Expansion plan set for takeoff

Jeffrey Libby

Monday, July 2, 2001 | 10:48 a.m.

The Bureau of Land Management has approved a long-delayed lease of 140 acres to Clark County for an expanded Henderson Executive Airport.

County aviation officials said Friday they expect to break ground as early as October on the $13 million project, which will extend the existing runway 1,500 feet and add a second runway, opening the airport to larger corporate jets.

Aviation officials say the Henderson expansion is critical for McCarran International Airport to meet increasing demands through 2006, when a new international airport near Jean is scheduled to open.

County aviation officials are going ahead with the expansion despite a legal challenge by neighbors that has yet to be resolved and, if successful, could unravel their plans.

They say they can't afford not to.

Even with planned onsite expansions and diversion of smaller aircraft to Henderson and North Las Vegas airports, McCarran is projected to reach its annual maximum capacity of 55 million passengers within six years, Randy Walker, director of the county aviation department, said. Last year the airport handled 37 million passengers.

Air traffic in Henderson alone is expected to double in the next decade, from 77,000 take-offs and landings to more than 150,000.

That need doesn't move residents of nearby Seven Hills, a master-planned community just east of the airport, which was begun in 1996, the same year county officials bought the airport with plans to expand it.

They complain that the expanded airport will wind up within several hundred feet of a new elementary school, homes and apartments.

The Las Vegas Valley Action Committee, an ad-hoc group headed by Seven Hills resident Gary Freeman, challenged the expansion in a federal appeals board in September 1999, a case that has yet to be settled.

The suit charges that environmental assessment studies completed by the Federal Aviation Administration and the BLM fail to accurately account for effects the expanded airport will have on property values, safety and general quality of life in adjacent neighborhoods.

It will be heard by the federal Interior Board of Land Appeals, which handles challenges on BLM decisions.

If the board rules in favor of the neighbors, the county will find itself dismantling any construction it's begun on the 140 acres, Cheryl Frassa, a BLM administrator, said.

Despite that risk, the BLM approved the 20-year lease on June 22, one day after receiving $420,000 for the first year, Frassa confirmed Friday.

The BLM approved the lease after the appeals board last fall refused to grant a stay requested by the Las Vegas Valley Action Committee, Rex Wells, BLM assistant field manager, said today.

The county has no intention of delaying construction until after the case is settled, Dennis Mewshaw, principal management analyst for its aviation department, said.

"We recognize the risk we're exposing ourselves to, but we have confidence in the environmental assessments submitted by the FAA and the BLM, and therefore we feel the IBLA will not find the appeal to have substance or merit," Mewshaw said.

Freeman disagreed. "That's the same cocky, arrogant attitude they've had all along," he said. "If they had made a few concessions early on, if they had considered putting up sound barriers or imposing curfews, or even been a little responsive, we would have been pacified. If they had made a few compromises -- but they haven't."

In addition to the airport's proximity and aviation officials' inflexibility, Seven Hills residents complain about planes flying over their houses at about 500 feet.

Freeman said he also is awakened more than once a week at 2 or 3 a.m. by aircraft engines being revved for four or five minutes at a time as part of standard maintenance schedules.

County aviation representatives say sound barriers will be built as part of the new facility. The runways will also be rotated 13 degrees west, away from residential development, they say. They also deny that planes fly over homes.

Airport users don't see much need to accommodate the residents.

Janice Herrmann, who along with her husband has run Desert Southwest Airlines flight school since 1980, the past seven of those years at Henderson, said prospective homeowners need to look before they buy.

"I have no sympathy for the people in Seven Hills," she said. "I don't understand how you can move in on top of an airport and then complain about it."

Bill Gilchrist, an aircraft mechanic and pilot from Sandy Valley said the expansion will improve safety.

"You need a longer runway just for the safety factor. Any pilot will tell you that," Gilchrist said. "Every aircraft has a speed to approach at, the magic envelope when you hit your flare. You're at about 50 feet of altitude, losing air speed, pulling your nose up. But guys get into trouble sometimes. It's the human factor."

Most planes operating out of the ramshackle airport, which uses a 1940s air traffic control tower salvaged from Nellis Air Force Base, weigh less than 15,000 pounds and carry a maximum of 15 passengers. The largest are generally used to tour the Grand Canyon. Many single-propellor planes are smaller, weighing closer to 2,000 pounds.

The expanded runway would accommodate corporate jets such as the 45,000-pound F-27 Fokker jet, carrying 48 passengers, and Gulfstream jets, which can weigh 73,000 pounds, but carry closer to 15 passengers.

The primary 6,500-foot runway should be built by October 2002, Tom Donaldson, county manager of general aviation at the Henderson and Jean airports, said. The second runway, which will be 5,000 feet -- the same length as the current runway -- should be completed by March 2003. The project will use federal funds approved in 1998.