Impact of urban sprawl on wildlife feared

Thursday, Dec. 19, 2002 | 11:20 a.m.

As burgeoning Las Vegas continues to grow, federal and local officials are talking about the potential impact of urban sprawl on protected land and wildlife in the path of development, particularly in the northwest valley.

Richard Birger, Range Manager for the U.S. Department of the Interior's Fish and Wildlife Services, told the Las Vegas City Council Wednesday that "a dialogue that has been opened with city staff will enable the agencies to better work together."

The federal government's sweeping public lands act, passed and signed this fall, opened many areas for development, and that's a concern especially as future housing developments abut federally protected wildlife land, Birger said.

The new law opened large chunks of Southern Nevada to development while conserving hundreds of thousands of acres as wild lands.

Southern Nevada already has four federally protected wildlife areas, including the Desert National Wildlife Range, which has 1.6 million acres -- the largest in the 99-year-old National Wildlife Refuge System outside of Alaska.

Covering northwest Las Vegas and parts of Clark and Lincoln counties, the Desert National Wildlife Range can hold two Rhode Islands plus six Washington, D.C.s, yet "it is one of the best-kept secrets in Southern Nevada," Birger told the council.

During his report, Birger said his agency is in the midst of a two- to three-year comprehensive conservation planning process. He urged city officials to also carefully plan as the city stretches to meet the federally protected range lands.

Outside council chambers, Birger said that he does not expect the federal government and the city to see eye to eye on every issue, but he believes a healthy relationship now will get both sides through future bumps in the road.

"There are issues we will agree on and there are issues we will agree to disagree on," he said. "But we want to work closely with the city, county and developers for the best solution for coexistence. We want to reach workable solutions."

The public lands act significantly changed federal land designations in the nation's fastest-growing region as a way of reaching accord between preservationists and developers.

The lands act designated 444,000 acres in Clark County as wilderness land, expanding the Desert National Wildlife Range by nearly 26,500 acres and creating the nearly 48,500-acre Sloan Canyon National Conservation Area south of Henderson.

However, 233,000 acres of federal land now can be developed, including nearly 1,000 acres of federal land in southwest Clark County that Howard Hughes Corp. obtained by giving up more than 1,000 acres of mountain land to the Red Rock National Conservation Area.

The act also gave more than 1,200 acres near Red Rock Canyon to Clark County for hiking trails and a nature park, more than 100 acres west of McCarran International Airport for a UNLV research park and more than 500 acres northwest of U.S. 93 for the new Nevada State College in Henderson.