Sierra Club seeks to stop Vegas freeway widening

LAS VEGAS - In a case with broad national implications, the Sierra Club wants to stop the widening of a freeway in fast-growing Las Vegas until the government proves the health of people living nearby won't be harmed by the automobile exhaust.

"We think the science is clear," said Jane Feldman, of the Las Vegas chapter of the Sierra Club. "There is a risk of cancer, heart disease and lung disease."

At issue is a five-mile stretch of U.S. 95 that would be widened from six to 10 lanes between the Las Vegas Strip and well-to-do bedroom communities to the northwest.

The environmental group wants the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to order the Federal Highway Administration to rethink the project. The court will hear the case Monday in San Francisco.

The Sierra Club already is looking down the road.

"This is the first case, I think, that raises the highway health hazards issue in litigation," said Joanne Spalding, a Sierra Club lawyer in San Francisco.

"If the court agrees with the Sierra Club position, communities will raise this issue in any community with a heavily traveled highway."

A federal judge in Las Vegas granted the Sierra Club a temporary injunction last summer, preventing contractors from paving new lanes but allowing drainage and sound wall work continue.

Several hundred homes and businesses already have been demolished to make room for the widened freeway, and officials have criticized the Sierra Club for blocking what many call a crucial project to relieve gridlock.

"The 95 Corridor is the most congested highway corridor in the state," said Greg Bortolin, a spokesman for Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn. "It's the No. 1 transportation priority in the state."

Federal Highway Administration project engineer Greg Novak disputed Sierra Club allegations that the environmental studies were inadequate and that health threats from pollution were overlooked.

"We think we did it adequately. We apply the same rules in every state or city," he said. Novak said planners also considered a commuter rail line and buses before deciding the highway project was the way to go.

The stretch of highway was built in 1979 to handle up to 6,000 vehicles per hour.

At the time, Clark County and Las Vegas had about 440,000 residents.

Today, southern Nevada has more than 1.6 million residents, and 9,000 vehicles choke the freeway per hour during rush hour.

The project calls for adding two lanes in each direction, including the first carpool lanes in Nevada. The widening will allow the highway to handle 12,000 vehicles an hour by the end of 2006.

"Slowing this down just hurts the environment," Bortolin said. "It doesn't make a lot of sense to maintain a parking lot instead of a freeway."

Dewayne Herrmann, a homeowner along the freeway, said he will be glad when the congested freeway is finally widened.

"If you don't have a wider freeway, you're still going to have the traffic, and it'll be more congested with more accidents because it's overloaded," he said. "Cars standing still put out more pollution than if they're moving."