Residents rally against Hoover Dam bypass

Jeffrey Libby

Wednesday, May 23, 2001 | 10:07 a.m.

The $198 million Hoover Dam bridge bypass is not a done deal.

That was the message cheered Tuesday by about 100 Boulder City residents holding up protest signs in the shade of two trees across the parking lot from Boulder City Hall. An ad-hoc citizens group, Citizens for the Preservation of Boulder City, organized the rally to block the road, saying they were protecting the quality of life in their small historic town.

The group also gathered in support of an alternate designation of the Canamex highway that would reroute international truck traffic through Laughlin rather than Boulder City.

Mayor Bob Ferraro travels today to Washington, D.C., with City Manager John Sullard and Councilman Mike Pacini to lobby Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., for a change in the route designation. Established by Congress in 1995, the 1,500-mile route between Mexico and Canada carries about 3,500 trucks daily through Boulder City along U.S. 93.

Ferraro will take a petition signed by 3,000 Boulder City residents that asks for new legislation that would send the trucks south on U.S. 95 through Laughlin and Bullhead City, Ariz.

State and federal highway officials, some Boulder City Council members, and several Laughlin officials are opposed to the new designation. But staff members for Reid's office have downplayed the significance of the route, saying it is only a designation, and trucks could still travel through Boulder City, even if it were changed.

The route between Phoenix and Las Vegas, the two fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the West, is 23 miles shorter via Boulder City than through Laughlin.

But if residents are able to stop the dam bypass project, the whole conversation of international truck traffic could be moot.

The Federal Highway Administration announced in March final approval of plans for a 1,800-foot span just south of the Hoover Dam as a long-awaited solution to a 25-year-old bottleneck. But Fred Dexter, a Boulder City resident and member of the Sierra Club, told the crowd Tuesday that his group is about a month away from filing a lawsuit to stop the project before construction starts.

Debbie Sivas, chairman of the Stanford University law department, has agreed to take the case on a pro-bono basis in coordination with the Environmental Justice Legal Defense Fund, a group Dexter called the most powerful environmental lobbying agency in the nation.

Dexter said the highway administration illegally "segmented" the project by considering only the four-lane bridge and not acknowledging the bottleneck that will result when the bypass merges with the current two-lane roads leading to it on either side.

Residents say a bridge over the Colorado River at Laughlin would cost $75 million less to build and would pose little threat to the Colorado River. It would also preserve the small-town charm of the town that built the Hoover Dam.

"Putting the bridge next to the dam -- that would be like putting a moustache on the Mona Lisa. It's ridiculous," Ken Chipchak said.