Environmental groups try to stop Lincoln County land deal

Jace Radke

Thursday, June 27, 2002 | 8:41 a.m.

Environmental groups filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday to stop the Bureau of Land Management from auctioning off 6,500 acres in Lincoln County.

The land is part of 13,000 acres just north of Mesquite that was authorized for sale by Congress in 2000, but the lawsuit filed in Reno alleges that the BLM's environmental impact study did not take into account the cumulative effects of pollution if the land is developed.

"They didn't follow the National Environmental Policy Act and analyze the cumulative impacts that this land sale will have on air quality," said Chris Krupp, attorney for the Western Land Exchange Project, one of the plaintiffs in the suit. "The BLM's environmental assessment fails to even identify a water source for development there."

The Center for Biological Diversity and the Committee for Idaho's High Desert have joined in the suit with the Western Land Exchange, a nonprofit organization that monitors federal land sales in Western states.

The land, about 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas, went up for auction in October, but only 112 acres were sold, to the disappointment of Lincoln County commissioners.

Developers at the auction said there were too many unresolved questions about the land, including the lack of infrastructure and materials, and concerns about lack of water.

Another attempt to sell the land has not yet been scheduled, but Lincoln County officials are confident there will be takers. Officials say that future development of the land could quadruple the population of Lincoln County, which the 2000 Census listed at a little more than 4,100.

That kind of growth is what could cause more air quality problems for Southern Nevada, Janine Blacloch, director of the Western Land Exchange, said.

"This is just one of a slew of land deals that have put many thousands of federal acres in the hands of Nevada developers," Blacloch said. "The government needs to slow down and look some issues in the face before any more federal land is relinquished."

Two weeks ago U.S. District Judge Lloyd George denied a request for an injunction to stop a 216-acre land sale in Las Vegas despite a plaintiff's claims that the BLM did not take into account cumulative air quality.

George ruled that the BLM had sufficiently studied the cumulative effects of pollution from the sale and development of the land. The sale is tentatively scheduled for the end of July BLM, officials said.