Despite pressure, county tables dust-control rules

Thursday, May 25, 2000 | 10:59 a.m.

Scheduled public discussions and a vote on sweeping new dust-control rules were tabled by the Clark County District Board of Health this morning.

The board voted without dissent to hold the public hearing -- and potentially a vote -- on the rules until the board's regular meeting June 22. The move came after an hourlong debate over the need to pass the rules quickly to avoid federal sanctions, while still providing enough time for the Clark County planning staff to write sound policy.

Despite eight months of work by the Clark County Planning Department, the Health District's Air Pollution Control Division and various private-sector stakeholders, technical issues in the complex new dust rules remain, Russell Roberts, air quality planner for Clark County, said.

"The rules in front of you are flawed," he told the board members.

Clark County Commissioner Erin Kenny sparred with fellow health board members, arguing that the rules need to be in place as soon as possible. She criticized a suggestion from Roberts and Air Pollution Control Division Director Michael Naylor to vote on the issues in late July.

Kenny said that wouldn't give the board time to make substantive changes before the rules must be submitted to the federal Environmental Protection Agency in early August.

The EPA requires the rules to avoid sanctions that include a halt to new road planning, a cutoff of federal highway funding and a possible takeover of local planning operations by the federal government.

Those sanctions start to kick in next January if the region doesn't get federal approval for the air-pollution rules. Roberts said three tests have to be answered in the new rules: They have to be workable, they have to be effective, and they have to pass EPA muster.

The new rules "are very close, but are not ready to go," Roberts said. "They don't meet all of those tests."

Roberts said issues still to be resolved include the "trigger requirements" that would mandate dust-control treatment of unpaved roads, vacant areas and other disturbed land.

Terri Barber, spokeswoman for a group called the Building Industry Coalition, has been working closely with rule-writers on the issue.

Barber said the coalition, which includes the Southern Nevada Home Builders Association and Associated General Contractors, supports getting a clean final version of the rules.

A concern of board members was that the thick document, which includes four layers of amendments, is difficult to understand. Roberts and Barber said passing the new rules today will require further revisions.

Other questions remain.

How much the rules will cost -- in both private-sector investment and tax dollars -- is still unknown.

Frustrated planners are still waiting on a $200,000 study using orbiting satellites to photograph and count the acreage of open land in the Las Vegas Valley, an inventory originally due in March but delayed by late-winter cloud cover.

Roberts said he expects the data within the next several weeks. An estimate of vacant land shows the valley has about 20,000 acres that would need dust control treatment.

He said the cost for treatment is estimated at $500 to $2,000 an acre. Industry observers have privately predicted the costs could be thousands more per acre.

Roberts said the latest version of the much-revised rules would require dust-control for plots larger than 5,000 square feet, or that have a total of 500 square feet of disturbed land.

While vacant land is a big-ticket item, hundreds of miles of right-of-way, public easements, unpaved roads and parking lots also will need the fix.

The overall cost will probably be about $100 million a year for the first three years for the private and public sectors combined, Roberts said.

"There is no doubt that this will be very expensive," Roberts said.

Clark County Commissioner and health board member Mary Kincaid, no fan of new dust rules or the EPA mandate, has said tax increases could be necessary to pay for compliance and enforcement.

Staffers for the county and health district privately agree that paying for the new dust rules isn't in any government budget.

Kincaid said today that individual homeowners may find themselves seeking second mortgages just to pay for compliance.

But both government staffers, private-sector advocates and most elected officials have said that the cost isn't the issue: The rules have to be in place to avoid the federal sanctions and to clean up the air.

Beyond dollars, many people will find that the rules will tell them where they can and can't go.

The EPA has said that controlling dust from vacant land is a critical part of any acceptable air-quality plan. Vehicles from dirt bikes to heavy four-wheel-drive vehicles break the crust of desert soil, creating a source of wind-blown dust.

Land owners face fines for dust kicked up by dirt bikes, all-terrain vehicles or other off-road enthusiast, even by people on foot. Health board members and developers have already called for more vigilant trespassing oversight from the region's law enforcement authorities.

Roberts said he doesn't envision that the valley will be crisscrossed with fences to restrict access to vacant land, but he said there will be areas where access is cut.

Aaron Clemens contributed to this report.

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