Nevada BLM extends comment period for controversial management plan

The Bureau of Land Management is giving the public an extra month to review its sweeping new resource management plan for Southern Nevada, but that isn’t likely to satisfy those with concerns about the document and the agency behind it. Clark County officials initially suggested the public comment period should be extended for a year, while some commissioners in Nye County seem to want nothing at all to do with the plan — or the BLM. Amy Lueders, the bureau’s state director for Nevada, announced the time extension Wednesday. The comment period for the Las Vegas and Pahrump Field Offices Draft Resource Management Plan and Environmental Impact Statement was set to close Friday but will now remain open until March 9. At a special meeting Jan. 21, Clark County Commissioners approved a resolution requesting a one-month extension, though the original version called for the comment period to remain open until Feb. 5, 2016. One day earlier, the Nye County Commission narrowly passed what it called “A resolution saying ‘no’ to the Bureau of Land Management.” In it, Nye County condemned the BLM, declared the resource management plan “repugnant” and said it threatens to cause “further economic and environmental damage” to the rural county. Though the county was a cooperating agency in the development of the plan, its comments and requests were “largely ignored by BLM,” the resolution states...more