Accountability called key to pollution-control plans

Wednesday, March 16, 2005 | 9:51 a.m.

Local environmentalists say that despite a failed program to allow businesses to pollute Las Vegas Valley air in exchange for paving roads to reduce dust, Clark County should aim at removing more pollutants for public health.

The controversial credits program was initiated in 1987 and stopped in 2001. It allowed companies to earn or purchase credits to offset, or cap, their own particulate pollution by paving well-traveled dirt roads in the valley.

"Clearly, if any cap and trade system is in place, accountability is absolutely essential," said Dan Geary, the Nevada representative of the National Environmental Trust that specializes in air pollution control.

Southern Nevada has been "challenged" when it comes to cleaning up the air, Geary said.

Since the federal Clean Air Act specifically focuses on protecting public health, the end result of any local pollution control program depends on air monitoring, Geary said.

"You're going to have to reduce pollution. Local governments need to spend less time on cap and trade programs and hold industries more accountable," Geary said.

A county audit discovered that the air pollution control program operated by the Clark County Health District kept such sloppy records that auditors could not trace how many credits were traded or the amount of funding involved.

The credit program was killed on March 1 when amended local air quality rules were approved by the Clark County Commission to bring the county in line with a federal mandate to reduce dust in the valley.

After a criminal investigation in 2000, former head of the health district's air quality division, Michael Naylor, was exonerated. The investigation concluded he did not intentionally violate the law. The county took control of the program in 2001.

Many roads in the southwest valley were paved as a result of the program, said John Hiatt, Enterprise Town Board member and an environmental activist.

"I believe the county had the program to pave roads to reduce dust," Hiatt said. "Michael Naylor was a very nice guy, but not a good administrator."

As long as growth continues in the valley, voluntary programs to curb pollution for industries won't work, said Jane Feldman of the Sierra Club.

"If voluntary programs would work, we wouldn't have a problem," Feldman said.

County auditor Jeremiah P. Carroll said in a cover letter to county Manager Thom Reilly in December that the health district's former program "appeared to be a mismanaged road construction funding program as opposed to a federal emission reduction credit program."

The health district had trouble tracking files in its computer system, the data was not secure, roads were measured incorrectly leading to companies gaining greater credit than they deserved, and pollutants other than dust were traded, according to the report.

Because of changes to the law, bringing the county into compliance with the federal mandate to clean up dust, roads once paved through the emissions trade program now must be paved according to traffic volume by developers or property owners.

County managers recognized that the defunct emissions trade program was so complex it brought plenty of criticism, county principal management analyst Michael Uhl said.

"Yes, the program did have its issues," Uhl said.

While the internal county audit was concerned with historical issues from the health district's program, county managers recognized there was a problem three years ago, Uhl said.

"We also recovered what files we could," Uhl said. His job entailed reducing over-inflated credits to developers and companies in the program that will end in 2006.

Companies have until 2006 to trade or sell the credits they have, but the companies cannot accrue any more credits.

The county's approach brought the program under federal rules to actually reduce pollution.