Columnist Susan Snyder: Counties try to halt exodus

Monday, Aug. 2, 2004 | 8:11 a.m.

When the Nevada state demographer released growth projections this past spring, most attention fell on the figures that showed our valley would gain at least 1 million residents by 2024.

We wondered where these people will build homes, drive and send their children to school. We wondered how they would obtain water.

Ours was an understandably apprehensive, but myopic, view. For tucked among the figures that show huge growth spurts in Nevada's urban areas were predictions that eight Nevada counties would lose residents over the next 20 years.

Elko, Esmeralda, Eureka, Humboldt, Lander, Mineral, Storey and White Pine counties are all predicted to lose large percentages of their residents.

Some of these counties teeter on the brink of economic extinction. Others have more stable economies and population bases that could crumble with one major mine closure.

Gloomy growth projections "tend to be where they are fairly dependent on the mining industry, and that, over the long-term, looks not to be stable," Jeff Hardcastle, state demographer, said. "They've been losing since the 1990s."

One reason is that instead of opening four mines at once, some companies open them one at a time, Hardcastle said. Instead of creating jobs in four places, they move the crews from one mine to the next, creating jobs for a core group of workers.

Although the overall picture looks bleak, some counties may be able to buck the predictions. For example, Hardcastle said he is "fairly optimistic" for White Pine County, where some mining seems to be picking up and plans for building a power plant are in the works.

"The core of it is how do you diversify the economies out there?" he said.

For answers to that question, Hardcastle suggested looking to Tom Harris, a professor in the agriculture department of the University of Nevada, Reno.

Harris spends a lot of time studying what he calls the "Nevada rurals." he has seen the 2024 report but figures at least a couple of the counties, such as Elko and Eureka, could buck the trend.

"Elko has become more of a trade city competing with Twin Falls (Idaho), and with the (Newmont) mine. And Eureka is where the mines are also," Harris said. "The (mining) people in Virginia, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, they'll go back to subsistence farming. In Nevada when the mine closes, people leave."

Mining is cyclical, and it seems to be picking up a little, Harris said. But the ghost towns peppering Nevada's interior landscape show boom-and-bust is no way to build a community that lasts.

There are some prospects. Lander and Elko counties are exploring ideas for expanding tourism. Lincoln County has a proposed golf/retirement development in the works, Harris said. Mineral County could become the next Reno bedroom community.

Of course, building power plants, golf courses and expanding mining in Nevada's wild interior creates environmental issues that can challenge the outdoor tourism some communities hope to promote.

Over the next couple of months we're going to visit people in these communities to learn what they see in their futures and get a glimpse of what the picture looks like when the people stop coming.

If nothing else, it might make us careful what we wish for.