Workshops strive to find balanced public lands use

Thursday, Aug. 23, 2001 | 11:25 a.m.

Recreation. Conservation. Infrastructure.

Those are the three things staffers for Sens. Harry Reid and John Ensign hope to provide in a new public lands bill for Clark County, but finding the right balance among the three is going to be tough, judging from an open workshop Wednesday night.

About a dozen people staked out various positions in that competing trio of land uses, pitching their agendas to about 160 people who attended the workshop -- a crowd that appeared equally opinionated.

Reid, the second most powerful Democrat in the Senate, and Ensign, a freshman Republican, are working to turn over some federal land in Clark County for infrastructure and convert environmentally sensitive land to federally designated wilderness.

Staffers at the Wednesday workshop, the first of three this week, said the process of gathering comments from the public will continue through the next several months.

"Everybody is not going to get everything that they want," said Julene Haworth, Ensign's legislative assistant. "But we're going to work at it."

There may be animosity among groups, she said, but a lot of that will dissipate if they work together to reach compromises.

"It's hard to say if we can reach a true compromise," said Clint Bentley, head of the Nevada Land Users Coalition, a group trying to maintain the current level of access to federal lands for four-wheel-drive vehicles, hunters and other users.

Some of the recreational users have been left out of negotiations on the land-use bill, he said, in favor of governments, and utilities, which want land for infrastructure, and environmentalists, who want to restrict access to some areas.

But groups from around the state are banding together to maintain the recreational access to federal lands, Bentley said.

Environmentalists are trying to work with the recreational users, including four-wheel-drive enthusiasts, in an effort to reach compromises, Tom De Rusha, of the Nevada Wilderness Project, said.

But he also admitted that reaching a compromise with everybody will be impossible. One of the goals of his coalition, which includes most of the major environmental groups statewide, is to give protected federal wilderness status to tens of thousands of acres throughout the county.

That status could restrict motor vehicle access. But De Rusha said protecting the land is essential now, before population pressure converts the acreage into developed roads, homes and businesses.

"If it slips by now, who knows where we're going to be?"

Shaaron Netherton, executive director of Friends of Nevada Wilderness, identified nine areas, with tens of thousands of acres, that environmental groups would like to see protected.

Among them are the Gold Butte region along the Arizona state line, parts of the Spring Mountains and Mount Charleston, the Muddy Mountains west of Lake Mead's northern arm, the Desert National Wildlife Range north of the Las Vegas Valley, land along the Colorado River and the McCullough Mountains from Henderson to the California state line.

"We know it's going to grow," said Terri Robinson of Friends of Sloan Petroglyphs. "We don't care if it grows, but by God, take a look at what's being destroyed."

Calvin Meyers, tribal chairman of the Moapa Band of Paiutes, also asked that areas important to his group's cultural heritage receive special consideration from the senators when they draft the lands bill.

"This part of the world is sacred to us," Meyers said. Lands throughout Clark County make up "the essence of being Paiute," he said.

His group generally supports wilderness protection, Meyers said, and he suggested that some of that protected land could be put under the Moapa Band's administration.

But Ken Freeman, of Southern Nevada Off Road Enthusiasts, objected.

"We can't stop growth in this valley," Freeman said, arguing against limitations on the recreational use of land that now is mostly open to four-wheel and off-road drivers.

He said wilderness designations for large areas would affect 2 million county residents.

"Why do we need more limitations?" Freeman asked.

The needs of a growing community may affect both the recreational users and the environmentalists.

Among those speaking of the need for infrastructure were Randy Walker, director of the Clark County Aviation Department, explaining the impact of a new 6,500-acre airport near Jean and the California state line.

The land for the Ivanpah airport is already approved and wouldn't be part of this bill. But Aviation Department officials want additional land around the planned airport to make sure that residents aren't affected by noise and airport expansion, as they have been by McCarran International Airport in the Las Vegas Valley, Walker said. "What we'd like to avoid is the same conflicts we have in McCarran," he said, noting that decades ago McCarran was surrounded by empty desert. And Nevada Power's Jack Byrom, director of Strategic Business Development, told the group that hundreds of miles of new power transmission lines are needed in the county.

Growth creates demand for turf in another way, warned Walter Lombardo, Las Vegas chief of the Nevada Division of Minerals, which monitors mining in the state.

"In land use planning, mineral resources are not taken into account," he said -- but warned that the sand and gravel for homes, schools, roads and runways comes from mines, often on public lands.

Clark County uses 25 million tons a year of sand and gravel, he said. Those mines cannot be put near homes, and industry cannot use just any dirt, he said.

"We have no idea how much material we have available and how much we will need in the next 10, 15, 20 years," Lombardo said.

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