Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2002 | 8:27 a.m.
What's happening to Bob Combs stinks.
The North Las Vegas owner of R.C. Farms is facing $69,000 in fines because his pigs stink -- just as they have for the 40 years his family has raised them on the property that lies in the unincorporated area northwest of Ann and Losee roads.
"You don't build a pig farm near the city. That's why we came out here," Combs said Monday. "We used to be the only light out here at night."
That started changing when the first subdivisions popped up about 15 years ago, he said. Then, a little more than a year ago, Combs said he received his first $1,000 citation for violating air quality regulations.
Since then, Combs has been haggling with the Clark County Air Quality Department over the "odor nuisance" they say his pig farm causes. He's scheduled to contest the fines at a Sept. 25 public hearing.
Granted, pig farms aren't exactly the lemon verbena of agriculture. But all farms emit odors.
You've got manure for alfalfa fields or the sickly sweet, slightly rotting aroma of silage, which is corn fodder fermented in big piles and fed to livestock.
And, of course, there are the substances that emerge from the southern ends of north-facing farm animals (or the eastern ends of west-facing animals or the northern ends of, well, you get the idea). Other odors result from the rendering of animals that are raised for food.
Most reasonably intelligent grown-ups -- at least those who are employed and able to buy a home -- should realize that building a house next to a farm might mean living with certain smells depending on the winds of the day.
But it's amazing how often this not-in-my-new-back-yard thing happens. People move next to the airport and complain about the noise. They move into Phase I of a subdivision and gripe when the 2,000 homes of Phases II and III obstruct their views.
They move to the outskirts of a growing city seeking picket fences, open space, quiet, a pickup truck in every driveway and a swing on every porch. They want to be near farm people and the rural lifestyle -- you know, the one you see in the magazines or on the developer's drawing board.
They discover their acre lot actually has to be mowed, and it's darned inconvenient when you forget the milk and have to drive 20 minutes to the nearest store.
Eventually they realize Old MacDonald's farm smells funny, and ask him to close a lifelong business, but leave their rural lifestyle intact by not selling the land to developers who will build -- gasp -- more houses just like theirs.
The situation stinks, all right.
Combs feeds his 4,000 to 6,000 pigs table scraps from the Strip's buffets -- piggy eaters' leftovers that otherwise would end up in a landfill. Combs says he's recycling solid waste and raising food at the same time.
The 63-year-old farmer hopes to pass his 150-acre operation on to a fourth generation of Combs farmers. He's hoping next week's hearing will give him a compromise that will allow it to happen.
"Urban sprawl is what we're suffering from," Combs said. "It's easy to complain about agriculture when you have a full belly."
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