Three agencies could agree on airport studies

Monday, March 14, 2005 | 10:36 a.m.

Southern Nevada would take a big step toward building a new 5,800-acre airport 30 miles south of Las Vegas with a three-agency agreement to be considered by the Clark County Commission on Tuesday.

A four-page memorandum of understanding would set up the framework for the Clark County Aviation Department, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Bureau of Land Management to move forward with performing the required environmental studies for the planned airport in the Ivanpah Valley, near Jean and the California state line.

"It is the first step on the road to doing the environmental impact statement," said Dennis Mewshaw, aviation department planning manager. "This sort of sets up the relationship ground rules that by congressional mandate have to be part of the EIS (environmental impact statement) process."

An EIS is a thorough review required by federal law under the National Environmental Policy Act. Its less-intensive regulatory sibling is an environmental assessment. The size and scope of the project, as well as the 2000 enabling legislation behind the Ivanpah airport, require the more detailed EIS.

"Undoubtedly, this is going to be an extremely complex document," Mewshaw said. "We're assuming (it will take) three to four years to draft the full document. The EIS document will have to cover all those project elements we will have to construct to get the airport open."

Among the issues that the study will have to examine will be the need for additional travel lanes along Interstate 15 from Las Vegas to the Ivanpah Valley, development of the airport itself, its main terminal and hanger buildings, ancillary buildings, even the "dirt and gravel work" that must be done.

Although Clark County will ultimately pay for the study, the FAA and the BLM, "as joint lead agencies" identified in the memorandum of understanding, will select a contractor to prepare the study.

Donn Walker, FAA spokesman, said the agency typically takes a lead role in the development of new airports.

"It's not just by enabling legislation," Walker said. "We have to do detailed environmental studies on any new airport. We have to know what kind of impact any new airport will have on the area it's in."

He said the FAA understands the need for a new airport as McCarran International Airport nears its capacity point. McCarran, the country's sixth busiest airport, is expected to take in more than 40 million passengers this year. It could reach its maximum capacity of 55 million people annually within a few years.

But last year, the county took another of several critical steps forward with developing the new airport to relieve McCarran when it purchased the 5,800 acres from the federal government for $20.7 million last year.

The BLM also will play a role as outlined in the memorandum of understanding, said Kirsten Cannon, BLM spokeswoman. She said her agency is involved because planning for such needs as transportation and utility corridors, rights of way for water and power will go over BLM land in the desert.

The study outlined in the memorandum of understanding is different from the land-use planning for a larger 17,000-acre swath around the planned Ivanpah airport, Mewhaw noted. County Commission Lynette Boggs McDonald and her colleagues have said they want to see comprehensive planning for the region around the planned new airport to avoid land-use conflicts.

Mewshaw said the memorandum is just one more step in the process, but a critical one.

"If we don't trip over ourselves, the hope is that the environmental process will be concluded and we can begin construction about in 2010," he said. "That will enable us to open the airport in 2017...This is the next step in that process. We still feel we're still, schedule-wise, on track. This is another major bridge that we're going over."