Report: Ammonia threat will not affect Tuscany

Dan Kulin

Monday, May 12, 2003 | 9:22 a.m.

Fears of a possible ammonia leak from an ice cream plant have blocked plans to develop one residential neighborhood in Henderson but won't halt the nearby Tuscany development, officials from the city and developers said Thursday.

In an April 30 letter to the Tuscany developers, City Attorney Shauna Hughes wrote that after receiving an analysis from an environmental consulting company "no changes to the Tuscany project are necessary."

Hughes said she would not know why Tuscany wasn't affected while the other proposed development was until she sees the final report from the consulting company Environ. The report should be completed by the end of the month, she said.

The Tuscany development includes plans for a public golf course and 1,937 homes on about 540 acres along Olsen Street near Calico Ridge in eastern Henderson.

Across Olsen sits a Good Humor-Breyers Ice Cream plant, which uses about 99,000 pounds of ammonia gas in its refrigeration process. A city analysis of a potential leak of 6,600 pounds of the gas was the primary reason for the City Council's rejection of a residential development plan for 20.5 acres adjacent to the plant. That land is also known as Eagle Rock.

City officials said the ice cream plant has an excellent safety record, but council members said they did not want to put more residents close to a potential health threat.

A diagram of a theoretical toxic plume of ammonia gas coming from the plant, which was presented at the March 18 council meeting, showed the plume covering all of the proposed 84 homes in Eagle Rock plus about 200 existing homes in Calico Ridge. The plume also covered part of the planned Tuscany development.

In early April, Holden Development Co., which proposed the residential neighborhood at Eagle Rock, filed a lawsuit asking the court to declare the council's decision arbitrary and discriminatory.

Holden representatives have said the ammonia fears were a "red herring" and if the city was truly afraid of an ammonia leak the ice cream plant would have been shut down and other nearby residential developments would not have been allowed.

City officials said the possibility of an ammonia leak was not considered when Tuscany was approved by the council, so the mayor and council asked staff to see if Tuscany needed to be changed in light of the new information.

Bob Unger, president of McKenna companies, which is managing the Tuscany development for Commerce Associates, said the news the ice cream plant might affect Tuscany "came out of left field for me."

But development plans can continue to move forward now that the city has said the plans don't need to be changed, he said.

The Tuscany golf course is scheduled to open June 14, and some homes will be completed in a year, Unger said.