News briefs for July 26, 2002

Friday, July 26, 2002 | 11:06 a.m.

Purchase of site for high school OK'd

The Clark County School Board approved Thursday the $2.8 million purchase of a 42-acre site in Summerlin for the construction of a new high school.

The site, located on the southwest corner of Charleston Boulevard and Desert Foothills Drive, will be purchased using funds from the 1998 voter-approved Capital Improvement Program.

Growth in the northwest region made Summerlin a top priority for a future high school site, school district officials said. The new campus could be open within two years.

The school district will open six new elementary schools and one new middle school next month, and plans to open six new high schools over the next three years.

Lawmakers request funds for cleanup

Reps. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., and Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., asked for $4.1 million to move a leaky uranium mine tailing pile near Moab, Utah, away from the edge of the Colorado River, which supplies drinking water to 23 million people.

The Energy Department has said that the tailings are leaking radiation into the Colorado River, which supplies drinking water and irrigation to Nevada, Arizona and California, at a rate 1,000 times the Environmental Protection Agency's limit.

A letter signed by 15 representatives was sent Thursday to Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Sony Callahan, R-Ala., and ranking member member Peter Visclosky, D-Ind., requesting the funds.

Sentence due in car theft report

A 26-year-old Las Vegas man will be sentenced Sept. 19 on his guilty plea of making a false report of the theft of his car to collect $23,554 from an insurance company.

Deputy Attorney General Gregory Hojnowski said Sam Akopian reported his car stolen and made his claim to Allstate Insurance Company.

An investigation revealed the car was inside a shipping container with other vehicles at the Port of Los Angles destined for the United Arab Emirates.

Hojnowski said Akopian pleaded guilty to a felony count of making a false claim for insurance benefits. He faces a four-year prison term and a fine of $5,000 at sentencing before District Judge Joseph Bonaventure.

Poll: 65 percent in state oppose dump

A poll taken before Congress stamped its final approval on Yucca Mountain revealed that 65 percent of Nevadans support the state's effort to fight the nuclear waste dump. The survey said 31 percent of state residents are ready to concede the fight to make a deal with the federal government for cash or other concessions.

The state-sponsored poll of 404 people was conducted by Northwest Survey & Data Services of Eugene, Ore., June 6 through June 19.

State official seeks energy contracts

State consumer advocate Tim Hay wants regulators to force Nevada's two major electric utilities to give him copies of power purchase contracts with Duke Energy.

Nevada Power of Las Vegas and Sierra Pacific Power of Reno, subsidiaries of Sierra Pacific Resources, announced June 10 that Duke agreed to provide power to them during the peak summer months.

But the utility company has refused to disclose the contracts.

"Our main concern is the cost of the power ... that may be passed on to the ratepayers as a result of the contracts," Hay said Thursday.

Nevada Power and Sierra Pacific Power are required by law to provide his office with the information, said Hay, chief of the Attorney General's Bureau of Consumer Protection.