Fed official visits valley to sort out environmental woes

Las Vegas Bay fish displaying gender problems. Toxic and radioactive ground water and soils in Henderson. A closed landfill dumping debris into the Las Vegas Wash.

Felicia Marcus, Environmental Protection Agency administrator for Region 9, listened to worried Southern Nevadans but offered no solutions to these and other environmental woes Friday during a visit to Las Vegas.

Marcus said she came to Southern Nevada to speak to the National Association of Environmental Management and to meet with local environmental groups, hoping to figure out what the problems are and how EPA can assist.

Part of the problems stem from the EPA relinquishing responsibility to the state, she said. The EPA gave the state authority in 1988 to enforce clean-air and clean-water laws.

Although the EPA examined the Sunrise Mountain landfill after a Sept. 11 storm tore through the 720-acre site, overwhelming flood-control efforts and dumping trash into the Las Vegas Wash, cleanup is a local responsibility, she said.

The Nevada Division of Environmental Protection and the Clark County Health District are responsible to ensure that the former unlined landfill is closed properly, Marcus said. The EPA has an oversight role.

At the other end of the valley, the Basic Management Industrial complex in Henderson is once again under consideration to be listed as a Superfund site because the rocket-fuel booster perchlorate has contaminated the Colorado River.

The BMI site may not be the only one considered for Superfund listing in Southern Nevada, but perchlorate in the water "is a big deal," Marcus said.

Retired biologist Larry Paulson asked her how developers can drain contaminated water from their lands into the Las Vegas Wash without proper permits. "It required enforcing existing environmental laws," he said. "The city of Henderson erred when it allowed developers to drain there."

The Las Vegas Wash drains the valley's runoff, sending it downstream into Lake Mead, the source of Southern Nevada's drinking water.

Marcus promised to look into it. "I came here to find out who does what and do the right thing," she said. "I have no pat answers."

The biggest single problem facing the Southwest's rapidly growing cities is air pollution from sources other than industrial plants, she said. Las Vegas violates clean-air standards for carbon monoxide, ozone and dust.

Citizen Alert, the Nevada Seniors Coalition and the Nevada Environmental Coalition called on Marcus to send a federal investigative team into Southern Nevada to find out why state and local agencies have failed to enforce environmental laws.

"This is the start of a long, unpleasant process," predicted Rick Nielsen, executive director of statewide environmental watchdog Citizen Alert.

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