Public hearing scheduled on Nellis environment

A public hearing has been scheduled on an agreement signed in December to protect Nellis Air Force Base environmental resources, but there was short notice, a local environmentalist said.

It is the first time the public will have a chance to comment on proposals for biodiversity and ecosystem management of the Nellis Air Force Base and Range, according to the legal notice for the meeting.

The meeting on the Five-Party Cooperative Agreement will be from 5 to 8 p.m. on Monday at the Department of Energy's Great Basin Room, 232 Energy Way, North Las Vegas.

The five parties in the agreement are Nellis Air Force Base, the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the state of Nevada.

"It's pretty bad notice," said Rick Nielsen, executive director of Citizen Alert, a statewide watchdog group. "I thought it would be at least a 30-day notice."

The Air Force asked for the legal notice to be published in today's Las Vegas Review Journal, said Col. Russ Collins, chief of natural and cultural resources for Nellis. "But it may instead appear in the Saturday edition," he wrote to those on his contact list.

Nielsen learned of the meeting Thursday. "If they only give you a few days' notice -- it won't be in the paper until Friday or Saturday -- it's kind of self-defeating to have a public meeting," he said. "I hope there are enough people to comment."

The environmental resources project for the entire Nellis range has been ongoing for years, explained Eric Watkins, a biologist for Nellis.

"This is an extension on the public involvement in regard to the resources on the range," Watkins said.

The five parties agreed to meet twice a year. At least one annual meeting will allow public comment, Watkins said.

The group met in September before the agreement was signed in December.

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