Grant from EPA will help look for petroleum waste

Wednesday, May 11, 2005 | 8:39 a.m.

The Environmental Protection Agency has awarded North Las Vegas a $200,000 grant to look for petroleum waste on downtown properties and develop a plan for its cleanup as a way to spur more redevelopment.

The city requested the grant to evaluate 700 acres in the redevelopment zone bordered by Interstate 15 to the west, Owens Avenue to the south, Cheyenne Avenue to the north and Pecos Road to the east.

The study will assess sites that once housed service stations, repair shops and auto junk yards, where hydrocarbons remain on the surface or in the ground.

This preliminary work will enable the city to seek federal funds for cleaning up the properties, which are primarily privately owned.

Kenny Young, the city's deputy director of planning and development, said the evaluation and cleanup of properties will encourage developers to acquire the sites for retail and office projects.

Some sites remain vacant because of concerns over liability and the cost of any cleanup, Young said.

"It would be just a giant uncertainty on the balance sheets for developers," said Steve Simanonok, a brownfields coordinator for the EPA. "A developer is not going to buy into that uncertainty."

The evaluation may simply be drilling holes over a former gas station to determine if tanks have leaked petroleum, Simanonok said.

In some cases soil needs to be removed, and in other cases, hydrocarbons can be treated with microbes that ultimately degrade the pollutants.

Some hydrocarbons are carcinogens, Simanonok said. They may also emit vapors that get into buildings if they are not remediated, he said.

None of the sites expected to contain hydrocarbons are a threat to groundwater, Young said. He added there may be anywhere between one and 15 sites where hydrocarbons will be found in the ground.

"We don't know the number. That is one of the reasons we have to do an assessment," Young said. "You have experts who know what they are looking for out there."