Rhodes begins PR campaign on gypsum mine site

Monday, May 5, 2003 | 11:11 a.m.

White vans ferried a dozen people at a time up Blue Diamond Hill southwest of Las Vegas on Sunday to see a gypsum mine that developer Jim Rhodes hopes to turn into a residential community.

Rhodes is hoping to win public support for the project. Public opposition and and some moves by government officials are threatening to stop or restrict the Rhodes' plans for the property.

So Rhodes is offering the tours as part of a public relations campaign that included a three-page full-color advertisement in the Sunday newspaper.

"That was a nice spread in the paper today," Kevin Austin, a truck driver who lives in the northern part of the Las Vegas Valley, said as the 3 p.m. tour rolled uphill.

"I just wanted to see what all the hollerin' is about," said Austin, who said he has worked in gold mines in Nevada and California.

The project is under fire because it would be bordered on three sides by the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area.

Rhodes maintains the area's natural beauty has already been marred by the mining operation and that a housing development would represent an improvement.

Public outcry to protect Red Rock and its environs has been going on for decades.

Over the years, several plans to build developments near Red Rock Canyon have been proposed, and all have failed when faced with public opposition.

Plans to build homes on the the gypsum mine, operating since 1925, are the latest to raise the public's ire.

A public hearing on Senate Bill 358 in the Legislature, sponsored by Sen. Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, is scheduled for 9 a.m. Saturday at the Grant Sawyer State Office Building, 555 E. Washington Ave., near Las Vegas Boulevard North.

Rhodes' plans hit a hurdle on Friday, when Clark County officials said reviews of his project could take a year.

A rusted sign and gatepost marked the entrance to the James Hardie Gypsum Mine property where 4,000 tons of gypsum are removed every day and 2,000 tons processed daily into wallboard.

Material from the mine "built half the homes in Los Angeles and most in Las Vegas," said Ron Talkington, who worked for the mine for years as a quality control and production manager.

The tour van stopped at a plugged drilled tunnel in the rock. It was the entrance to a nuclear bomb shelter, mined into the rock in the 1950s. Known as 41E, the shelter was 41 miles from downtown Las Vegas and was ready for city and county officials should a nuclear weapon hit Las Vegas Valley. The shelter could hold 6,570 people, but its roof has caved in, according to printed material provided on the tour.

Truckloads of gypsum chugged down a dirt road from the mine to a screening operation. Gypsum mining runs round the clock with 34 employees covering three shifts.

When he learned that officials had nixed plans for a golf course if Rhodes developed the hill, Bob Reddy was surprised.

A retired forester from Michigan, Reddy said that a housing development would remove the stigma of the mine and extend the Red Rock conservation area, covering 1,600 acres that had been disturbed by mining.

"It's time to reclaim it, either by government taxpayers' money or a different format," Reddy said. "It's a good opportunity for everyone concerned."

What concerned at least four outdoors enthusiasts on the tour is what the public didn't see.

The mine can be seen from every vantage point along the Red Rock Canyon scenic loop, Karen Hunt of the Sierra Club said.

"If homes are built on the mined property, they can be seen," she said.

"It's a total sales job," Hunt said of the bus tour.

While a couple of rare Blue Diamond cholla plants, bristling in the sun, were noted on the tour, other species were never mentioned. The Blue Diamond cholla is a candidate for the endangered species list and is listed as critical by the state, Hunt said.

Joshua trees, yucca plants, prickly pear cactus, succulents and globe mallow also are blooming on the hillsides off the mine's road.

"And the birds! I've never seen such beautiful birds," Hunt said of a recent hike on the hill.

Others worried about increased traffic on the hill. While Rhodes prefers to access the hill from the east, tying into the 215 Beltway, Sierra Club program director Gary Beckman said that increased traffic on State Route 159, leading to Spring Mountain Ranch, Bonnie Springs Ranch and Red Rock, would be inevitable.

"There's enough traffic on this road now," Beckman said as cars whizzed by the tour bus staging area.