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VHB Selected to Produce Environmental Impact Statement for New Las Vegas Airport As Demand for Environmental Streamlining Increases

Posted on: Wednesday, 5 October 2005, 12:00 CDT

Major Project Win Expands VHB's Reach and Establishes Airport Environmental Program as the New Industry Standard

As a preliminary step to building Las Vegas' new international airport, transportation and environmental firm Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc. (VHB), was selected by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to prepare the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) that is required before FAA and federal environmental approvals can be issued for the airport. VHB was awarded the $14.2 million contract by the Clark County Department of Aviation in part because of the firm's unprecedented success in expediting the EIS process required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

VHB will lead an elite team of technical and policy experts directed by VHB Senior Vice President Jonathan Feinstein and managed by Marla Engel. The project team includes former Associate Director of the White House Council on Environmental Quality Ray Clark and the former Air Programs Branch Chief for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 9, David Calkins. Other firms contributing expertise to the team will be ENSR International, noise experts Harris, Miller, Miller, & Hanson, Inc., KB Environmental Sciences, Inc. (air quality), and Economic Development Research Group.

The proposed facility would be located 30 miles southwest of Las Vegas in the Ivanpah Valley, on land the U.S. Congress directed the BLM to transfer to Clark County for the airport. The proposed Ivanpah Airport is slated to supplement the existing Las Vegas McCarran Airport, which is expected to reach maximum capacity by 2017. Las Vegas has been one of the most rapidly growing cities in the U.S. for the past 14 years, with growth in Clark County's population of about 5,000 people every month and 10 million more visitors than in 1995. The proposed new airport will be located on over 6,000 acres of desert and will be the first major airport development in the country since 1995. The airport is expected to be open by 2017.

VHB impressed the FAA and BLM with their extensive knowledge of the project, Clark County and the Ivanpah Valley and was also selected because of its unique approach to environmental streamlining that removes unnecessary bureaucracy and redundancy from the EIS process. This approach recently enabled a runway project at Philadelphia International Airport to move ahead to construction in record time and to achieve unprecedented budget savings through a historical multi-agency streamlining agreement that VHB created and implemented. For Ivanpah Airport, VHB will use its unique streamlining approach and the strategic policy experts on the team to complete the study by 2010.

"This is a landmark win for VHB as this not only expands our firm's reach to the western United States, it establishes our creative and innovative work as the industry standard for airports going about meeting their NEPA requirements," said Feinstein. "All of us on the team are very excited about applying our one-of-a-kind approach to this major developmental project."

This is the eighth airport contract win for VHB in the past three years. Along with making the Philadelphia International Airport NEPA process more efficient and productive, the firm is currently conducting similar studies for another project at Philadelphia, as well as for T.F. Green Airport in Providence, R.I.. Other VHB airport clients include Manchester Airport in New Hampshire and the Maryland Aviation Administration, which is responsible for Baltimore Washington International Airport.

About Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc.

Headquartered in Watertown, Mass., VHB is a 800-person engineering, planning, and environmental firm that provides integrated transportation, land development, and environmental services to public, private and institutional clients. Engineering News Record recently ranked VHB as one of the top Design Firms, Transportation Firms, Mass Transit/Light Rail Firms, Retail Engineering Consulting Firms, and Environmental Service Firms in the United States. VHB has 18 offices located throughout the U.S. in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Virginia, and Florida. It was recently selected as one of the top civil engineering firms in the country to work for by CE News. For more information about VHB please call 617-924-1770 or visit online at www.vhb.com.

Source: Business Wire

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