BLM land sale focus of public meetings

Monday, Oct. 18, 2004 | 9:40 a.m.

The federal Bureau of Land Management will hold a series of meetings beginning this evening to seek public comment on the sale for potential development of almost 50,000 acres in the Las Vegas Valley.

The bureau's Las Vegas field office will hold three days of public meetings as part of its effort to write an environmental impact statement on the sale. The environmental impact statement is required as part of the Clark County land act of 2002, federal legislation that amended the earlier Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act of 1998 that expanded by about 22,000 acres the "disposal boundary" of land available for development.

The environmental impact statement will consider the sale of 46,700 acres. The sale has potential impacts on desert habitat for rare animals and plants, among them the desert tortoise, Las Vegas bearpoppy, burrowing owls, Gila monsters and big horn sheep.

Surveyors for the federal government also identified 100 archeological sites, 69 of which were recorded for the first time. One of the sites, in Tule Springs, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

According to the BLM, surveyors also found 438 previously unrecorded sites of potential interest to paleontologists where fossils could provide clues about life during the Ice Age in the Mohave Desert.

The increase in federal land available for development and other uses has been a divisive issue for environmentalists, developers and others. Developers, including home builders, want more land available to cut the price of land. Developers blame limits of the amount of land available from the federal government for increases in land prices, which has translated into higher prices for new homes.

Environmentalists, however, say they are concerned that critical habitat could be affected by more aggressive sales.

BLM officials say they will protect important habitat while fulfilling the goals of the 1998 and 2002 legislation.

The three meetings all run from 5 to 8 p.m. today, Tuesday and Wednesday. The first meeting will be at the BLM Las Vegas Field Office, 4701 N. Torrey Pines Drive, Las Vegas. The Tuesday meeting will be at the Henderson Convention Center, 200 S. Water Street, Henderson. Wednesday's meeting will be at the North Las Vegas Library, 2300 Civic Center Drive, North Las Vegas.

For information, call 515-5097.