Thursday, April 21, 2005 | 11:07 a.m.
The figures drawn on the red sandstone cliffs of Little Red Rock include horses, images of bear paws and a shamanistic figure wearing a horned headdress. They are evidence of the American Indian presence in Southern Nevada dating back hundreds of years before Columbus.
And those images and related evidence of ancient human habitation in the cliffs west of Las Vegas are complicating Howard Hughes Corp.'s efforts to develop the 8,000-acre, 30,000-home Summerlin West.
Everyone, including Hughes Corp., and Friends of Red Rock Canyon, a volunteer group, agrees that the cultural artifacts, particularly the petroglyphs painted onto rock walls, need to be protected. Hughes Corp., which owns the land on the eastern edge of the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, has set aside 75 acres that contain petroglyphs and other cultural resources and another 200 acres along dry washes with evidence of ancient human activity.
There may be more that needs protecting in the area, however. Under federal law, the developer has to show the Army Corps of Engineers that cultural resources are thoroughly inventoried, or documented, in the area, and any sites that could merit inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places have to be investigated.
The trigger for additional inventory work comes from the Nevada State Historic Preservation Office, which cited a Las Vegas amateur archeologist who says he has found more roasting pits and rock art in the area.
Alice M. Baldrica, deputy director of the state office, said in an April 5 letter to the Corps of Engineers that sensitive areas not inventoried by a Hughes Corp. consultant should be viewed by a professional archaeologist.
"It at least does cause some additional delay while we're resolving the issues," said Andrew J. Rosenau, Corps of Engineers project representative out of the agency's Sacramento office.
"It is a process. We are working with them (Hughes Corp.) to resolve the issues that have been identified. The issue is resolving that in a timely manner."
Patty Johnson, Corps of Engineers district archeologist, said the delay is likely to be minimal -- perhaps just a couple of days on a permit that Hughes Corp. has been working on for more than 18 months.
"The only thing that is an issue is 20 to 40 acres that has to be surveyed," Johnson said. "That is pretty minimal compared to the size of the whole project."
Hughes Corp. could protest the additional survey work, but Johnson noted that the company has thus far complied with all the requests for such inventories.
A number of surveys have already been completed. There were four archaeological surveys of the area from 1999 to 2004, and the Corps of Engineers said in a March 3 letter that the Hughes Corp. should hire an ethnographer to work with seven tribes, including the Kaibab Paiutes, the Las Vegas Tribal Council, Hopis, the Moapa Band of Paiutes and the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah.
Tom Warden, Hughes Corp. spokesman, said the ethnographic work is completed and the information is going to the Corps of Engineers.
In the survey, an ethnographer took spiritual leaders or tribal elders to the sites to determine the significance of the figures or artifacts.
Warden said Hughes Corp. has not been formally informed by the Corps of Engineers that more work is needed. A March 3 letter appeared to give the company the go-ahead for the permit, he said.
"We don't know anything other than that at this point," he said.
He also emphasized that the area at issue was surveyed already.
The Summerlin West project would extend Summerlin, one of the country's most successful master-planned communities, into the hills on the edge of the national conservation area, an area that was once owned by Hughes Corp.
While development is already under way in some parts of the Summerlin West project, construction nearby the already inventoried cultural artifacts is "potentially eight years or more" away, Warden said. Nonetheless, the company is eager to resolve the issues and have a permit for development in hand.
"It is necessary to get it squared away," Warden said. "We've been working on this for a year and a half. That is a long time to work on a permit. We look forward to a resolution at the earliest possible date."
Ultimately, the Corps of Engineers controls the timeline, he noted.
"This decision is the federal agency's call. The corps made that call in a March 3rd letter, and they based it on input from professional archaeologists."
In that letter the Corps of Engineers "agreed that the area has been surveyed appropriately," Warden said.
"This has involved a long, permitting process that started back in October 2003," Warden said.
"The process is in their hands."
Five sites in the Little Red Rock area have been nominated for the National Register of Historic Places by the Army Corps and the Nevada State Historic Preservation Office. However, Baldrica said that further research in the area is necessary to decide on their cultural or religious significance.
Don Hendricks of Las Vegas, a long-time resident and amateur petroglyph admirer, has urged the Southern Nevada developer and federal agencies to expand efforts to preserve the site, which he said may be richer in artifacts and ancient sites than either Red Rock Canyon or Sloan Canyon south of Henderson.
"It's certainly got more roasting pits than any other site in the valley," Hendricks said.
Hendricks and volunteers have sent letters recommending adding Little Red Rock to the National Historic Trust as one of America's most endangered sites or as a state endangered site.
Rebecca Palmer, a state historic preservation specialist, said communication between her office and the Corps of Engineers, and between the two agencies and Hughes Corp., is not indicative of conflict or controversy but is part of the regular consultation process called for in federal law.
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