Las Vegas highway case has wide implications

David Kravets

Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2005 | 9:42 a.m.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Environmentalists and highway officials squared off before a federal appeals court over the widening of U.S. 95 to Las Vegas, in a case with broad implications over how transportation projects are approved.

The Sierra Club maintains that environmental laws demand that the Federal Highway Administration study air pollution that would result from widening from six to 10 lanes a five-mile stretch between the Las Vegas Strip and well-to-do bedroom communities to the northwest.

Joanne Spalding, the Sierra Club's attorney, said Monday that pollution would increase dramatically around the widening project because of thousands more vehicles traversing the widened freeway, which is one of the top congestion-relieving projects in Nevada. But she said the highway administration has not adequately studied air pollution, and its effects on neighboring school children, pregnant mothers and the elderly.

"Hundreds of children in these schools will be at the highest risk zone," Spalding told a three-judge appeals court. A study will inform the public of the risks, she said, and would require the government to possibly move schools away from the freeway and take other measures to mitigate the pollution.

But Judge A. Wallace Tashima wasn't sure whether the law required the FHA to conduct the study.

"The first question is, does the statute require those factors to be considered?" Tashima asked.

The case has attracted the attention of the transportation departments in at least eight states, which argued that the Sierra Club's position, if upheld, threatens to thwart or delay pending highway projects.

The American Road and Transportation Builder's Association agreed, and in briefs told the court that the Sierra Club's lawsuit could "set a dangerous legal precedent which could place multiple highway projects throughout the United States in jeopardy."

Highway Administration attorney Stephanie Tai said the government did explore carbon monoxide levels that the increased traffic would produce on the widened freeway, but said "data is not available" to undertake the more thorough studies demanded by the Sierra Club.

When approving the project, Tai said, "Highways reasonably considered adverse effects of pollution," but found the impacts were not enough to demand further studies or delaying the project.

The appeals court, based in San Francisco, granted the Sierra Club a temporary injunction last summer, preventing contractors from paving new lanes on the five-mile stretch. The court let drainage and sound wall work continue, pending the appellate court's decision.

The court did not indicate when it would rule.

Several hundred homes and businesses already have been demolished to make room for the widened freeway, the state's most congested, between the region's gambling hub and the sprawling bedroom communities of Summerlin and Centennial Hills.

The widening is a $160 million piece of a $450 million freeway upgrade that the Highway Administration said is intended to provide mobility and safety for 200,000 vehicles a day.

The stretch of highway was built in 1979 to handle up to 6,000 vehicles per hour. Authorities say 9,000 vehicles an hour are choking the freeway during daily rushes.