Developer wants Henderson funds to help with toxic cleanup

Valerie Miller

Thursday, March 30, 2000 | 11:01 a.m.

The developer of a master-planned community wants to use close to $40 million in Henderson redevelopment funds to close and move Titanium Metals Corp.'s toxic ponds.

Basic Management Inc. and its subsidiaries, Basic Environmental Co. and the LandWell Co., anticipate spending between $50 million and $60 million to clean up the site of their proposed 2,400-acre Provenance master-planned community on the east side of Boulder Highway north of Lake Mead Drive. BMI hopes to be included in a proposed expansion of Henderson's redevelopment area to help cover the costs.

Plans call for the cleanup of the old ponds on the east end of the site, as well as the closure and removal of the Timet Co.'s active ponds, which are located on the side of the property near Pabco Road.

The cost of the closure and removal of the active Timet ponds is estimated at close to $40 million, Basic Environmental Co. Director Robin Bain said.

After the cleanup of the Timet ponds is completed, the land would be added to the Provenance development.

Provenance plans show the old and the active pond areas would be used for a planned golf course and for neighborhoods. All of the land will be cleaned up to the strictest federal standards, Bain said.

Henderson is considering expanding its current redevelopment boundaries from 1,300 acres to more than 4,000 acres. The move would add the Provenance development, along with the adjacent proposed state college site, as well as the planned Palm City development and the economically depressed Pittman area.

The Henderson City Council will vote Tuesday whether to proceed with a study of the proposed redevelopment area expansion.

Areas designated for redevelopment are eligible for up to $1 of public redevelopment funds for every $10 of private funds. Tax revenue from those developments in turn is reinvested back into the redevelopment area over a 30-year period to attract new businesses.

Developers of Provenance and city officials estimate close to $145 million would be generated in tax revenue by the Provenance community over a 25-year period. Accounting for inflation, that number could be as high as $400 million, according to developers.

The actual cleanup of the two sets of contaminated wastewater ponds -- the ones closed in 1976 and Timet's active ponds -- would fall to the Basic Environmental Co., Bain said. Redevelopment funds would be used only for the closure and removal of the Timet active ponds, not the older ponds.

"These ponds don't have hazardous waste, but they do have toxic levels of some pesticides and heavy metals, and about 320 to 400 acres of the (Provenance) site was impacted," she said. "In the older ponds, the sun has baked it into the ground and it is concentrated in some spots."

Bain said that with the older ponds, she anticipates having to remove soil 1 to 2 feet deep, but some spots may go down as deep as 15 feet. An estimated 1.7 million cubic yards of dirt will have to be removed from both sites, she said.

Once the Timet active ponds are removed, a new facility will be built on the Timet property across Boulder Highway with a mechanical evaporator, which will replace the evaporation ponds, Bain said.

The process of cleaning up the older ponds, on the east end of the site near the future Mohawk Road, has already begun, Bain said.

"Ten ponds have already been cleaned up, and our goal is to have the site clean enough so it can meet the standard of being safe for a residential child."

The approximately 300 acres proposed for the state college is already a clean site, Bain said, and has never been used for wastewater.

The older ponds were used for wastewater from Henderson's industrial plants from World War II until 1976, Bain said. Heavy metals now found in the old ponds include lead, arsenic, barium, chromium, manganese, thallium and antimony. Pesticides contaminating the soil include DDT and BHC.

Currently the Provenance development and college site are on unincorporated county land, but the city is planning to annex the area at the request of the developer before February 2001 so the company could receive redevelopment funds next year if it is included in the redevelopment area, Henderson Director of Finance Steve Hanson said.

Hanson said he thinks Provenance is an appropriate area to be included in the city's redevelopment, because the land had prior use by industrial plants.

"There was a use there as a result of the plants, and we are redeveloping it from an industrial use to a residential use," Hanson said.

The cleanup must be proceeding on the Provenance site before it could be annexed into the city, Hanson added. "We would not even consider annexation until it is cleaned up."

The inclusion of Provenance into the redevelopment area would be a worthwhile investment for the city because of the large amount of tax revenue it would generate to help other redevelopment areas, he said.

"The money generated from the Provenance development could help Pittman, the state college and in the redevelopment of the downtown area," Hanson said.

The Board of Regents was scheduled to tour the proposed college site today and vote on the site next month.

Valerie Miller is a reporter for the Sun. She can be reached at (702) 259-2319 or by e-mail at valerie@lasvegassun.com