36 years ago this month

Do you know that nine years from now, the natural gas reserves in the U.S. will be so low that use of what is now a cheap, convenient fuel will become a luxury?

Or that by 1987 -- 15 years from now -- all of the recoverable oil reserves lying beneath this country will be exhausted?

And that a mere 13 years later, at the turn of the century, those coal deposits we have always regarded as limitless will be almost gone.

This information was released as part of a report authored by John M. Ward, president of Desert Research Institute, ironically titled "Fuels of Today are Going Fast; New Energy Sources Needed."

County Assessor Leo Funk predicted that the building of a high school in Pahrump Valley would prompt a population jump to 10,000 people within a few years.

Funk made the remark while addressing members of the Tonopah Rotary.

30 years ago this week

Nevada Bell is installing 1.8 miles of telephone lines along Pahrump Valley Boulevard with the capacity to serve 1,200 new main station telephones.

The $260,000 project starts at the phone company's office on Wilson Road and runs along the boulevard to the south side of Calvada Boulevard. Work is expected to be completed in late July.

Long-term projections indicate growth in that part of Calvada Valley will demand the need for the cables now going in.

Fire Chief Vern Andrews has received a set of final plans for the Pahrump Fire Station to be located in the south end of the valley on Homestead Road. Work will begin in the near future.

County Administrator Roy Neighbors also has a set of the drawings in Tonopah. The project will include room for three vehicles and is designed with expansion in mind.

The National Park Service has approved the plan of operations for the Mammoth Mine in Death Valley National Monument, according to Superintendent Donald M. Spalding.

Regulations mandated by the National Park Mining Law have been in effect since January 1977 and require mining companies to file a plan with the NPS, detailing how the operation will affect the environment and the steps to be followed to reclaim and rehabilitate areas affected by mining activity.

20 years ago this week

The sale of Saddle West moved a step closer with a sizable earnest money deposit being made and general agreement on terms being reached.

Saddle West consultant Jack Sanders said that the casino-hotel operation on Highway 160 would be sold for about $4.5 million to J. Wayne Stewart.

Stewart still must undergo a background check by the Nevada Gaming Board. Typically, a background check could take several months.

Nye County recently received a $25,126 check from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in lieu of taxes on land acquired for the Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge in Amargosa Valley. The refuge is managed by the agency.

Since 1935, the agency has made revenue-sharing payments to counties for refuge land under its administration.

The head of the nuclear waste repository project for the Department of Energy in Nevada told a receptive audience in Amargosa Valley that he sympathized with the concerns of Nye County residents that they receive a greater opportunity to work on the proposed project, if it ends up being located in Nevada.

Testing is being conducted to determine Yucca Mountain's suitability as the nation's first high-level nuclear waste repository. The topic that dominated the meeting did not involve safety or other such issues but potential employment opportunities.

10 years ago this week

A panel at the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection fined the Ponderosa Dairy in Amargosa Valley $100,000 in response to an illegal discharge of effluent from a dairy field.

NDEP officials will meet with dairy officials in Carson City to discuss mitigating circumstances that may lead to a less severe penalty, and to discuss possible modifications to the dairy that would help prevent a similar incident in the future.

New plans for a middle school in Pahrump have been submitted by the architect to the Nye County School District, and the revisions have teachers and administrators at Rosemary Clarke Middle School shaking their heads in wonder.

In a bitter twist of irony -- and budget constraints -- the plans call for a facility significantly smaller than the current site, which is overcrowded and in a "moderate state of disrepair," according to a compilation of faculty complaints.

The Herbst family gave a $2.3 million vote of confidence to Pahrump by purchasing the bankrupt Double Eagle Casino and the land around it after winning the bidding war with Ray Hendrix.

John Thielman, who manages Terrible's Town, said the company has a simple plan.

"We've already got an investigation (for another gaming license), so we're going to put this with it. ... We're going to fast-track this and get it open real quick."

The Double Eagle is located on Thousandaire; the property is estimated as having a value of from $3 to $3.5 million.