Earth Day Celebrations Planned Across Nevada
Suzanne Potter, Producer
Friday, April 22, 2016
LAS VEGAS – Today is Earth Day, time for Nevadans to celebrate the natural world.
This weekend, thousands are expected to pack celebrations across the state.
Greenfest Las Vegas is being held Saturday in downtown Summerlin. Reno's Earth Day party takes place on Sunday in Idlewild Park.
Jane Feldman, conservation chair for the Southern Nevada Group of the Sierra Club, says the environmental group will be promoting its Beyond Coal campaign at both celebrations to close the state's last coal-fired power plant – the North Valmy Generating Station in the north central part of the state.
And the Sierra Club is pushing for greater protections of public land, particularly Gold Butte.
"We want to protect the Gold Butte area just north of Las Vegas as a national conservation area,” Feldman states. “We also want to protect the greater Canyonlands area from uranium mining."
Southern Paiute activists from Moapa and Las Vegas are hosting a free 11-mile culture walk in Gold Butte, calling for national monument status.
Feldman says her group regularly leads hikes for inner city youth – a program called Inspiring Connections Outdoors – to pass on a love of nature to the next generation.
"It's not just the tree huggers who live in natural areas that are going to be doing this kind of environmental work in the future,” she stresses. “It's going to be the people that grew up in the middle of the city, too. And that's one of the things that we're providing these youngsters."
Feldman adds advocates also are working on a campaign to convince people to pull their financial investments from oil, gas and coal companies and utilities.
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