Reid, Salazar announce $135 million for public lands

By Jean Reid Norman

Published Friday, Sept. 4, 2009 | 11:05 a.m.

Updated Friday, Sept. 4, 2009 | 2:53 p.m.

SEARCHLIGHT -- Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar signed a check for $135.9 million this morning for projects throughout Nevada paid for by the auction of federal land in the Las Vegas Valley.

Salazar was accompanied by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Bureau of Land Management Director Bob Abbey as he signed the check authorizing $135.9 million from the Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act for sensitive land acquisition, parks and trails projects, Lake Tahoe restoration and reduction of hazardous fuels.

The announcement was made at a press conference in the Lake Mead National Recreation Area's Cottonwood Cove, which is near Reid's hometown of Searchlight.

Reid took the opportunity to show Salazar around Searchlight before the signing ceremony, having breakfast at the Searchlight Nugget casino and stopping at the Searchlight Cemetery to show Salazar where his parents, grandparents and brother are buried.

Salazar, a first-term senator from Colorado when he was appointed Secretary of the Interior, had read Reid’s history of Searchlight but it was the first time he had seen the majority leader’s hometown.

“I had no clue how far and removed it was,” Salazar said.

The Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act was established 10 years ago to allow 74,000 acres owned by the Bureau of Land Management within the Las Vegas Valley to be sold to developers at auction. The proceeds are used in Nevada for conservation, parks improvements, landscape restoration, education and water.

About $3 billion has been raised through the act, and 26,900 acres remain to be sold.

The proceeds from the auctions have declined in the past couple of years, but Salazar noted that the $135 million was still a good amount of money and would help stimulate the Nevada economy.

Approved projects for the current round include:

-- Acquisition of environmentally sensitive land at Rock Creek and Winters Ranch in Northern Nevada, $13 million.

-- Capital improvements, including $1.8 million for Hoover Dam tourism facilities, $3 million for campground improvements at Great Basin National Park in eastern Nevada and $313,000 for signs at Red Rock Canyon.

-- Conservation initiatives, including $1.7 million to investigate and interpret Anasazi ruins near Mesquite, $1.5 million to inventory and monitor natural resources in the Spring Mountains and $680,500 to work on the habitat of bighorn sheep in the Desert National Wildlife Refuge.

-- Restoration of Lake Tahoe, $27.9 million.

-- Parks and trails, including $1.4 million for Las Vegas’ Doolittle Park renovation, $1 million for Henderson’s Paradise Point Park, $739,000 for Boulder City’s Bootleg Canyon Park (Phase II) and almost $1 million for North Las Vegas’ Prentiss Walker Memorial Park renovation.

-- Removal of potential fire hazards in the Spring Mountains, Lake Tahoe and the Carson Range, $11 million.