Boulder City Council considers air quality standards

Jeffrey Libby

Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2001 | 11:32 a.m.

The Boulder City Council tonight will discuss withdrawing from the Clark County Health District's air quality management area in order to have more leeway in bargaining for pollution credits for a second electric power plant.

Under the proposed changes, Boulder City would not be held to the same strict federal standards governing air polluters in the Las Vegas Valley. Boulder City is separated from the Las Vegas Valley by the River Mountains and is considered by regulators as part of a separate air system.

Eldorado Energy, located about 10 miles southwest of downtown Boulder City in El Dorado Valley, brokered a lease and water contracts for a second plant in 1998.

The Las Vegas Valley is considered a nonattainment area by the Environmental Protection Agency and is therefore held to stricter standards.

Christine Robinson, director of the air quality division of the county health district, said that she cautiously supports the move by Boulder City.

"The air quality benefits to Boulder City under the existing scenario are questionable at best," Robinson said. "They have an opportunity here to find more innovative ways of effectively reducing air pollution, and as a district, we always support those kinds of programs."

"The proposal is not to avoid or reduce or in any way allow Eldorado Energy to pollute more," Boulder City Councilman Bryan Nix said. "It's to give us more flexibility."

Under current guidelines, the health district's air quality division limits Boulder City's options to planting more trees in order to counteract the added carbon monoxide the second power plant would produce.

But through the pollution credit plan to win the first power plant, which has been operational for less than a year, Boulder City already agreed to plant trees and pave alleyways. The trees reduce carbon monoxide and the paving cuts down on dust.

To open a second plant under the health district's guidelines, Boulder City would have to plant another 28,500 trees.

Nix said the city doesn't have room for all of those trees and it doesn't want "to pave the whole desert."

The council hopes tonight to explore options such as alternative fuel sources for city vehicles and incorporating more solar power into municipal uses, Nix said.

Neither of those options would be adequate if Boulder City remains a part of the county management area.

If the council votes to go forward with the proposal, Councilman Joe Hardy would most likely petition the county health district board, as required. Hardy is a member of that board.

Boulder City joined the Clark County Health District air quality management area voluntarily in 1990.