Friday, Aug. 3, 2001 | 10:59 a.m.
In 1988 an explosion at a rocket-fuel manufacturing facility in Henderson killed two people, injured hundreds and forced Clark County to rethink the suitability of the Las Vegas Valley for heavy industry.
An alternative surfaced within a year: uninhabited Apex valley 15 miles northeast of Las Vegas. By 1995 a group of private investors had stepped in to develop the Apex Industrial Park -- designed as a home for heavy industry, attract millions in new investment and diversify the gaming-oriented economy of the region with hundreds of new jobs.
But this year the park is in danger -- threatening $20 million in private investments. Adam Titus, Apex Industrial Park chief operating officer, said Wednesday's announcement that new, stricter air-quality rules must be applied to the area will make it harder for the park to attract investors.
If the new Clark County Air Quality Management Department implements the same air-pollution control rules in Apex already in place in the Las Vegas Valley, Titus said, companies will have no reason to put their capital dollars in the industrial park.
"The regulation takes away our competitive advantage," Titus said.
County air-quality staffers say they have no choice but to tighten air-quality rules for Apex. Air-quality monitors in the area have found at least four instances of high dust levels in the past three years, exceeding federal pollution standards.
Failure to implement new rules for the area would bring federal sanctions, including the loss of funding for roads and other infrastructure. County air-quality staff hopes to bring a proposal for new rules -- essentially the same rules now blanketing the Las Vegas Valley -- to county commissioners for approval this month.
But the park was attractive to potential investors because it had fewer regulations, Titus said. That advantage outweighed any disadvantages, including a long drive from the city, problems getting water and the lack of support services, such as gas stations or restaurants.
Changing the rules is going to hit the project hard, he said.
"Our master plan as it was originally submitted to the county ... essentially must be thrown out the window," Titus said. "It dramatically affects our development schedules and plans."
Some companies, including several that are building power plants in the industrial park, can go ahead and build. New rules won't affect previously issued "authorization to construct" permits, including a permit for a Mirant plant for which work has already started, Titus and air-quality officials agree.
Still, Titus fears that hundreds of millions of dollars in investments could be lost as a result of the air-quality issue. He is frustrated that the county -- which backed the industrial park as a perfect out-of-the-way place to put heavy industry -- will be the agency that could hurt the park.
"It does not feel right to designate an area as a heavy industrial-use park and then have the same agencies that were involved in that decision turn around a few years later and redesignate the heavy use area as a 'nonattainment' zone," Titus said.
Air-quality officials say they have no choice but to apply the rules. Clark County Commissioner Bruce Woodbury said he understands the reasons for putting heavy industry outside the Las Vegas Valley -- he was commissioner for Henderson on the day the PEPCON rocket-fuel factory exploded.
But he said the private investors involved with the Apex Industrial Park understood that they had no special protections against regulations that affect everyone.
"Everybody went into that with the full awareness of what they were entering into," Woodbury said. "The county has acted in complete good faith and will continue to do so."
Somer Hollingsworth, president of the nonprofit Nevada Development Authority, predicted that the air-quality rules will hurt his group's effort to attract and move industry to the Apex valley.
"We'll be able to put companies out there," he said. "It's just there was some stuff that we really wanted to bring that we won't be able to now.
"Apex was our great hope," Hollingsworth said. New air-quality rules "will limit, really seriously limit, the companies that we talk to."
He said hundreds, perhaps thousands, of jobs would have come with new investment.
Clete Kus, a Clark County planner, said new rules will affect companies that could move to the Apex valley. The county will work to limit the economic effect, he said.
"Once everything is said and done, it probably isn't going to be as bad as they think," he said.
Woodbury and Kus said the county will work with the park and existing businesses to mitigate the economic impact of the new rules.
"We need to make sure that industrial development can take place there, but the environment is still a top priority," Woodbury said. "We've been able to do that in the Las Vegas Valley. I think the same thing can be done out there."
Woodbury will play an important rule in drafting new rules to control air pollution in Apex and throughout the county. He chairs the new air-quality board, which will meet for the first time this month.
The Apex air quality matter will be one of the first major issues to be addressed by the new board.
"There are not going to be easy issues," Woodbury said. "As we step up enforcement capability (of county air quality workers), there are probably going to be some toes stepped on.
"We intend to take these rules seriously and ensure there is compliance."
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