Planned shooting range not given priority by panel

Benjamin Grove

Thursday, Feb. 24, 2005 | 10:49 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The planned Clark County shooting range was not ranked as a top-tier priority by a review panel of federal and local government officials.

The county requested $33.6 million in an effort to finish the project by 2007, but the review panel recommended the project not be funded this year, ranking it 37 on a list of 96 projects.

But the panel recommendation still has a long way to travel through a bureaucratic process before it is approved by Interior Secretary Gale Norton.

"It's not a final decision by any means," Bureau of Land Management spokeswoman Kirsten Cannon said. "It is the first of many steps in the process."

The Clark County Commission on Tuesday is expected to pass a resolution asking the review panel to reconsider.

"Our intention is to work with them to see what we can do to keep the project moving forward," assistant county manager Virginia Valentine said.

The commission strongly supports the 2,800-acre shooting range for safety and environmental reasons, she said.

"What you have now, because there is no where for them to go, is a lot of shooters just going out into the desert," Valentine said.

Shooting range funding comes from the proceeds of federal land sales in Clark County. Under the 1998 Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act, federal land is auctioned, with some profits set aside for conservation and other land projects.

An 11-member panel annually makes recommendations about how land sale profits should be spent. This year the panel reviewed and ranked 96 project proposals. The group, meeting Feb. 9, did not rank the shooting range as one of the "top tier" projects in line for $227 million in funding this year.

The group typically keeps its proposals under wraps before recommendations are ready for public comment.

It was not immediately clear why the first review panel did not recommend the shooting range for funding. But the panel may have had some reservations about proposals for developing shooting range buildings on the land, Valentine said.

About $15.8 million has been allocated to the project so far. The total cost of the project will be roughly $60 million, county officials said.

The review panel includes representatives of Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, Clark County, Henderson, Southern Nevada Water Authority, Clark County Flood Control District, plus a water reclamation official and representatives of four federal agencies that manage federal land in the state -- the Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife, the Forest Service and the National Park Service.

Panel recommendations are sent to a seven-member group representing the four agencies, plus the state of Nevada, a "local and regional" representative and a rural Nevada representative. That group reviews the spending recommendations and makes recommendations of its own.

Proposals are then reviewed by a third group -- a four-member panel made up of the Nevada directors of the four federal agencies. Then the matter is put to a 60-day public comment period. Finally, the Interior Secretary must approve the proposal.