Airport might bring windfall of growth

Thursday, May 24, 2001 | 10:55 a.m.

The planned Ivanpah Valley Airport may bring more than just cargo and passenger flights to southern Clark County.

County planners also are quietly investigating the possibility of building a water pipeline to serve new residential communities and commercial development along Interstate 15 to the California border.

The Ivanpah airport was authorized in October by legislation signed by President Clinton. The law calls for the Bureau of Land Management to sell 6,500 acres between Jean and Primm, near the border and about 30 miles south of Las Vegas, for airport development.

Clark County Comprehensive Planning Department staff see the opportunity to build residential communities and ancillary commercial development for the estimated 9,000 workers the airport will need.

"We're just starting to get into it," Assistant Planning Manager Rod Allison said.

Allison's colleague, Senior Planner Dionicio Gordillo, said more land will probably be needed to house the workers.

Planners would like to put residential development near the airport to avoid thousands of commuters filling I-15. That scenario would spell problems for regional agencies, which are under a federal mandate to control air pollution -- especially pollution from cars such as the kind that would ferry thousands from the planned airport to the urban center.

Already, light industrial development is anticipated near the airport.

"If we develop all this commercial out there without residential, we're going to clog up I-15," Gordillo said.

The development also could require a water pipeline from Las Vegas. Such a line could support development along the interstate.

Regional water agencies are "gearing up to bring water to the area," Allison said. "They want to have water by 2006."

Allison said some residential developers are expressing interest in building communities in the south part of Clark County, now home to a handful of small communities in hundreds of square miles of desert.

Phil Guerrero, BLM spokesman, confirmed that developers have contacted his agency.

"There is pressure in the valley to grow south on I-15," he said. "What we don't want to see is piecemeal growth. We want to see organized growth. We stand ready to support orderly growth."

There is land available for that growth. Under the 1998 BLM Resource Management Plan, the federal government proposes to sell 2,445 acres around Jean, 915 acres around Goodsprings and 1,181 acres around Primm for development. That land could support homes for thousands within a short commute of the Ivanpah airport.

More land could come through the federal process, which may include legislation in Congress.

"Perhaps because of the Ivanpah legislation, it would be appropriate to see if more land is needed for growth," Guerrero said. The communities of Jean, Primm, Sandy Valley and Goodsprings use local ground water. Planners don't believe there is enough of that to supply the anticipated need if the residential and commercial development materializes.

Staffers with regional water agencies say it is too early to say a water line will definitely be needed.

"We're in the middle of studying what we're going to be requiring as a result of the proposed BLM land exchanges and new Ivanpah airport," said Laura Jacobsen, planning manager with the Las Vegas Valley Water District. "If we're talking about putting in an airport and lots of people, you could expect that additional water would be necessary," she said.

Gordillo said it could cost more than $26 million to bring a water line to Jean.

Dennis Mewshaw, Clark County Aviation Department planning manager, doesn't doubt that a water line will one day serve the airport. That water line won't only serve the airport, but also development along the I-15 corridor, he predicted.

Development has historically followed water in Southern Nevada, Mewshaw said.

The airport is expected to open in 2010 or 2011, although that timetable could change, he said.

By 2035, Mewshaw predicted the Ivanpah airport would have 30 million passengers annually -- equal to the number that McCarran International Airport now serves.

The idea of developing the I-15 corridor has advocates, including Frank Tussing, executive director of Nevada Alliance for Defense, Business and Energy, a technologically oriented industry group that argues the new airport could help diversify the local economy.

Tussing said he hasn't heard much about a water line to Jean. But he believes development along the interstate corridor is inevitable.

And with industry slated to be adjacent to the Ivanpah airport, it is "very likely people would be looking at the necessity of some residential development," Tussing said.

"If well managed and well planned, it makes good sense," he said.

But the idea of water lines and residential and commercial development in southern Clark County leaves environmentalists cold. They argued against the legislation authorizing the airport in the first place.

One of their arguments was that the airport would lead to "sprawl" along I-15 to California.

"We knew this was going to happen, but it still hurts to hear it," Peggy Pierce, co-chairwoman of the local Sierra Club's conservation committee, said.

She said the development envisioned by county planners raises a many questions.

"If you're talking about sprawl to California, it's hard to know where the water comes from," Pierce said. "Besides the business community, who thinks this is a good idea?"

The environmental-impact assessments being done by the Aviation Department should include the impact of residential and commercial development sparked by the Ivanpah airport, she said.

"The environmental assessment should include absolutely anything that anybody is talking about anywhere," Pierce said. "If this sort of thing is being planned, they have to answer these questions now, not when the ground is being broken."

Guerrero said federal policies and the county's habitat plan for threatened species, such as the desert tortoise, would ensure that the environment is protected.

"We believe we can have orderly growth along the I-15 corridor and at the same time protect these species," he said. "Every requirement of the environmental rules and regulations will be followed."

The possibility of large residential and commercial development is not a new prospect for people who live nearby, said Mary Elizabeth Warren, chairwoman of the Goodsprings Citizens Advisory Council. The council gives advice on land use issues to the Clark County commissioners.

Warren said that advice isn't always appreciated. She said people in her community are opposed to large development of any kind along the I-15 corridor and the Ivanpah airport -- but those concerns might not make a difference.

"The story of the water pipeline has been in the pipeline for a long time. It is a done deal," Warren said. "The timing of it is not."

Goodsprings has 232 people, according to the 2000 Census, though it historically has been at the geographic and political heart of the southwest quadrant of the county, Warren said.

But for decades, county, state and federal policymakers have overlooked the needs and concerns of people in Goodsprings, she said. It makes her worry that development could have a huge effect on her small community.

Gordillo and Allison said they will try to minimize the impact any development has on Goodsprings and other communities nearby.

And the county planners say that, for now, nothing is definitively planned for the area. The water line, the residential communities, the industrial development and the airport itself are all still in nascent stages.

There also have been a few problems regarding plans that have been sketched out.

One is that land that could have once been used for residential development may be off-limits. Recently updated "noise contours," corridors in which the sound of planes leaving and arriving from the airport prohibit residential development, would affect land that had been targeted for homes.

Planners say they believe the government will provide more land for development outside the 60-decibel threshold, which would bar significant residential development inside the 6,500 acres of the original land sale.

"We don't want houses going up around the airport," Mewshaw said. "If housing does occur in this corridor, we'd prefer they happen north of where Jean is today."

A potential spot developers are eyeing -- at the intersection of I-15 and State Route 160, the road to Goodsprings -- "would not present a noise problem," Mewshaw said.

Planners with the county say noise and environmental concerns can be overcome.

"We're going to get by that," Gordillo said.

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