Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Streamlining The National Environmental Policy Act Reporting Requirements: A Hard Look At The Healthy Forests Initiative, Jeffrey Alan Geller

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) has implemented the Healthy Forests Initiative (HFI) (2002), which streamlines the NEPA process for proposed forest fuel reduction projects. A key question is whether the USFS’s streamlined NEPA process produces an adequate environmental document and fulfills regulatory requirements. This thesis evaluates whether the streamlined approach practiced by the USFS under the HFI satisfies the NEPA requirements. A review of four streamlined documents assesses whether these requirements are met. The following NEPA requirements in particular are explored for each project to determine whether the NEPA requirements are met: consideration of a reasonable range of alternatives to …

Cooperative Conservation: Increasing Capacity Through Community Partnerships -- Interagency Volunteer Program & Cooperative Conservation Program: Quarterly Progress Report, Period Ending March 31, 2005, Margaret N. Rees

Get Outdoors Nevada

• 800+ records now loaded into volunteer database

• Website launched – getoutdoorsnevada.org

• 50 new volunteers already recruited through website

• Program logo developed

• First interagency event held March 5 – Great American Clean-Up

• First event featured on national Take Pride In America website

• Program marketing, public relations, and promotion underway

• Additional 2005 interagency events identified: April 2 – Red Rock Day at Red Rock Canyon Conservation Area April 15 – Stewardship Saturday at Moapa Valley National Wildlife Refuge June 4 – National

Presentation To Friends Of Red Rock Canyon February 8, 2005, Nancy Flagg

Presentations (PLI)

University engages in selected SNPLMA projects as determined by the four federal agencies, which are:

• Compatible with UNLV’s mission.
• Enhance education and research.
• Draw upon expertise of faculty, staff, and students.

Presentation To Outside Las Vegas Foundation January 31, 2005, Public Lands Institute

Presentations (PLI)

The Public Lands Institute is dedicated to strengthening the national fabric that is essential for the protection, conservation, and management of public lands.

Campus Community And Their Responsibility To Our Public Lands, Mark Valentin

Presentations (PLI)

• To heighten awareness of UNLV’s community on the laws governing the uses of public lands and the personal liabilities associated with such use.
• To provide the campus community with the most efficient permitting service possible.
• To provide accurate, concise permit information to the appropriate agency.

Inventing The Future 2005 Planning Retreat, Public Lands Institute

Presentations (PLI)

• Foster an integrated, holistic approach to managing and stewarding public lands.
• Focus initially on externally funded cooperative conservation projects, research initiatives, and capital improvement projects.
• Attract projects that are local, regional, and national in scope.

Connecting Hearts, Minds, & Hands To Public Lands, Public Lands Institute

Presentations (PLI)

The Public Lands Institute is dedicated to strengthening the national fabric that is essential for the protection, conservation, and management of public lands.

Regional Open Space & Trails Workgroup Presentation, Public Lands Institute

Presentations (PLI)

The Public Lands Institute is dedicated to strengthening the national fabric that is essential for the protection, conservation, and management of public lands.

Southern Nevada Guide: Tree Selection And Care, City Of Las Vegas, Nevada

Publications (SD)

Trees for Tomorrow was created to educate Southern Nevada residents on the benefits of trees and to help homeowners choose the right trees for their landscape setting. The goal of this booklet is to help homeowners successfully select and establish trees. This Centennial edition recognizes the 100-year celebration of the founding of the City of Las Vegas.

Planting trees is a necessary adaptation to human settlement in arid environments. A strong, healthy community forest is built tree by tree, home by home. Tree canopies help to reduce energy demands, reduce water demands, reduce local air temperatures, reduce air pollution, provide …

Conservation Element Of The Las Vegas 2020 Master Plan, City Of Las Vegas, Nevada

Publications (SD)

There is a dual purpose to the Las Vegas 2020 Master Plan Conservation Element. The first purpose is to address the requirements of state law, as provided in the Nevada Revised Statutes (NRS) 278.150(4). This section of the NRS requires that governing bodies in Nevada counties with a population of 400,000 or more ensure that their master plans address a stipulated list of subjects, including a conservation plan.

An Exploratory Study That Examines Perceptions, By The Regulated Community, On The Effectiveness Of Air Quality Permitting For Clark County, By The Department Of Air Quality And Environmental Management, Scott Jelinek

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The Clean Air Act of 1970 (CAA) made the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) responsible for establishing and maintaining federal programs that control air quality. In turn, each state was delegated responsibility for air quality within its borders, although this responsibility may be shared with Native Americans or tribal lands. In many states, jurisdiction has been delegated to regional or local agencies that are then responsible for air quality in their respective air basins. Even though terrain or water bodies define the physical boundaries of air basins, they are usually designated by County boundaries for regulatory convenience (Wooley, David R., 1997).

Unlv Public Lands Initiative, Nancy Flagg

Presentations (PLI)

• The Public Lands Initiative is providing management and oversight for selected SNPLMA projects that fit UNLV’s educational and research strengths and which are suitable for drawing upon the expertise of university faculty, staff, and students.

Parks & Trails Partnership, Margaret N. Rees, Nancy Flagg, David Frommer

Presentations (PLI)

• UNLV is committed to demonstrating how the traditional values of higher education can be adapted to the conditions and needs of individuals and communities in the 21st century.
• Key macrothemes of the university’s strategic plan include Economic Development, Preservation of History & Culture, and Community Outreach & Collaboration.
• In keeping with these macrothemes, UNLV is embarking on several partnerships with the BLM and related agencies to provide a wide array of research, technical assistance, education, and service support on projects funded through the SNPLMA.
• UNLV is a research extensive university with academic departments and research centers and institutes that embrace …

Converting Low-Level Mixed Waste Into Transuranic Waste For Geologic Disposal At Wipp: A Cost Analysis, Helen R. Neill, Robert H. Neill

Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Publications

The Department of Energy (DOE) has approximately 43,000 cubic meters of mixed-low-level waste (MLLW) with alpha emitting concentrations of 10 to 100 nanocuries per gram (nCi/g) generated from the nations defense programs requiring radioactive waste disposal [1]. DOE has decided to commingle MLLW containers with transuranic (TRU) waste containers in larger containers such that the average concentration in the larger container would qualify as TRU waste for deep geologic disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). Since Congress has exempted the WIPP mixed TRU waste from the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) [2] requirement to treat the waste …

Friends Of Red Rock Canyon Quarterly Meeting, Public Lands Institute

Presentations (PLI)

The Public Lands Institute is dedicated to strengthening the national fabric that is essential for the protection, conservation, and management of public lands.

Consumptive Water Use At The Mirage Hotel And The Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino In Las Vegas, Nevada, Johann A. Feller

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The Las Vegas Valley is one of the driest regions in the southwest United States. Due to limited water supplies from the Colorado River, rainfall, and groundwater sources, the water requirements of the valley’s growing population is slated to surpass the current available water supply. The purpose of this comparative study is to quantify the amount of consumptive water used at a major Las Vegas resort/casino in one year. This, being of importance, because of the resort/casino industry’s role as one of the largest, most visible, and most resource intensive industries in the Las Vegas valley. The goal of this …

Perspectives On Economic Analyses For High Level Waste Disposal, Helen R. Neill, Robert H. Neill

Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Publications

There are both internal and external pressures on the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to reduce costs of disposal and still maintain radiation protection to both present and future generations. The question arises whether both of these goals are attainable.

An Economic Analysis Of The Arsenic Standard On Nevada, Jill S. Dale

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In 2001, the arsenic standard for drinking water was lowered from 50 parts per billion to 10 parts per billion. The clean-up costs for Nevada are estimated at approximately 400 million dollars. The purpose of this project is to examine the economic impacts the State of Nevada will absorb as a result of the new regulation. Research of historical data will be the basis for the project. National data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and data collected from the State of Nevada will be accompanied by comparable research data found through other sources

Remote Sensing And Geographic Information Systems For Decision Analysis In Public Resource Administration: Case Study In A Southwestern Watershed, William G. Kepner

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Alternative futures analysis is a scenario-based approach to regional land planning that attempts to synthesize existing scientific information in a format useful to community decision makers. Typically, this approach attempts to investigate the impacts of several alternative sets of choices preferred by representative stakeholder groups relative to selected environmental or economical endpoints. Potential impacts from each of the scenarios are compared to current conditions of the region in terms of a set of processes that are modeled within a geographic information system. Future conditions are generally examined from the perspective of a recent baseline condition (versus empirically determined using a …

Examination Of The Bureau Of Land Management's Implementation Of The Wild, Free-Roaming Horse And Burro Act At Red Rock National Conservation Area, Christine E. Brehm

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

For unknown reasons horses went extinct on the North American continent approximately ten thousand years ago and were subsequently reintroduced by Spanish settlers in the 1400's. As European settlers moved westward, horses were perceived as competition for grasslands and their numbers were curtailed. Wild horses were granted Federal protection in 1959 with the passage of the 'Wild Horse Annie' law and further protected with the passage of the Wild, Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act of 1971. Through the Department of the Interior, the Bureau of Land Management was charged with management of wild horses on public lands. Physical searches of …

Caribbean: Online Bibliography Environmental History Of Latin America, Darcy C. Del Bosque

Library Faculty Publications

This is an annotated bibliography of articles, conference proceedings, reports, and books.

What Does Smart Growth Mean For Housing?, Karen A. Danielsen, Robert E. Lang, William Fulton

Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Publications

Barely noticed amid the returns from the 1998 midterm elections was a quiet revolution that goes to the heart of how and where Americans live. While most news accounts focused on the high-profile candidate elections, voters across the nation-in Democratic and Republican areas alike-approved more than 160 state and local ballot measures intended to preserve open space and limit urban sprawl.

The coalition forming around the idea of limiting sprawl includes environmentalists, farmers, big-city mayors, and some developers. But perhaps most important, the so-called "smart growth" movement also includes many suburban voters who are fed up with growth. For example, …

Water Conservation In The Las Vegas Valley, Judith M. Keir

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This thesis deals primarily with residential use of water in the Las Vegas Valley, an arid climate located in the Mojave Desert, and whether the education of people living here has any bearing on whether or not they conserve water. Many of the residents of the Las Vegas Valley have moved from other areas of the country, and perhaps are not aware of the fact that there is a limited supply of water available to the Valley. I believe that people are not necessarily wasteful, and that they would want to conserve water, if they were aware that conservation and …

An Experimental Technique In Lowering Total Dissolved Solids In Wastewater, Aaron Crotts

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

An experimental method for lowering total dissolved solids in wastewater. This thesis project has been undertaken by Aaron Crotts in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Studies. The problem undertaken in this thesis is to apply an experimental technique in wastewater treatment in hopes of reducing the total dissolved solids. Total dissolved solids consist of various dissolved ions in water such as calcium, magnesium, sulfur and sodium. In looking at one industry in particular a local Ice Cream manufacture, the problem with total dissolved solids is evident because of their manufacturing process, an …

Describing The Elephant: Multiple Perspectives In New York City's Watershed Protection Conflict, Krystyna Anne Stave

Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Publications

New York City's efforts to avoid filtration mandated by the 1986 Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments and the 1989 Surface Water Treatment Rule have generated considerable controversy. Since the conflict began in 1990, a spectrum of stakeholder groups has emerged, representing land owners, sport fishermen, businesses, environmental groups, developers, and watershed communities. What was originally defined by New York City water supply managers as a scientific problem--identifying sources of water quality degradation and preventing contaminants from entering the water supply system--now has broadened to include a diverse set of social and economic issues as well.

Resource Use Conflict In New York City's Catskill Watersheds: A Case For Expanding The Scope Of Water Resource Management, Krystyna Anne Stave

Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Publications

In New York City's water supply watersheds, controversy over water quality protection underscores both the need to expand the scope of water resource management and the challenges to doing so. This paper describes the response of watershed residents to !'Jew York City's efforts to avoid filtration mandated by the 1986 Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments and 1989 Surface Water Treatment Rule. The emergence of a spectrum of stakeholder groups representing land owners, sport fishermen, businesses, environmental groups and local communities has brought social and economic issues not previously part of the City's water management program to the center of the …

Updating The Colorado River Compact, Jeffrey A. Freer

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Water is essential to life in the arid environment of the western United States. For centuries, humans have used the Colorado River to fulfill their needs and until the past 100 years, the use of the river was sustainable. Over the last 100 years, the Colorado River has been dammed and diverted to "reclaim" the arid west for man's use. In 1946, a Department of the Interior report stated that "Tomorrow the Colorado will be utilized to the very last drop. Its water will convert thousands of additional acres of sagebrush desert to flourishing farms and beautiful homes for servicemen, …

Using Gis To Identify Critical Areas For Water Quality Protection In New York City's Water Supply System, Paul K. Barten, Krystyna Anne Stave

Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Publications

The protection of water quality at its source — the watershed — recognizes that minimizing land use impacts and allowing natural processes to provide in situ biological treatment can complement conventional engineering methods. In contrast to the enormous costs projected for drinking water filtration, the judicious application of watershed management principles and practices is a way to balance the needs of people with the capacity of the natural resource base over time. This paper describes the development and initial application of a geographic information system (GIS) to a ortion of New York City's 2,000 square mile water supply system, the …

Determining Recreational Visitor Carrying Capacity: The Case Of Black Canyon At Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Kenneth C. Forman

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Lake Mead and Lake Mohave, created by Hoover and Davis Dams respectively, were combined, along with much of the surrounding area, into the Lake Mead National Recreation Area in 1964. The enabling legislation is specific about the duty the National Park Service has to the public to create and maintain this, and other, national recreation areas for the benefit of the visitors, the environment, and future generations. By investigating human impacts on the physical environment (water quality, litter, etc.) and by querying park users on their opinions (with respect to crowding, visitor behavior, etc.), insight can be gained about appropriate …