NLV workers may soon get option to use electric bikes
Nemployees will soon have another option to get their work done around town. Electric bicycles have undergone a series of tests over the past week. The bikes are aimed at promoting the health of city workers while reducing vehicle emissions during brief, local trips.
“Vehicles, even new models, pollute significantly more during the first mile of a trip than during any other driving period because of cold starts,” said Delen Goldberg, a spokeswoman for the city of North Las Vegas.
“The emissions equipment in a vehicle needs to heat up before it is fully functional, so that first few minutes of driving is the worst for the environment,” Goldberg said.
“If we can reduce the number of those short, quick trips that our employees make by vehicle, we can prevent a significant amount of greenhouse gases from entering the atmosphere.”
City officials are still gauging employee interest in the electric bicycle program, which will be formally considered Aug. 15 by the City Council, Goldberg said. By the time it rolls out in September, four of the e-bikes will be stationed at City Hall, while two will be available at Craig Ranch Regional Park.
The bicycles will be funded and maintained by the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada through a $110,000 grant, RTC spokeswoman Monika Bertaki said.
Similar e-bike partnerships have been struck since 2012 with Clark County and the cities of Las Vegas and Henderson, allowing municipal employees to pedal short distances for work, Bertaki said.
Washed-out lines
John from Henderson noticed that the lane markings are pretty washed out along Sunset Road MARROQUIN
The town used to hold annual “burros races,” in which competitors would lead the uncooperative animals to make-shift campsites and cook them flapjacks. Beatty’s official website features three donkeys looking quizzically at the camera from a forest of Joshua trees.
But longtime resident Richard Stephens said most locals have mixed feelings about the burros.
“They are an element of local color and history, somewhat entertaining and fun to show to visitors. They are also a nuisance,” he said.
They push down fences, knock over trash cans, damage cars and get into noisy fights in the town’s few alleyways. Outside the town limits, they eat and stomp the fragile native habitatoftheamargosatoadand create a safety hazard on U.S. Highway 95, despite efforts to fence them awayfromtrouble.
In May, 13 wild burros were found shottodeathinthedesertaround Beatty.
Free to reproduce
The BLM’S last roundup in Beatty came in 2015, when 44 “nuisance” animals were collected. In 2012, it used helicopters to herd and capture 77 burros in the area.
Cunningham said she watched the most recent roundup and was glad to see it conducted in gentle, humanefashion.shejustwishesthe Blmhadremovedmanymorethan it did.
“Don’t get me wrong: I actually like the burros, but they’re getting kind of overpopulated,” she said. “They’re definitely impacting the range out here.”
Kyle Hendrix, spokesman for the BLM’S vast Battle Mountain District, said the agency originally planned to collect 300 animals but requested permission to gather an additional 100 because the operation was going so smoothly.
But Hendrix acknowledged that the Blm-designated Bullfrog Herd Management Area still has about three times as many burros living in it as it should, even after the roundup was completed.
Between July 10 and July 24, BLM contractors used food and water to lure 207 males, 138 females and 59 foals off the open range. Two animals — a 5-year-old male and a 15-year-old male, both with serious existing medical conditions — were euthanized after being captured.
That left an estimated 268 burros in the herd area, which covers 245
Wild burros rounded up from the Beatty area will eventually be offered to suitable homes for adoption.
A total of 404 burros, including 59 foals, were collected during a twoweek operation conducted this month by a contractor for the Bureau of Land Management. Those animals have been moved to an off-range wild horse and burro facility in Axtell, Utah, to be readied for adoption.
Information on how to adopt a wild burro is available on the BLM’S website at www.blm.gov/whb.
Any burros that aren’t adopted will live out their lives in long-term offrange pastures paid for by the federal government. square miles surrounding Beatty.
The BLM believes the range can reasonablysustainnomorethan91 of the animals, but burros pay no attention to such “appropriate management levels.”
“They have no natural predators, and they reproduce at a rate of about 20 percent a year,” Hendrix said.
The size of the herd also poses problemsforthenationalpark Service, which recently announced a five-year operation to round up and remove all non-native burros from nearby Death Valley National Park. Beatty’s burros only have to wander about 10 miles west to begin repopulating the 3.4-million-acre park.
A stubborn problem
The situation is a microcosm of an endless and expensive problem facing federal land managers: Across the West, protected herds of wild horses and burros continue to grow,andtheonlywaytheblmhas found to control their numbers is by rounding them up and warehousing them in off-range pastures.
“It is taxing on us in terms of time and staffing and money,” Hendrix said. “Each year we submit requests for gathers. It’s all dependent on the national budget.”
Not everyone in Beatty supports the BLM’S efforts at herd control.
Fred and Patti Summers own The Happy Burro, a restaurant and “fourstool bar” along Beatty’s main drag. Patti Summers said she and her husband “absolutely love” the burros andwouldhatetoseemoreofthem rounded up.
When the animals wander by the Summers’ business, they’re often rewarded with a pat on the head and a treat.
“We’re not supposed to feed them, and I know that. But we give them only healthy food,” Patti Summers said. “They’re quite comfortable here in town. I don’t see a problem with them being here at all.”
Sure, they’ll eat all the flowers inyourgardenifyouletthem,she said, but they also attract tourists and help curb speeding through Beatty.
“The more they’re in town, the slower people drive. That’s a plus,” Summers said. “It’s 25 mph through town anyway.”
Contact Henry Brean at hbrean@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0350. Follow @Refriedbrean on Twitter.