Senate committee approves environmental and community funding

A bill headed for the U.S. Senate floor contains $4.6 million for programs to clean polluted air and water and fund community projects throughout Nevada.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the bill to fund Veterans Affairs and the Department of Housing and Urban Development was approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee Friday.

"It is important that Nevada's smaller communities are not ignored in the appropriations process," said Reid, a senior member of the Senate.

The VA-HUD Appropriations bill will now go to the Senate floor for a vote.

The legislation includes $350,000 for Virginia City's Storey County Community Chest community center construction project.

It also includes $300,000 for the Walker Lake Working Group for technical assistance to participate in water negotiations, and $200,000 for the Walker Lake Paiute Tribe to clean up military ordinance and other toxic problems on its reservation.

Other projects are:

-- $100,000 for Hawthorne water and sewer improvements;

-- $1 million for Virgin Valley for continued work on drinking water facilities to provide arsenic treatment;

-- $1 million for Washoe County for the North Lemmon Artificial Recharge Project;

-- $1 million for the Desert Research Institute for western Nevada,

regionally based, clean-water activities;

-- $325,000 for the Shoshone-Paiute Tribe for an environmental assessment of acid mine drainage on the Owyhee River, riparian areas and other areas on the Duck Valley reservation;

-- $350,000 for construction of Reno's Homeless Resource Center.