Henderson sets sights on LandWell

Restoration project will yield homes, neighborhoods

Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson recently stood on a mostly empty piece of land near Lake Mead Parkway and Boulder Highway and recalled his childhood at the locale. He said he'd hunted for lizards there, and some of them "had more than one head."

Gibson spoke at last month's ribbon cutting for this 2,200-acre environmental restoration project in east Henderson. For eons, the land contained pollutants and contaminated soils. The LandWell Co., an affiliate of Basic Management Inc., has dedicated itself to restore every acre of it. The Nevada Division of Environmental Protection (NDEP) is overseeing the cleanup process for it. Centex Homes someday plans to erect residential neighborhoods on it.

Gibson's tongue-in-cheek moment of two-headed nostalgia reflected the LandWell Restoration Project's toxic past, but he and the other parties involved are working toward giving all 2,200 acres a squeaky clean future -- complete with the environmental division's seal of approval.

"(It's) one of the largest environmental remediation and restoration projects in Nevada's history," said Leo Drozdoff, administrator at the NDEP, who also addressed the crowd at the ribbon cutting. "Certainly there's no doubt that the responsible parties are faced with a monumental task, and that's to cleanup a site that's been impacted by pollution for several decades and restore it to a public use and productive use. NDEP commits that we will continue to work with you on completing these endeavors."

Last month's dedication also unveiled the future community's information center, an outdoor area that consists of 19 display panels containing information about the cleanup process as well as 60-year-old historic references about the land.

During World War II, the U.S. Department of Defense built a magnesium facility on the west side of the Boulder Highway. The facility directed its manufacturing waste to unlined evaporation ponds and percolation ponds, all located eastward of Boulder Highway at what is now the current LandWell site.

Private chemical companies later came on the scene, and used those same evaporation and percolation ponds for waste purposes until 1976, when use of those ponds ceased.

That same year, however, the Titanium Metals Corp. built several lined ponds for waste disposal on the same site with the NDEP's approval. In 2005, the corporation no longer needed the ponds.

Since 1992, the LandWell Co. has spent more than $60 million to test and analyze the soil. The company expects to plunk down $40 million more during the restoration process.

Only 400 acres of the 2,200 total acres of soil were affected, but LandWell aims to make every inch of the land suitable for development.

"The fact is, if you consider that every single piece of this real estate will be cleaned to the standard that a 2-year-old can eat it ... it's sobering," Gibson said.

To get to that proverbial "edible" state, every bit of the soil's residue containing the metal, radionuclides, pesticides, salts and asbestos contaminants left over from the ponds must be dug up, according to Ranajit Sahu, the lead scientist and project manager working with both LandWell and the Basic Remediation Co.

Dump trucks will remove it and take it to a constructed landfill west of Boulder Highway.

Samples of the soil will then be painstakingly tested, re-tested, and tested again to make sure the contaminants have been taken away forever.

The work begins this summer. Centex Homes will build its communities and amenities on the site after the cleanup is completed, which will be years down the road, according to Caroline Doyle, the home builder's vice president of marketing.

"This is a daunting task," Sahu said. "But it's the right thing to do in terms of making this land productive again. It would be sad to take this land and put a big fence here with a skull and crossbones and say, 'stay out' forever. That just doesn't seem to make sense.

"I think that while (the restoration process) is expensive, we shouldn't forget that just leaving it open with the contamination here does no one any good. It is what I call an infill property because there's development all around. It just didn't make sense for us to leave this in the middle of all this developing around here. We think it can be manageably done, which is why we're doing it."

Centex concurs, since the nationwide builder has already erected communities on similar types of land in California and around the country. The builder remains unsure about types of homes buyers can expect at the LandWell site someday, but time will answer.

"What's appealing is the location," Doyle said. "I think it's a fine location, and I think it has the potential for being a very significant community in the city of Henderson. I think it could make a very profound impact. We're still in the early planning phases, so we aren't envisioning it or theming it at this point. But what you can count on is an incredible community for generations to come in the city of Henderson."

Jeff Van Ee, the project's restoration advisory committee member, said he "never" in his "wildest dreams" believed the site would be suitable for residential housing. Since monitoring the progress of the project thus far, he's become a believer.

"It's expensive," he said about projects of this type. "And all too many hazardous waste sites in the country end up taking longer than expected to clean up, they end up costing more money than anyone anticipated and there is always that lingering doubt on the part of the public that the site has been adequately cleaned up. There's always that uncertainty. But this company has taken on the challenge of cleaning up the site with enthusiasm."

LandWell currently owns the elevated land, located on Mohawk Drive near Tuscany Hills. Eventually, it will become the property of Centex. Before that happens, years and years of clean up must transpire and that process begins in 2007.

But back at the ribbon cutting of the site's community information center, Mayor Gibson extolled the project and those involved in it.

He found it "noteworthy" that LandWell and Basic Management opted to turn the site into residential land instead of settling for commercial land standards.

"This is one of the most important pieces of real estate that we have," Gibson said. "It is an important challenge for us and for the private sector to make sure that it is restored.

"It's humbling to think that we're here today restoring some ground that was beautiful in those days and appears beautiful today, but will be beautiful again, and thousands of people will make this place their home."