County pitches heliport proposal

Stephen Curran

Tuesday, June 29, 2004 | 9:35 a.m.

A 40-acre swath of land two miles south of Sloan could be the remedy for an industry that's long been the headache of many local residents, representatives of the Clark County Aviation Department said Monday evening.

The plan, pitched at a public meeting at the County Government Center, would move five of Clark County's busiest helicopter tour companies from packed McCarran International Airport to a small heliport off Interstate 15 near Sloan.

If approved by Congress, the new heliport would take shape by 2008 and would reroute the roughly 500 people a day who board private helicopters to tour uninhabited areas south of Las Vegas, including the Grand Canyon, Matt Needham, a consultant with San Francisco-based Ricondo & Associates, told the 15 people who attended the meeting.

The county is also studying a similar site three miles north, a location that is unpopular with helicopter companies because restrictions over wildlife refuges force pilots to take circuitous routes to avoid no-fly zones, making flight times longer, Needham said.

Planners also are studying a "worst-case scenario" site at the small Henderson Executive Airport near the Anthem master-planned community, a possibility that irked more than a few Anthem residents who attended the meeting.

David Berman, a spokesman for the Anthem-based citizens group Stop Helicopters Over Urban Territory, said moving helicopters to the small airfield would upset residents of the upscale community, which is popular with retirees.

"We'll just watch to make sure," Berman said of the group. "We're working hard to assure that would be the preferred (south of Sloan) site."

Needham presented the Henderson airport as an unlikely possibility, but said it was necessary to establish a benchmark for the other alternatives.

Setting the heliport so close to a high-density residential area would only mirror current problems with sending helicopters out of McCarran, because they end up competing for air space above the congested Tropicana Avenue corridor, Berman said.

"The northern route (over Anthem) is way too close," he said, noting helicopters would follow a path about a mile south of Interstate 215.

Susan Potts, conservation director for the Friends of Nevada Wilderness, wasn't happy with any alternative.

Each site, she said, was rife with possible disruptions to wildlife living east of I-15.

"For them (the airport) to be sprawling out over the valley, it's presumptive," Potts said. "We're not really satisfied with any of them."

The environmental assessment is slated to be completed by 2006, at which point Congress will review the findings and make a decision about whether to buy the land.