Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Development wins EPA award

The Environmental Protection Agency has honored a controversial Southern Nevada development - faulted by critics as sprawl-inducing - with an environmental achievement award.

Coyote Springs, a project straddling the Lincoln-Clark county line that ultimately could have 160,000 homes, received the award Monday from the EPA's Region 9 office in San Francisco. The EPA also recognized Harvey Whittemore, the powerhouse lobbyist and attorney who is the major figure behind the project, with the award.

Some environmentalists have criticized the project, planned for the desert 60 miles north of Las Vegas, for encouraging urban sprawl and consuming scarce water resources.

"You're kidding me," said Bob Fulkerson, director of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, whose group opposes the wells and pipelines proposed for the project.

"I don't know why anyone would get an award for plopping 80,000 homes down in the middle of the desert," Fulkerson said. "Maybe they'll give an award to Yucca Mountain (the proposed nuclear waste dump northwest of Las Vegas) next.

"This project ... has nothing to do with environmental stewardship and everything to do with making money."

Numerous phone calls to Whittemore and the project's representatives in Las Vegas and Sparks were not returned. In statements to the Nevada state engineer, representatives have described a project that could include up to 160,000 homes and more than a dozen golf courses in Clark and Lincoln counties. Whittemore has said he already has enough water for 80,000 homes.

Whittemore, a former state lobbyist, says he has purchased 40,000 acre-feet of water from ranchers and others in Lincoln County. He plans to ship water to the development through a pipeline planned by the Southern Nevada Water Authority.

In a written release, the EPA described the project as "committed to preserving aquatic resources."

"At every step of the way, Coyote Springs Investment has listened to concerns from the EPA and other federal agencies over the potential environmental impacts of their proposed development ... Coyote Springs International (sic) stands as a model for environmentally sensitive development in the arid West."

John Kemmerer, associate director of the EPA's water division in Region 9, said project representatives have worked closely with his agency to address concerns about its effect on water sources, especially on the Pahranagat Wash. The developers established a conservation corridor on the sensitive area, he said.

"They were extremely responsive and collaborative after they understood our concerns about the project," Kemmerer said. "CSI went a lot further, frankly, than a lot of other developments have done in avoiding impacts on water."

Kemmerer said he understands concerns about sprawl affecting the desert, but that is not an issue the EPA can directly address.

"It's not like we're in a position really to say that there cannot be construction in a certain area," he said.

Lisa Belenky, staff attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, a national environmental group, chided the EPA for failing to look at the big picture on the Coyote Springs project. The development will negatively affect wildlife habitat, fragile desert springs and increase traffic and air pollution by moving urban areas deep into the desert, she said.

"I'm glad to hear he (Whittemore) is doing good environmental design, but unfortunately the Coyote Springs project is in a very bad place," she said.

EPA representatives Lisa Fasano and Leo Kay said top officials from seven divisions in the San Francisco offices selected this year's winners from among 139 nominees in California, Nevada and Arizona.

Also to be honored at a ceremony in San Francisco today will be country singer Willie Nelson, for his promotion of clean-burning biofuel. A dust-control program in Arizona also will receive an award.

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