Ensign asks Interior Department to look into McCarran land deal

Benjamin Grove

Thursday, Feb. 3, 2005 | 9:36 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., on Wednesday asked the Interior Department's inspector general to investigate a controversial Clark County land deal.

Ensign wants to know if taxpayers were bilked in a deal in which 38 acres of federal land was transferred to the Clark County Aviation Department as part of McCarran International Airport's noise plan, and then sold two years ago to a developer -- who re-sold the land for a $5 million profit.

The land was transferred as part of the Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act, a 1998 law designed to create a comprehensive land sale and land use plan in Clark County. The Interior Department and its Bureau of Land Management administer the law.

Ensign, a primary author of the law, stressed to Inspector General Earl E. Devaney, that the land act requires land to be sold at fair market value. He noted that Clark County had advertised the 38 acres as restricted for use as a cemetery but did not include the restriction in the deed, which allowed the buyer, developer Scott Gragson, to sell the land at a higher price.

Residents of the unincorporated town of Enterprise have said they were promised a cemetery on the land but later discovered it was rezoned for commercial use.

"It is important that the clean track record of this innovative legislation be preserved through your careful examination, and that taxpayers continue to receive the highest monetary compensation possible when federal lands are transferred to private parties," Ensign wrote to the inspector general.

Ensign recommended Devaney work with the county, which has already started an audit investigation of its land deal policies. Ensign also recommended that future airport land be sold in competitive auction. Much of the federal land that is sold under the 1998 lands act is sold at auction.

County officials have said they plan to sell future land in competitive auctions.