Monday, Nov. 8, 1999 | 11:16 a.m.
Environmentalists and two federal land agencies are leading the opposition to a plan that would turn almost 7,000 acres of virgin desert land 40 miles southwest of Las Vegas into a new airport.
Chief among their concerns is that the Mojave National Preserve, home to desert bighorn sheep and the threatened desert tortoise, will suffer from air, noise and water pollution if the airport is built there.
The airport is now envisioned as a secondary airport to busy McCarran International Airport, which shuttles 33 million passengers annually through its gates and is projected to reach maximum capacity in about a decade.
Backers, including the Clark County Commission, the county Department of Aviation and a private partnership, see limited passenger service and cargo going through the new airport in the Ivanpah Valley.
All four members of Nevada's congressional delegation back legislation that would require the federal Bureau of Land Management to sell the land.
But allied with the environmentalists are the National Park Service, which administers the Mojave National Preserve, and the BLM. Both agencies are under the purview of the U.S. Interior Department, which officially opposes the land sale for the airport.
"The proposed airport is envisioned to be a cargo airport with major warehousing facilities," said Jacqueline Lowey, park service deputy director, in July testimony on the bill that would sell the BLM land for the airport. "Large, low flying jet aircraft would be a significant intrusion on a visitor's solitude and enjoyment of the quiet desert environment."
In Congress opponents also have the support of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat who shares their concerns over the the airport' impact on the preserve.
But advocates, including representatives of a private partnership that did initial studies for the feasibility of the airport, say the fears of environmentalists are unwarranted.
Randall Walker, aviation department director for the county, said that the desert tortoise habitat would not be affected by an airport at the site, which is between Jean and Primm.
He argues that there are few other place to put the proposed airport because of competing environmental concerns, proximity to other urban areas and Department of Defense airspace and Southern Nevada's mountainous terrain.
"I don't think the environmentalists are positive about putting an airport in anywhere," Walker lamented. Representatives of a private partnership eager to set up a cargo operation at the Ivanpah Valley airport also reject the environmentalists' concerns.
Joseph Brown, a Las Vegas attorney, is the local representative for the partnership of Hamilton Associates, a White Plains, N.Y., financial consulting company, and Dumez-GTM, a French engineering firm. In an August 1997 agreement, the Clark County Commission authorized the partnership to do the initial feasibility studies for the airport.
Brown, a former chairman of the Nevada Nature Conservancy, a conservation group that works to buy and preserve tracts of unspoiled land, called the concerns "ludicrous."
"There is minimal risk," he said. "You're not going to hear planes that high. ... An airport has to be built if we're going to sustain growth here in Las Vegas, and that is the best place to put it."
He said the plans put the proposed airport 12 miles away from the Mojave National Preserve, the same distance that the Red Rock National Conservation Area is from McCarran.
Runways and flight plans in and out of the airport would be designed to minimize the environmental impact, Brown said.
"We're not ignoring the environment," he said.
Walker and Brown argue that the new airport could actually be good for the environment since it would take flights away from congested urban areas in Southern Nevada and Southern California where air pollution is already a problem.
That doesn't comfort Mary Martin, superintendent of the Mojave National Preserve, who said the desert landscape would be irrevocably harmed by airport noise and air pollution.
President Clinton signed the law creating the preserve in October 1994, setting aside 1.6 million acres of California land on the Nevada state line.
Martin said the desert landscape would be marred by airport noise and air pollution.
"It really is quiet out there," she said. "You can go out there and not hear or see another living soul."
The region has a lot of unspoiled desert, but Martin predicts that growth in Southern California and Las Vegas will squeeze out nature in the coming decades.
"Thirty years from now, the park will be even more important to the American people," Martin said.
But Walker, the county's aviation director, said the area already has numerous overflights without substantially harming the Mojave National Preserve.
"There are already 400,000 annual overflights over the desert preserve at the same kinds of heights that we're talking about for a new airport," Walker said.
Environmentalists say that there are just too many unknowns about the impact of a large airport on the site.
"There are a lot of unanswered questions about what type of airport this would be, what type of flights it would have, what kind of infrastructure would have to be built to support it," said Deanna White, a Sierra Club organizer in Las Vegas.
Don't look to either the state government or the Clark County staff for answers. Jack Finn, spokesman for Gov. Kenny Guinn, said nobody in Carson City has been involved with the proposed airport.
And although the county commissioners gave the proposed airport their blessing, county planning staff say they know little or nothing about the airport.
Infrastructure needs, land use forecasts and other issues are normally under the purview of Phillip Shinbein, principal transportation planner for the county. Shinbein said he has heard only rumors about the new airport and can't comment on its eventual impact.
"None of the variables are obvious at this point," he said. One of the issues that has sparked concern among environmentalists is air quality. The desert air could potentially be affected by several sources, including pollution from planes and jets, ground traffic traveling to and from the new airport, and dust from the massive construction effort it would take to build the airport.
Earlier this year questions about air pollution produced at McCarran stalled development of the region's carbon monoxide reduction plan. The region is already listed in the federal Environmental Protection Agency's "serious" category for pollution from the colorless, odorless and potentially life-threatening gas.
And when the EPA found that carbon monoxide emissions from the airport were several times higher than initially reported, the agency forced Clark County to redraw its draft plan to control carbon monoxide emissions. The overall impact of a new airport on air pollution hasn't yet been estimated.
"We don't know (the impact) at this point in time," Russell Roberts, Clark County air quality planner, said. "As part of the process of completing that project, part of the environmental review will have to take a look at air quality."
"A major concern is how this is going to affect our air quality since that is the major corridor from which our air blows," said Jessica Hodge, urban issues coordinator for Citizen Alert, an environmental organization. "We know that airports are a major source of air pollution in the valley, and that that source has been historically underestimated."
Environmentalists and officials in Washington argue that the questions on the natural impact should be answered before the legislation authorizing the land sale moves forward.
Normally federal land sales require an environmental assessment on the final use. But the bill currently before the House and Senate would require an enviromental impact statement before the start of actual construction.
To the park service and environmentalists, that puts the cart before the horse. They would like the environmental assessment to be done "before any land conveyances occur," Lowey said.
"The EIS (environmental impact statement) would not only document the impact of any airport, but would examine alternative sites to determine if a more suitable location for the airport and its accompanying infrastructure can be found," Lowey said. "The EIS process would also allow for public input into the decision on siting of the airport. Unfortunately, the public involvement ... is eliminated in this legislation."
"It's not so much the airport as that they are trying to force the BLM to sell the land through Congress rather than through the normal process," the Sierra Club's White agreed.
"By forcing the BLM to sell this land straight out, they'll have the land locked up for a specific purpose, although they don't have to show the impact," she said.
But Walker said the fears are misplaced.
"Just because you own the land does not give you the automatic right to build something," he said. "We're not asking that the environmental assessment process be waived ... There's going to be an environmental impact statement done.
"The way the bill is written, after we do the environmental assessment, if it's shown we can't put the aiport there, then we have to give the land back to the federal government," Walker said. TUESDAY:
A look at how the Ivanpah proposal was developed and what its future holds in Congress.
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