Air pollution agencies revamp in the wind

Thursday, May 11, 2000 | 11:02 a.m.

A significant reorganization of Southern Nevada's air pollution agencies is in the wind, with proposals coming from various quarters but all with one theme: Bring the agencies together.

The proposals are stemming from a lack of inter-agency cooperation that some observers charge has led to continuing problems with air quality, particularly from fine dust, and a looming federal crackdown because of the lack of an approved plan to deal with dust.

At least two different government committees are looking at changing the organization of the multitude of agencies handling air pollution in Southern Nevada.

One is local, the Environmental Advisory Committee chaired by County Commissioner Erin Kenny. The other, chaired by State Sen. Jon Porter, R-Henderson, is a product of the state Legislature.

State Sen. Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, also serves on Porter's committee, formed in the 1999 legislative session. Titus said she sees the need for a new, unified agency to handle all of Southern Nevada's air quality issues.

"What we need is a regional air quality board," similar in scope to the Regional Transportation Board or Southern Nevada Water Authority, Titus argued.

Porter, out of town this week, couldn't be reached for comment. His committee was originally scheduled to meet May 15, but that meeting has been postponed until June.

The Environmental Advisory Committee was scheduled to discuss agency reorganization at a May 4 meeting, but Kenny postponed that discussion until the committee's May 18 meeting.

Kenny said Thursday that she doesn't yet have a formal proposal for reorganizing local pollution control agencies.

"It only makes good sense that all functions of air pollution control belong under one director and one department," she said. "This is not about eliminating jobs. This is about taking the great employees we have in three divisions and making them a greater team under one umbrella."

Advocates for a change in the structure of agencies overseeing air pollution control point to the many agencies in charge of different aspects of air quality.

The three most important are the Clark County Health District, Clark County Comprehensive Planning and the Regional Transportation Commission, but other state and local agencies play a role.

The Clark County District Board of Health approves air pollution regulations for regional health district officials to enforce, but it is the county planning department that draws up the plans for controlling dust that the EPA judges.

Advocates for bringing the disparate functions together into one, unified agency include a spectrum of "stakeholders" with interests in air-quality regulation, from construction industry representatives to environmentalists.

"There's no one to go to to bring this together," said Steve Holloway, executive vice president of Associated General Contractors, a Las Vegas trade group of construction contractors. "The air quality division reports to the Board of Health. Comprehensive Planning reports, ultimately, to the Clark County Commissioners.

"They really haven't been talking to one another, or communicating very well at all," he said. "The industry feels there needs to be someone over these two groups.

"The fragmentation really creates a problem," Holloway said.

The lack of coordination has contributed to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's rejection of air pollution control plans developed in 1991, 1994 and 1997, he said. Without an approved plan in place by the end of the year, road and highway planning and federal highway funding are threatened.

If an approved plan to deal with air pollution isn't in place, the EPA could step in and take over local regulatory control of development planning for the entire region -- a possibility that has the construction industry, among other stakeholders, very concerned.

A regional board with authority over air quality "is something I've been advocating for years," said Jeff van Ee, a local environmental activist and a member of the Environmental Advisory Committee. "It was amazing to me to see the number of players involved in our air pollution problems."

Van Ee said he is happy to see Kenny move on the issue because of the long turnaround for Porter's legislative committee, which is scheduled to release a report in October.

"I think basically Commissioner Kenny is of the opinion that we can't afford to wait," he said. "I think Commissioner Kenny is on the right track."

Momentum for the change has come from criticism directed at the health district's Air Pollution Control Division.

Titus, for example, said Dr. Donald Kwalick, the district's chief health officer, is "a good doctor but not an expert on air pollution."

Ken Bigos, EPA associate director of the agency's regional air division, said they've heard criticism of the health district and of the structure of local pollution-control agencies. But Bigos added that the issue isn't one that the agency is likely to get involved in.

For the EPA, the end result -- approved state plans for both carbon monoxide and dust -- is the critical issue, he said.

California uses a model close to Titus's proposal, 35 regional air pollution control districts that both prepare state pollution control plans and pass and enforce pollution regulations, Bigos said.

Holloway criticized the district for producing and enforcing dust control rules that singled out the construction industry while ignoring other sources of the pollutant, including unpaved roads and vacant land.

"The construction industry has not been real happy with the way the air quality division has conducted itself in the past," Holloway said. Previous plans, rejected by the EPA, "address only one source of dust in the valley, and that's construction activities."

The district's emphasis has ben "policing and fining, rather than encouraging contractors to control dust," he said.

So although the construction industry pays some of the highest fines in the country, the area still has a dust problem, Holloway said.

Kwalick, the health district chief, said industries regulated by his agency want changes because the agency is doing a good job.

He cited the control of carbon monoxide -- once a targeted pollutant in the Las Vegas Valley that appears to be under control -- and gains in dust control over the last several years as evidence that the health district is getting the job done.

Establishing a new agency now would be premature, Kwalick said.

"People who are affected by regulation don't like to be regulated," he said. Companies want the district to hold off on citations until pollution actually occurs, he said, but the district will fine companies that don't uphold the rules.

"We're trying to be proactive rather than reactive," Kwalick said.

John Schlegel, Comprehensive Planning director, said he couldn't comment on the how the region's air pollution control agencies might be restructured.

"We haven't heard anything specific yet," he said. "We're expecting that some type of recommendation will come from (Porter's) committee...We know that Erin (Kenny) is concerned about the issue, but again we don't have any specifics to discuss."

But his agency is aware of the debate. Schlegel said his staff is ready to report to Kenny's Environmental Advisory Committee on how other air pollution agencies are structured in other areas.

Launce Rake covers growth issues for the Sun. He can be reached at (702) 259-4127 or by e-mail at lrake@lasvegassun.com