EPA looking for new Las Vegas home

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is looking for a new home in Las Vegas.

The agency's lease with UNLV, which ends in 2000, included five buildings on the university campus and two more east of Maryland Parkway.

The growing university could use the extra buildings and the parking spaces designated for EPA's 200 employees.

"Basically, we have been trying to find a building for the past 10 years," Acting EPA Deputy Director Dick Garnas said.

The EPA has been searching for a base of operations all over town. But federal budget cuts have not been kind. Garnas said the federal government doesn't have a lot of money to move the EPA's National Research Exposure Laboratory. "And then they go for the low bid," he said.

Garnas said when rumors spread that the EPA was looking for another location, invitations from all over the country arrive in the mail. Some of the more recent ones include the University of Arizona, Tucson, and the University of Texas, Austin.

Most of the invites come from academic institutions such as universities. "They even sic their congressmen on us," Garnas said.

However, the federal government cannot move 200 employees across the country. The EPA plans to stay in Southern Nevada, he said.

EPA employees voted to unionize on Tuesday. They will join the National Association of Government Employees, an affiliate of the AFL-CIO. Of 73 eligible voters, 40 voted in favor of NAGE representation.

George L. Reaves Jr., the national representative of the National Association of Government Employees, said either side has five days to challenge the election.

The employees said they wanted a greater voice in the direction of the EPA. The Las Vegas lab is one of the last in the nation to form a union.

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