Environmentalists, health officials debate solution to pollution

Environmentalists and health officials agreed Thursday that Southern Nevada needs cleaner air, but they differed on how to control dust as the Las Vegas Valley continues to grow.

Representatives of government agencies and the public clashed over the current approach to dust control during a workshop Thursday.

The Clark County Health District is currently backing efforts to pave dirt roads to control dust, but off-road vehicles stirring up vacant property may be a bigger problem, officials say.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency has not approved the program started in 1991 by the Health District to allow small industries to pave dirt roads, the major local effort to control the valley's dust, said David Howekamp, director of the EPA's Air Division in San Francisco.

The EPA has been critical of the Health District's performance on curbing Southern Nevada's air pollution, noting a shortage of staff in one of the fastest growing areas of the country hasn't help.

The local Health District's program is not in the top 10 out of 60 pollution control agencies the EPA oversees, Howekamp said. "I'd like it to be in the top echelon."

The Health District is waiting for the EPA to approve a state pollution control plan that includes the road paving efforts, said Michael Naylor, director of the district's Air Pollution Control Division. However, the paving project accounts for less than 2 percent of the dust problem in the valley, he said.

From 1993 to 1998, the last year statistics are available, 60 miles of dirt roads have been paved, removing an estimated total of 19,000 tons of dust.

The cities of Las Vegas and North Las Vegas ran out of dirt roads to pave a year ago, and Clark County is almost finished its paving efforts.

"Are you sure it's really worth it?" Lori Wohletz, asked environmental director for the city of Las Vegas. She said the time-consuming tracking of small companies paving a few miles of road did not affect the air quality.

Why can't the Health District require the best technical controls available? asked Ken Mahal, director of the Nevada Senior Coalition.

To replace road paving, the Health District proposes to clamp down on vacant lots raising dust disturbed by such sources as off-road vehicles and horses, Naylor said.

On a day without wind, those empty lots contribute less than 10 percent of the dust in the air, but when gusts blow at more than 40 mph, as they have for the past two days, the particles account for 33 percent of the pollution, he said.

Chief County Health Officer Dr. Donald Kwalick promised that a series of workshops through November will produce visible results in the Clark County Health District's air quality program, tarnished by only reacting to pollution problems for years.

"We want to be able to improve the program and become more pro-active, instead of reacting to daily crises," he said.

The Health District needs to communicate better with the public about both its successes and failures at controlling air pollution, Kwalick said.

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