driving force behind legislation in Congress that would allow our airport -- and our economy -- to continue to expand. On Thursday the House passed a bill that could allow a new airport to be built about 30 miles south of Las Vegas. A coalition of environmental groups initially had opposed the legislation, which will transfer 6,500 acres of environmentally sensitive, federally owned land in the Ivanpah Valley to Clark County. But Nevada's House members, Republican Jim Gibbons and Democrat Shelley Berkley, were able to address some of these concerns to aid the bill's passage.

As the Sun's Benjamin Grove reported, even an ardent environmentalist such as Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., offered his cautious support: "This bill is not perfect, but it is certainly an improvement." One concession offered by the Nevadans was an assurance that a full environmental impact assessment would have to be completed before any construction begins on the airport in Ivanpah, which isn't expected until 2010 at the earliest. Similar legislation is still pending in the Senate, but it is hoped that the breakthrough in the House provides the momentum to pass this important bill, which strikes the right balance between environmental protection and economic growth.