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Mount Charleston Getting a Face-liſt IN BUSINESS RECREATION By Conor Shine staff writer C ampgrounds and picnic areas around Mount Charleston will be getting a multimillion-dollar face- lift over the next several years, leading to closures and potential headaches for visitors during construction. Once the work is finished, though, visitors will be re- warded with cleaner, more accessible public areas and new trails throughout the Spring Mountains National Recreation Area, which is home to Mount Charleston and several other peaks. One construction project has already been finished at Mary Jane Falls and the Trail Canyon Trailhead, and several more sites have been shut down and cleared of old furnishings to make way for the renovations. In total, five campgrounds, three picnic sites and five trails will see improvements, which will likely cost more than $20 million. Funding for the projects will come through the Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act. The SNPLMA collects a portion of the revenue generated by federal land sales in the Las Vegas Valley and di- rects the funding to several areas, including the con- struction of parks, trails and natural areas. The centerpiece of the improvements will be a new, $10 million, 4,300-square-foot visitors center, dubbed the Spring Mountains Visitor Gateway, which is being built along Kyle Canyon Road. The old visitors center, a dilapidated set of wooden buildings, currently sits several miles inside the na- tional recreation area, and many visitors will turn off toward a trail or campsite before reaching it, said John Harris, an engineering staff officer with the Na- tional Forest Service. "Most (visitors) are coming up from Vegas to escape the heat, and they may not know where they're going," he said. "Here, they can come to the visitor center, learn about the mountain and know where they're go- ing as they proceed." The visitors center will have office, educational and exhibit space, Harris said, and will serve as a hub to access many of the trails in the area. COURTS AIRLINE CREW CAN SEEK PUNITIVE DAMAGES IN HAZARD-PAY DISPUTE distribution of hazard pay, Vision also By Dave Toplikar staff writer A must According to court documents, but the lower court ruled that punitive damages could not be sought. North Las Vegas charter airline face trial on punitive damage claims that it failed to pay its pilots and crew extra "hazard pay" for flying into Iraq and Afghanistan on government missions during the wars there, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled. The ruling, filed July 18, goes against Vision Airlines Inc., which pilots and crew members alleged pocketed the hazard pay. A jury in 2010 awarded the pilots and crew members actual damages of $5.27 million — including interest and costs — 10 The July 18 ruling by the Court of Appeals allows the plaintiffs to move forward in seeking punitive damages. According to court documents, during the U.S. military occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. established an "air bridge" to deliver supplies through war zones to U.S. posts in Baghdad, Iraq, and Kabul, Afghanistan. The U.S. airlines, such as Vision, contracted with private to deliver supplies to those posts, and it provided "hazard pay" for the pilots and crew. the contract said Vision pilots, first officers and international relief officers were to receive $5,000 in hazard pay per round-trip flight. Other crew members, including attendants and mechanics, were to receive $3,000 per round trip in hazard pay. The court said that in the summer of 2005, Vision paid some of the hazard pay to its pilots. By August of 2005, however, Vision stopped paying hazard pay to any of its employees "and it kept the money for its own benefit," the court said. "In addition to ceasing its intermittent fired all pilots and crew members who knew about or had previously received hazard pay, and it replaced them with employees who were unaware they were entitled to it," Judge Alfred T. Goodwin wrote in the ruling. that A class action lawsuit was filed in January 2009 on behalf of pilots and crew members seeking $21 million in damages. Vision has claimed that in the contract between it and its upstream contractors, "there is no amount that is separated or allocated for hazard pay." | 30 JULY 2012 | Other projects will see the renovation of various sites throughout the recreation area, many of which haven't been improved since the 1960s. The Cathedral Rock Picnic Area and Trailhead has been closed for the summer but should reopen next spring with new access roads, new furniture and flushable toilets, said Michael Balen, a lead engineer with the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, which is located, in part, in the Spring Mountains. Similar improvements, including expanding park- ing lots, installing restrooms and replacing furniture, will be made at the Mahogany Grove, McWilliams and MODERN MOUNTAIN: Mike Balen holds a rendering of the new Spring Mountain Visitor Gateway being built on Mount Charleston. SAM MORRIS Dolomite campgrounds, as well as the Desert View Overlook and the Foxtail Group Picnic Site. The Old Mill and Kyle campgrounds also will undergo renova- tions and reopen as picnic areas. Balen said construction plans have been accelerated and crews are working to minimize the time that the sites are closed, but visitors will be impacted and he expects "bottlenecks" in the areas that remain open. "Change is coming, and it's starting now," he said. "We want people to know that before they come up, they should check and make sure the site they're visit- ing is open."