Sunday, June 4, 2006 | 7:32 a.m.
The evidence has been clear all along regarding the folly of plans to build a regional shopping center in Henderson next door to industrial plants that store and use hazardous chemicals. Nonetheless, the Henderson City Council seems bent on trying to find a way to justify the proposed development, which could earn the city $50 million in property taxes over the next 19 years.
It is not as if there haven't been accidents at the Basic Management Inc. industrial site before. For instance, in 1991 a large area of Henderson was evacuated when Pioneer Chlor Alkali released between 40 to 70 tons of chlorine. About 300 people were sickened by the toxic cloud.
The City Council, which could vote as soon as Tuesday to approve the 725,000 square feet of office space, retail stores and restaurants at the corner of West Lake Mead Parkway and Water Street, has hired a consultant to determine whether this can be safely done. The Sun's Brian Wargo wrote Friday that it wasn't clear if the study would be completed in time for Tuesday's meeting, but the fact is there was no need for the study in the first place. If the Henderson City Council would simply listen to local safety officials, they would know that approving a shopping center near these industrial plants is unsafe.
The city's emergency management coordinator, Mike Cyphers, believes Henderson should carry on the long-time practice of the Clark County Commission, which has considered the land near the industrial plants as a buffer to the chemical plants. Unlike the throngs that a shopping center would bring, the land next to the industrial plants should be limited to industrial purposes and light manufacturing, which obviously would result in fewer people.
Further, if there were an accidental chemical release or an explosion, those who worked at a nearby industrial plant would immediately know how to react and take necessary precautions. Imagine the chaos, and potential loss of life, if a catastrophic accident occurred during the middle of a weekend day with stores packed with customers, who obviously wouldn't know how to respond. Most likely, they would panic, making the situation even worse.
If the City Council were to approve the plan, Cyphers believes the city should require the shopping center's developer to set up sensors along the boundaries of the 73-acre site to detect any dangerous chemicals that might be emitted, setting off sirens and flashing lights in the event of an accident. This in turn would activate a system that would automatically lock outside doors until any chemical cloud had dissipated.
Cyphers acknowledges that panic could ensue under such a safety system, but he contends it is the only option to make sure that people are protected until firefighters and hazardous materials experts arrive. That the city might have to go to such extreme measures to protect shopping customers further validates just how ridiculous it is to put a retail center next to an industrial plant.
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