Editorial: Let’s learn from our mistakes this time

Tuesday, June 25, 2002 | 8:50 a.m.

The developers of the Apex Industrial Park are considering a dramatic change: They want county approval to build a master planned community even though the area is only supposed to house high-risk manufacturing plants. Apex has noted that the residential area would be built at the southern edge of the industrial park, with a mountain range separating the factories from the homes. Company officials say this natural buffer would protect the residents in the event of an explosion at Kerr-McGee's ammonium perchlorate plant. Still, the whole intent of the industrial park was to get as far away from neighborhoods as possible after the 1988 explosion at the Pacific Engineering & Production Co. of Nevada.

That explosion at the plant, which produced the rocket-fuel oxidizer ammonium perchlorate, killed two people, injured 350 and caused $70 million in property damage. Government decided this should never happen again and helped set up the industrial park for potentially dangerous plants. The Clark County Commission should stick to its guns and turn down efforts by Apex to allow for residential development there. Once the camel gets its nose under the tent, then there very likely will be future requests to expand the residential development further, inching even closer to the plants.