Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Moving mountains

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If an explosion occurs in the desert and no one hears it, does it make a sound?

Like the proverbial tree falling in the woods, of course it does.

But if that blast doesn't shake the foundation of someone's home, who's going to complain about it?

That's the problem with blasting in Las Vegas today.

Local companies have long used explosives to clear out rock to make way for housing, hotels and commercial buildings. But Henderson residents whose homes have been damaged in recent months by two blasts are complaining - and they are raising questions about oversight and the necessity of blasting.

The blasts in December and June, which caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage, were determined to be the result of errors in the placement of explosive charges.

Still, blasting continues.

"I've been here 30 years, and blasting has been done before that in, residential construction," says Monica Caruso of the Southern Nevada Home Builders Association.

"It's legal, and it's the only way to get through the caliche."

(Caliche, hardened deposits of calcium carbonate that cement gravel, sand, clay and silt into thick concretelike layers, is the bane of many Las Vegans, from contractors to homeowners simply trying to plant a tree or extend a patio.)

Explosives cleared the way for construction of the sprawling Summerlin residential community and for major Strip hotels with few, if any, complaints, Caruso and other blasting proponents say.

"We've never had complaints with a project unless it is an unpopular one," says Danny Sanders of Sanders Construction Co., Drilling & Blasting. Since the 1970s, his firm has blown away rocky land for projects including the Lakes, golf courses and hotels.

"We never get any complaints about blasting when we are building roads that people want or for a park or a civic center," he says. "It's generally from homeowners who are upset with the growth around them."

The Clark County Fire Department has issued 146 blasting permits from 2001 through Monday. Chemical engineer Girard Page says he does "not recall ever receiving a complaint" during that period regarding blasts along the Strip, which included massive hotel implosions.

And Sanders, a state-licensed blaster, says his company has been blasting for three months to make way for the MGM Mirage's Project CityCenter, between the Monte Carlo and Bellagio resorts, again with no complaints to those who regulate his firm's work.

But complaints to Henderson government officials rolled in on Dec. 20 after explosives placed by Sanders' workers accidentally drained into a void in the ground at the Canyons residential development and created a huge blast that damaged nearby homes.

Sanders' company paid about $300,000 to settle 135 claims that included broken windows, cracked drywall and damaged doors at homes near Horizon Ridge and Green Valley parkways.

"This was our first liability claims in 30 years," Sanders says. "In the last three years I've done more than 3,900 blasts - maybe 40,000 since I began - but now I'm probably going to be remembered for just one."

The other damaging blast happened June 5 in the resort community of Lake Las Vegas, when charges set by Donner Drilling & Blasting broke windows in a home and a business.

At the time, a company spokesman said two laborers on their first day on the job may have accidentally loaded a rock with explosives, creating an air gap that triggered an air blast. (Attempts to reach owner Dave Donner and another company spokesman for this story were not successful.)

Both errant blasts caused some Henderson residents to call for a moratorium on all blasting.

"We're not anti-growth," says Tony Cutropia, a vocal blasting critic and resident of Sun City MacDonald Ranch, near the Canyons. He is part of a loosely formed group called the Hillside Preservation Committee.

"We are working with the city to help change the ordinances to better protect homeowners. Why should our homes be at risk for damage?"

A review by a nationally recognized expert on explosives supports Sanders' contention that, except for the December flub, his blasts are not damaging area homes.

Civil engineer Catherine T. Aimone-Martin, hired by Henderson to study local blasting, found that area companies register some of the lowest decibel and vibration levels in the country.

She says that blasts in Henderson are limited to 120 decibels (compared with a national average of 133), and that those explosions register 0.5 inches per second in ground vibration (compared with an average national range of 0.75-2.0).

Aimone-Martin describes 120 decibels as equivalent to the sound of a metal door slamming against a metal frame. And a crack of thunder can range from 120 to 140 decibels, she says.

"Our findings were that the city not change the (maximum sound and vibration) levels (in its ordinance)," says Aimone-Martin, professor of civil engineering at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology.

Her survey, using equipment that measured decibels and vibrations in Henderson homes near the blasts, also found that Mother Nature and her gusting 35 mph desert winds put more of a stress on the walls of homes than the blasts.

Some area residents find that hard to swallow.

"If weather is to blame, why doesn't every house in the valley have the same cracks and other damage as the ones near the blasting?" says Cutropia's neighbor, Maureen Progar.

"I see cracks in my home foundation and around my swimming pool that were not there before the blasting. I cannot accept that blasting did not cause that damage."

Neighbor Gary Burke, who like Cutropia and Progar has not yet filed a claim against Sanders, says that he brought in a private structural engineer to check out the damage to his home.

"He told me that he would be more than happy to present in court that it was not (weather) that did the damage to my home, but rather blasting," Burke says.

Sanders and Aimone-Martin say that without blasting, residential housing projects would cost tens of millions of dollars more to complete.

They estimate that using hoe-rams - large jackhammers - instead of explosives adds $2.25 to $5 per cubic yard to a project's costs. The Crystal Ridge custom home project east of the Canyons involves blasting 11.5 million cubic yards, Sanders says.

Sanders says he employs 15 workers at Crystal Ridge, and that he would have to hire 200 workers at $30 an hour to operate hoe-rams to break up the same amount of rock as blasting.

Progar, Burke and Cutropia, who live in 2,200-to-2,500-square-foot, two- and three-bedroom homes valued at about $550,000, say the potential higher cost of future hillside homes is not their problem.

Nor, they say, is that prospect an acceptable reason to make existing homeowners and their homes suffer from blasting.

"Would using a hoe-ram be a nuisance? Yes," Cutropia says. "But I definitely will take hours of that with no damage to my home instead of enduring the blasting that shakes me like I am in an earthquake."

In the last three years, Sanders estimates, his company, which also does business in four other Western states, has detonated 60 million pounds of explosives throughout the valley. He says one pound of explosive materials breaks up one cubic yard of rock.

Ordinances that regulate the use of explosives are similar but sometimes are tweaked by different governmental entities.

Henderson, Las Vegas and Clark County require blasting companies to carry insurance - $5 million in the municipalities but up to $32 million in the county because of hotel implosions.

While local governments limit blasting to daylight hours on weekdays, they can allow waivers, as it is sometimes less disturbing to blast before dawn, such as on the Strip.

The rules occasionally vary a lot, such as with on-site inspections.

Las Vegas requires a city inspector on-site during blasts. Clark County does a pre-blast inspection and requires the blaster to hire a third-party firm to monitor vibrations during a blast. Henderson requires the blaster to choose a third-party observer from a list of approved geological firms during explosions.

While blasting is an explosive issue now, due to the recent mishaps, statistics indicate it was more prevalent in Clark County a few years ago and in Las Vegas more than a decade ago.

Since 1988, Las Vegas has issued 146 blasting permits for construction. Since 2000, however, just 12 such permits have been issued. None was issued last year or this year. Las Vegas Deputy Fire Marshal Bob Fash says that in 1991, 22 permits were issued, coinciding with the blasting and building in Summerlin in the far western end of the valley.

Clark County's Page says that 38 permits were issued countywide in 2002 and 34 in 2003. In 2004 and 2005 combined, however, just 32 such permits have been issued.

Henderson issued 84 blasting permits from January 2001 through June 2006 .

Blaster Sanders says he does not see the issue going away any time soon, especially in Southern Nevada:

"I would hope that people will recognize blasting as a necessity even though they see it as bothersome. I see a need for a lot of blasting over the next few years as we continue to grow and need additional housing.

"It would virtually stop all new development if blasting were disallowed."

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