Garcia praises highway resolution

Stephen Curran

Tuesday, June 28, 2005 | 11:14 a.m.

Workers could begin laying asphalt for an expansion of U.S. 95 this fall, ending what state and federal officials worried could become a never-ending string of lawsuits to threaten massive road projects nationwide, transportation officials said Monday.

The agreement, struck last week and signed Monday, ended what had become a tense standoff between the Sierra Club and state and federal governments. The deal paves the way for the $370 million project to move forward after being delayed more than a year.

But just what it means for similar projects nationwide appeared up for debate on Monday as government and Sierra Club officials touted the settlement as a necessary and important compromise.

Mary E. Peters, the federal highway administrator, said in August she believed the ongoing action could create a legal quagmire that could threaten similar projects nationwide.

On Monday she doubted the settlement would mean an end for similar challenges and added that it did not mean the federal government agreed with the Sierra Club's claims.

"What we're saying is that there's a lot of things we don't know," Peters said. " ... But I don't think the court is the best place to form public policy."

In the deal, the state and federal governments agree to set aside several million dollars to install pollution monitoring and air filtration systems at Western High School, Fyfe and Adcock elementary schools. The state's share alone could come to more than $3 million, most of which is eligible for federal reimbursement, state Transportation Director Jeff Fontaine said.

The state is likely to begin lining up contractors to perform the work along the five-mile stretch of highway as early as next month, he said. The new schedule means the project could be complete by the end of 2007.

Meanwhile the prolonged legal battle had become a public relations struggle for the environmental advocacy group, which had become a target for drivers left stuck in gridlock, Southern Nevada conservation coordinator Jane Feldman said.

Still, Feldman said she was pleased with the settlement, although it was admittedly an imperfect agreement.

"You can talk about smart growth, you can talk about transportation choice, but the truth is you're not going to get everything," she said while standing in front of Fyfe Elementary. "... If I had my way all of these (neighboring) houses would have air monitors."

Sierra Club attorneys filed a lawsuit in 2002 against the agencies, claiming they failed to take into account detrimental health effects for those living near what would become a 10-lane freeway planners say could eventually carry 300,000 cars.

The suit led to a flood of phone calls, e-mails and newspaper editorials calling the action stupid and short-sighted, Feldman said. A 2003 article appearing in USA Today even quoted Gov. Kenny Guinn threatening to erect billboards along the route that say, "Traffic congestion brought to you by the Sierra Club" if the group had been successful in further delaying the project.

"There was quite a bit of negative media coverage," Feldman said. "A lot of it was really sensational."

Clark County Commissioner Lynette Boggs McDonald, who along with Clark County Commission Chairman Rory Reid helped broker the deal, said the uncertainty brought by the lawsuit will likely prompt the board to introduce an ordinance creating a uniform standard for how close public schools can be to busy highways.

The move, she said, would prevent future projects from winding up in the courts.

"The U.S. 95 widening project is too important to the overall quality of life to let the courts deal with it," Boggs McDonald said. "... This means a critical project can go forward and the gridlock can end."

Early proposals from the Sierra Club called for moving all three public schools into new facilities farther from the freeway, an idea quickly dismissed by government officials as too unwieldy and expensive, Clark County Schools Superintendent Carlos Garcia said.

Like Garcia, who said he was uncertain whether the fumes were as harmful as the Sierra Club claims, Fyfe teacher Catherine Wiegand said any increased pollution was unlikely to cause trouble to any of her students, as a noise wall already in place blocks most of the sound and fumes, she said.

"(It won't hurt) any more than the second-hand smoke in the backseat," Wiegand said of the number of children whose parents smoke. "It's a reality check. We all drive on the freeway."

Garcia said he came to the bargaining table about five months ago and praised the settlement, without which the school district could not have afforded to make the necessary improvements to the schools and buses.

"I think it's win-win," he said. "We didn't know we were involved in this process. If we have an opportunity to take this money we'll take it."