One of the arguments by opponents of the federal detention center project on East Mesquite Avenue is the neighborhood on the alluvial fan could eventually be a community resembling the area around Sunrise Mountain in Las Vegas, overlooking Pahrump Valley, with beautiful nighttime views of the lights below.

That euphoric view, voiced by people like Realtor Norma Jean Opatik, instead could vanish in the dust of industrial uses in the future, like a nearby gravel pit, for which the Nye County Commission recently extended the conditional use permit for another three years.

The 79-acre Rinker Materials gravel pit fronts on the west side of Higley Road, about the farthest street on the east end of Pahrump, between Mesquite Avenue on the south and Blosser Ranch Road on the north. Rinker Materials is a major operator in Pahrump, with other gravel pits farther south, on the east side of Highway 160.

The conditional use permit was first approved Oct. 19, 2005, for a crushing, mining and concrete batch plant in a heavy industrial district. The permit expires in three years unless construction is completed. The gravel pit is now largely quiet.

Commissioners approved the extension last month under the consent agenda in which a number of items can be approved with one motion. There was no discussion.

The gravel pit is the only visible development east of the county landfill nearly at the end of East Mesquite Avenue.

"Due to the economic slowdown that has occurred over the course of the last several years in Southern Nevada in general and in the Pahrump Valley in particular, Rinker Materials West and United Metro Materials have not yet begun mining, rock crushing or batch plant operations on the Blosser Ranch properties," said a letter from company attorney Martin Welsh to county commissioners.

"However, in anticipation of a resurgent market, Rinker Materials and United Metro Materials by this letter request that the Nye County Commission approve an extension of time for commencement of the sand and gravel rock crushing, mining and batch plant operations on the property."

If operations become feasible at the site, Rinker Materials agrees to undertake off-site improvements on the property as agreed in negotiations between the company and Nye County, Welsh wrote. Rinker Materials agreed to improve Mesquite Avenue as a two-lane paved road for 2.25 miles from Highway 160 to the site.

Commissioners in October 2005 approved a rezoning from open use to heavy industrial for the property; a waiver to allow the plant to be located within 1,000 feet of a residential property line; a waiver of a requirement for chip-sealing access to the plant; a waiver of a requirement to provide screening within 330 feet of residential or commercial zones and landscaping.

The waivers were approved after the county planning department found there were no residences in the immediate area; other sand and gravel operations were nearby which aren't screened or landscaped; it's located at the outer edge of the Pahrump regional planning district and is near an existing landfill which isn't screened or landscaped.

In the 2005 application the company said it expects to have only two to three employees at the location, with fewer than 50 daily trips.