Homes coming, so homeless must go, then tainted soil follows

By Timothy Pratt

Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2007 | 7:34 a.m.

Don Lampley, a lean 6-footer with a Texas A&M cap and a ready barb, came walking out of the tamarisk brush as the sun inched above the hills behind him.

"The dirt actually sparkles when you burn it," he said, motioning all around him. "It's real pretty."

Lampley says he's been living among the sprawling trees, dirt and ditches, otherwise known as the LandWell Restoration Project, for three years.

He's among dozens of homeless men and women settled on patches of 2,200 acres in Henderson, soon to become the largest brownfield cleanup in Nevada history.

Lampley says "you don't have to be no Einstein" to assume that living on the land could harm your health.

But experts aren't so sure.

Under investigation since 1991, the site is one of the more studied pieces of land in the Las Vegas Valley in terms of what's in the soil and water.

LandWell, the owner, plans to build a community of as many as 15,000 condominium unit s and houses there, but first must dig up tons of soil and move it to avoid placing future residents at risk.

Still, Dr. Ranajit Sahu, project manager, thinks people such as Lampley shouldn't have any health problems. That's because he doesn't think most have been living there as long as they claim, and because the main risk would come from drinking ground or surface water at the site, or growing food in its soil.

In advance of launching the cleanup early next year, LandWell has asked Clark County officials and some nonprofit organizations to make weekly visits to the edge of the brush this month. The hope is to draw out Lampley and others and see whether there's a roof somewhere for them.

Standing among some SUVs and a half-dozen recently roused campers Tuesday morning, Linda Lera Randle-El, director of Straight From the Streets, was performing calculus she's perfected in two decades among the valley's homeless.

Veterans, to Veterans Affairs - but first you need to recover your identification. You, let's see whether you're eligible for a Clark County voucher, worth $400 in monthly rent. Then there are Social Security benefits. Help with drugs. And so on.

"Crazy" Larry takes a pair of reporters on a tour, across a road south of the Joker s Wild and east of Boulder Highway. A hole in a fence, the entryway of choice. Berms rise, covered with the pesky tamarisk, a tree that grows like a weed. There's a feeling of entering tunnels, crossing paths through growth, with tents, shacks and bedrolls underneath.

Larry is 55, on the streets for 20 years.

"I like the stars," he says by way of explanation. He said he once paid a year's rent on a place, but was back to the bush again after a few weeks. He also has a problem with drinking - "anything."

By tour's end, he admits, "It's getting to the point I can't do this anymore."

"It's getting old. I'm getting old."

Then there's Darrell Phinney, 54, who said he's been at the LandWell site for seven months. Phinney said he's worried about his health and wants to get away from "all this crap" and into a place. And Lisa Anderson, 45, has been there for six years. Plus Anthony Wood, who says he's been staying in the brush off and on for decades.

Sahu works for Basic Remediation Co., a sister company to LandWell. He has managed the cleanup project for seven years.

"The reason we are cleaning up the site," he said, "is because of chemicals that do not meet our risk base for future use."

Sahu said the three things that most worry him in the area's soil and water are metals - primarily arsenic and pesticides - including relatives of DDT and radionuclide. They are not in equal concentrations in all areas, he said. The primary health risk is cancer.

The three "risk drivers" and dozens of other chemicals are legacies of a history dating to 1941, when the land was the site of the world's largest magnesium plant. The site also has been used to store and treat industrial and municipal waste.

The cleanup plan involves removing soil on 400 of the 2,200 acres to a nearby landfill still being designed. Meanwhile, in the next month or so, the company will cut down tamarisks and test the soil and water in the remaining 1,800 acres to see whether there are metals, pesticides, radionuclide or other chemicals in amounts that would make it necessary to also remove soil from those areas.

The Nevada Environmental Protection Division monitors the whole process.

Sahu has seen homeless people on the LandWell site for years, relying primarily on Henderson police to kick them off the land. Sahu arranges for holes in fences to be repaired so the homeless don't return. But they do.

Since 1999 h e has convened a committee of community experts on technical and policy issues linked to plans for the site . The committee has never brought up the subject of the homeless men and women living in the brush, Sahu and other members said.

"We don't think there is a problem we're creating for somebody," Sahu said. "Public endangerment is the last thing we want."

Dante Pistone, spokesman for the Environmental Protection Division, said it would be next to impossible to determine whether homeless people living at LandWell have been at risk.

"Health experts ... would have no way of knowing what specific compounds or chemicals the homeless persons have been exposed to, in what concentrations, and for how long," he said. "With virtually no information on which to base a conclusion and not being health experts, (the division) would not speculate as to what the health effects would be."

The Southern Nevada Health District had no take on the issue, spokeswoman Jennifer Sizemore said, because it is outside its jurisdiction.

"It hasn't been brought to our attention," she said in a message.

Sahu hopes that Lera Randle-El and others can find places - in the next few weeks - for the dozens of men and women who have been on the streets for years .

"It seemed like a better idea to help them resettle than simply asking a bunch of cops to come and tell them to get off the property," he said.