The good news is Y2K began in Las Vegas with a meeting of high-powered members of a newly elected environmental advisory committee. The committee is composed of a cross-section of developers, businessmen, and government officials.

The bad news is the Environmental Protection Agency has flunked Clark County’s plans to bring under control the carbon monoxide level. To make matters worse, an environmental watchdog group has been threatening to sue over the Valley’s dirty air. This could mean a suit to stop the Las Vegas Convention Center expansion and a proposed monorail project. Not only that, but the threat of a lawsuit could halt all development in the Valley, not just public roads.

In response to the threatened suit, attorneys for the monorail project went before the U.S. District Court in early January and sued to be removed from the coalition’s pending lawsuit.

The EPA’s deadline for a carbon monoxide plan is December 31. A dust control plan must be in place Dec. 31, 2001. The County is hoping to ask for a five-year extension to solve the dust problem. Committee Chairman Dan Van Epp said he hopes to produce a workable plan by May. He intends this plan to include options for meeting the clean air deadlines as well as to educate all Las Vegas residents on the very real seriousness of the problem.

The Department of Motor Vehicles and Public Safety has created a hotline so Nevada Residents can report cars and trucks emitting smoke or pollution. The caller can remain anonymous. He will be asked to supply the license plate number, the make of the car and the time, date, and location where the smoking vehicle was spotted.

Equilon Enterprises Inc. , has sued a Las Vegas Texaco gas station operator in an attempt to evict him. Equilon, the Western marketing parent company of Texaco, claims that Roger Pascall, lessee of Pascall’s Texaco on Rancho Drive, signed a lease for the station in June 1999. The lease stipulated Pascall would pay a monthly payment of $11,558 for the station and purchase a minimum of 210,500 per quarter. Equilon claims Pascall owes $64,375 in rent and has not complied with several contract conditions including maintenance standards, minimum purchases and 24-hour operations.

At the annual awards banquet at the Primm Valley Resort in Primm, Terrible Herbst Racing, owned and sponsored by the family’s Terrible Herbst Oil Company, was selected 1999 SCORE Entry Sponsor of the Year. During the 1999 season all three of the Herbst brothers won a class title. The two older boys, Tim and Ed, split driving time in their Ford F-150 to win the Trophy-Truck Division. The youngest brother, Troy, won four races and claimed the Unlimited Class I point championship for the third straight year. He drove a Ford-powered Smithbuilt desert race car. All three boys credit their father for teaching them how to race and they are appreciative of the fact that without a successful company like Terrible Herbst they wouldn’t be able to race.

Get in on the WPMA Irish/Scottish Interlude. The post-convention trip is planned for May 20-31, 2000 and includes stops in Shannon and Dublin, Ireland and Edinburgh, Scotland. For more information, call Gerry Tedrow at (888) 252-5550.

In January, unleaded gasoline prices nationally averaged $1.29 while in Las Vegas gas prices dropped slightly to $1.45.

While the gasoline additive MTBE appears sparingly in the Las Vegas Valley, it is considered a problem due to the area’s shallow ground water. MTBE, once considered the answer to clearing the nation’s air pollution, is now the subject of a national water protection organization. The group called on President Clinton for immediate action to rid groundwater of MTBE. Both the Las Vegas Valley Water District and the Southern Nevada Water Authority belong to the national association.

MTBE was found in Clark County from the surface to a depth of 30 feet. MTBE is no longer used during the winter months but it still is in nearly one percent of the oxygenated fuel supplied in the summer. It was used extensively during winter months from 1988 to 1995.

Originally published in the February 2000 issue of the O&A News.
Copyright 2000 by KAL Publications Inc.