Poppy power: Rare plant makes a stand at Nellis Air Force Base

Angela Soo

Thursday, June 21, 2001 | 11:19 a.m.

When civil engineers five years ago combed about 400 acres at Nellis Air Force Base as a potential site for a new base housing development, what they found, a base spokesman said, were some "nice weeds."

The weeds would effectively derail the project, because they were a critically endangered plant, the Las Vegas bearpoppy, a golden flower with leaves shaped like bear claws.

"It's just useless land to us now," Alma Marlin of the 99th Civil Engineer Squadron, said.

Nellis officials, like those at military installations nationwide, are required to follow environmental guidelines to preserve wildlife habitat, but a large percentage of commanding officers may not have been so obliging, according to a recent survey.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, an environmental group based in Washington, D.C., surveyed 110 civilian resource specialists working in military installations across the nation and concluded bases weren't doing as good a job protecting their natural resources as they should.

The military is responsible for a "precious percentage" of land that harbors endangered species, and that may present a conflict between military training objectives and protecting the environment, Jeff Ruch, executive director of the environmental group, said.

Under the Sikes Act, which was reworked in 1997, U.S. military installations are required to preserve fish and wildlife on nearly 25 million acres controlled by the Defense Department.

That includes land inhabited by the bearpoppy.

"These large buffers of land under the jurisdiction of the DoD have not been touched and by far contain more endangered species per acre for any public land," Ruch said.

The Sikes Act states that the land must be preserved until it becomes absolutely necessary for carrying out training missions.

"That could get on a commander's nerves," Ruch said, and the survey showed that commanders face minor repercussions if environmental regulations are ignored.

"What I found most striking was the number of people who said responsible commanders are not presented with negative career consequences," Ruch said.

More than a third of the respondents -- all of them civilians who work on military installations in environmental positions -- said that commanders were not held accountable for violations of resource regulations, and 11 percent strongly felt there was a lack of accountability. Another 29 percent had no opinion.

The track record at Nellis is good, said Susan Barrow, the base's chief of Natural and Cultural Resource Management. Conflicts do arise, but commanders also understand the importance of following guidelines.

"Sometimes we may have a negative effect, because it slows down the mission," Barrow said. "Each environmental requirement has some kind of hold on each mission."

For example, during a recent target cleanup, in which a crew goes out to a range to collect old target pieces, they found what looked like a tortoise burrow underneath a tank. All work stopped for about four hours until a resource specialist located the tortoise and built a new habitat for the animal.

Nellis officials also must work to preserve significant historical sites, because 17 Native American tribes have ancestral ties to the property. Before Nellis can expand any of its missions, the land must be surveyed by resource specialists or contractors.

Nellis is also considered home to antelope, bighorn sheep, wild horses, wetlands and springs.

"There have been no violations of endangered species," Barrow said. "We never had to hold commanders accountable, because it never got to that point."

Eloisa Hopper, of the 99th Civil Engineer Squadron, says Nellis made a commitment early on to be a leader in environmental responsibility.

The Clark County Environmental Planning Division works closely with Nellis to ensure that any growth on the base -- mission expansion, more housing or recreation -- doesn't infringe on the vitality of the wildlife.

"We found them to be good to work with," Alan Tinkerton, division manager of the environmental division, said. "There's always the potential for disagreement between the resource faction and command line officers.

"But in our experience, they have been an organization of their word," Tinkerton said.

In 10 years the environmental staff was increased from six people to 40. About $10 million of the base's $369 million operations and maintenance budget is set aside for resource management, Hopper said.

But the conflict between commanders and environmental protection is very real, Ruch said his group has found.

Representatives from the Navy, Army, Marine Corps and Air Force testified before Congress last month asking for an exemption from the Endangered Species Act.

In addition, the Bush administration plans to contract out 40,000 jobs previously done by military members to civilian contractors, Ruch said.

Environmental efforts are pushed back each time a new contractor takes on a project, an anonymous survey respondent wrote.

"We lose program continuity, corporate memory and history, and portions of our 'administrative record' in cultural and natural resources," a respondent said. "Contractor motive is profit and obtaining the next contract. Natural resource management is a long-term commitment."

Ruch is in the midst of a lawsuit filed last summer against Edwards Air Force Base for contracting out environmental positions, alleging it violates provisions in the Sikes Act.

Meanwhile, the 400-acre "Poppy Land" on Nellis remains untouched and undeveloped. The Air Force has considered using the land for research activities or for a small-scale tour area.

"It would have been an ideal place for base housing," said Mike Estrada of the Nellis public affairs office. "The key word is 'would have been.' "