Clark County expected to act on ENN land

In response to a News West inquiry, his staff said Tuesday the sale or lease of the entire county-owned 9,000 acres from the California border to the state recreation area on the west side of the Colorado River is expected to be on the agenda for the board of commissioners’ second meeting in December in downtown Las Vegas.

The Needles Highway bisects the property from the San Bernardino County line to around Mile Post 4, where the natural gas pipeline over the Colorado River meets the highway.

ENN Mojave is an American subsidiary of the world-wide ENN group, headquartered in Langfang, China, about an hour from the capital city of Beijing. Its chairman told a conference in Las Vegas recently that the corporation wants to invest $10 billion (no U.S. government money) in its facilities in the United States. About half of that would be for the initial two phases of the factory and generating farm, requiring an estimated 4,000 construction workers during a four- to six-year window, plus 2,000 permanent manufacturing-solar farm jobs. Only a handful of top-level managers and scientists would come from China.

Sisolak told a gathering in downtown Laughlin recently that he expects most of the construction workers to commute from Las Vegas. Sources close to the county said the disposal contract would call for at least 45 percent of the workers being required to live in Nevada.

The first two phases also would be a tax gold mine for local and state governments, up to a projected $60 million a year.

While starting as a solar facility — the thin panels would be carried via a tunnel under the highway from the factory to the electric farm — the research center would attract research and development personnel, concentrating on developing other kinds of renewable energy generation. The village would include demonstration projects aimed at showing the sustainability of each method.