Ivanpah airport may be delayed

Friday, Nov. 30, 2001 | 10:01 a.m.

The planned airport in the Ivanpah Valley near the California state line could be delayed by as many as four years, a Clark County Aviation Department planner said Thursday night.

Speaking at a "town hall" meeting for residents of Goodsprings, Sandy Valley and Jean, Dennis Mewshaw said the fall-off in passenger volume after the Sept. 11 attacks and economic recession will likely delay construction of the new airport, originally slated to open 2010 or 2011.

"Now our plans are to try to get it open by 2014 or 2015," he said.

The new airport would be needed when Southern Nevada's principal airport, McCarran International, reaches its projected capacity of about 55 million passengers per year. Airport officials, before the terrorist attacks and economic downturn, had expected to reach that mark in about a decade.

But McCarran has lost millions of passengers, or about 10 percent of the pre-attack volume. Mewshaw noted that no one knows how long the drop-off would last.

"It has slowed things down," he said. "The economy has slowed down a little bit. Passenger volume has slowed down a little bit."

If passenger volume suddenly picks up, airport staff could accelerate the planning process for the Ivanpah airport, he said. The additional time will give airport planners breathing room, Mewshaw said.

"We've picked up another couple of years in the development process, and that's not all bad," he said. Before, staff was prepared to do engineering and environmental studies simultaneously. The federally mandated environmental impact study was to start in 2003.

Now it will likely begin in 2004, Mewshaw said.

"Doing everything at the same time ... That's what leads to mistakes," Mewshaw told the crowd of about 50 residents.

Mewshaw said the purchase of 6,500 acres near Jean for the airport, just a few miles north of the California state line, will probably occur this spring as planned. The federal Bureau of Land Management will set the price of the property, but planners have said they expect it to cost between $10 million and $15 million, based on a fair market price for the land.

Clark County residents attended the town hall meeting, hosted by Commissioner Erin Kenny, who represents the area, weren't all in favor of the planned airport.

Liz Warren, chairwoman of the Sandy Valley Citizens Advisory Council, said she was appalled by proposals to massively increase the number of roadway lanes to the airport area.

Mewshaw said Interstate 15 could be widened from six to 18 lanes, Las Vegas Boulevard parallel to the interstate could be widened from two to six lanes, and Rainbow Boulevard, now a road on the west side of the Las Vegas Valley, could be extended all the way south to the airport area.

"Why don't we just pave the whole south end of the county and be done with it?" Warren asked sarcastically.

Warren said more should be done now, early in the planning process, to encourage mass transit such as light rail. Mass transit would limit the number of cars that have to drive to the new airport and would cause less air pollution, she said.

Mewshaw said planners are forecasting -- optimistically -- that 10 percent of future Ivanpah airport passengers will use mass transit. He said that will still mean millions of passengers will need to use cars and shuttles to get to and from the new airport.

Other planners from various agencies painted a picture of development that would have a huge impact on the small communities now in the area. About 2,000 people now live in Sandy Valley, Goodsprings and nearby, according to the 2000 Census.

But Jerry Walters, a senior planner with Clark County Comprehensive Planning, said the area could eventually be home to 40,000 people by build out in 2040.

He warned that the number could go even higher if developers are able to secure large amounts of land in the area.

Harold Driskel, a construction consultant who lives in Goodsprings, said he doesn't want to stop growth in the area, but he wants to make sure it happens logically.

"You're not going to stop growth," he said.

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