Good evening.

It is Thursday, November 20th.

I'm calling this meeting of the Washoe County Planning Commission to order.

Could we have a determination of quorum, please?

Okay, excuse me.

Michael Flick?

Here.

Amy Owens?

Present.

Dan Lazareski.

Kate Nelson.

Here.

Jim Barnes.

Here.

Rob Pierce.

Present.

And Commissioner Kennedy.

I don't believe it'll make it.

Let me just check on mine.

She is here.

Just one moment.

I'm promoting you, Linda.

So go ahead and accept.

Okay, Linda, go ahead and unmute.

Lady Kennedy.

Present.

Thank you.

We have a core.

Thank you so much.

Would you please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance?

Undervisible with liberty and justice are all the questions.

Thank you so much.

Could we have the ethics law announcement?

Certainly.

Jen Gustafson for the record.

Commissioners are reminded that if with respect to any matter or any person coming before the commission today, number one, you've received a gift or loan.

Number two, you have a pecuniary interest.

Number three, you have a commitment in a private capacity, such as a family, employment, business, or similar relationship.

Or number four, if you've provided representation or counseling before an agency to a person or entity for compensation within the last year on a matter being considered here tonight.

Please remember to disclose that gift, loan, interest, commitment, or prior representation at the time the matter is being considered.

And furthermore, please remember to abstain from deliberation or voting on the matter if it's clear that the gift, loan, interest, commitment, or prior representation would materially affect the independence of judgment of a reasonable person.

Commissioners are also reminded that under your planning commission rules, if you've had any contact outside this meeting with any persons interested in a matter coming before the commission today, you should disclose the nature of that contact at this meeting.

This meeting is held in the county commission chambers.

It's also being held via Zoom.

To attend the meeting via Zoom, you can log into the Zoom webinar using the link found on the first page of the agenda.

You can also join by typing Zoom.us into your computer browser.

Click join a meeting on the Zoom website and enter meeting ID 842-7265-9406.

For anyone having any technical difficulties, you can join the meeting via telephone only by dialing 1 669 900 9128 and enter meeting ID 842-7265-9406 and press pound.

Uh for those joining us via Zoom for public comment, you can utilize the raise hand feature during any public comment period.

And to provide public comment via telephone, you can press star nine to raise your hand and star six to mute or unmute.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And could we have the appeals procedure, please?

Yes, most decisions rendered by the planning commission are appealable to the Board of County Commissioners.

If you disagree with the decision of the planning commission and you qualify as an agreed person or party, you may appeal in writing within 10 calendar days from the date that the decision being appealed is reduced to writing, filed with the Secretary of the Planning Commission and mailed to the original applicant in the proceeding being appealed in accordance with Washoe County Code.

Please call the planning staff immediately at 775-3286100 for information on the appeal procedure and the application fee.

Thank you so much.

Do we have any general public comment at this time?

Excuse me, I have no general public comment in chambers.

I have no hands raised odd zoom.

All right.

Um I assume everyone's seeing the agenda for the evening.

Do we have any modifications?

If not.

Commissioner Nelson, I'll second.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed.

The motion carries.

Does anyone have comments or amendments to the draft minutes from the November 4th meeting?

Can we have a motion to approve them?

Motion to approve the minutes from November 4th.

I I move we I second the motion.

Thank you so much.

We have a motion and a second.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

The motion carries.

All right.

We are on to public hearings.

Thank you.

Item 8A.

Public hearings, a special use permit case number WSUP 250018.

For hearing discussion and possible action to approve a special use permit for a high technology industrial use type for drone research and testing and fire private airstrip use type and to recommend approval to the Board of County Commissioners of a hazardous material special use permit for a general industrial heavy use type to include explosives testing and use of storage of certain hazardous materials in the high desert planning area as required by NRS 278-147 and Washoe County Code.

Section 110-81042.

The project site is 320 acres and is surrounded by public land.

The hazardous materials that are proposed to be on the site have the following CAS numbers.

Good evening.

Good evening.

And this is the Iveson Ranch project.

So this pro uh property proposed for this project is located in the high desert planning area.

The subject property is highlighted and it's roughly 320 acres.

The parcel is located 26 miles north of Gurlach off of County Route 34.

And it is zoned general rural with a master plan designation of rural.

The general rural designation within this area is important.

So the request before us is for a special use permit for high technology industrial.

And that's specific to the drone testing and drone research.

And per the modifiers that will require special use permit as well.

Additionally, the general industrial heavy is intended to include explosive testing as well as the storage of certain hazardous materials.

And so there is a special use permit requirement exclusive to the hazardous materials, as well as additional noticing requirements, which we'll cover further.

Additionally, they are asking for outdoor storage and modifications to landscaping, parking, noise, and paving.

As mentioned with the high desert modifiers, they do allow for code allowances in that general rural regulatory zone that's not seen elsewhere within the county.

And so they separate the two between special use permit requirements for the more intense use types and allowed by right.

So the private airstrip and general industrial heavy do require that special use permit within general rural as part of this request in the modifiers.

However, for the high tech industria, we would refer back to Article 302, which is our primary use table, and that does require a special use permit as well in the general rural regulatory zone.

So the high-tech industrial use type is for the unmanned aerial systems or drone software testing.

This is intended to take place on the Iveson Ranch property as well as the adjacent uh BLM land.

The applicant within their application stated that the drones that are going to be part of this are roughly the size of a dinner plate.

And drone operations will be required to comply with FAA Part 107 regulations, which govern commercial drone operations.

The private airstrip, the next special use permit request, is existing at this location, and it's at the northern end of the project.

It does span two parcels, one of the Ives and Ranch property and one of BLM's property.

The applicant has requested to modify Section 110 306 50, specifically condition A, which requires a 300-foot setback and a 65 decibel limit.

And so this waiver is being supported, and this waiver does not give the applicants full freedom to ignore Washoe County's noise ordinance.

This just is specific to the private airstrip and airplane use only.

So 75% of the site is expected to be accessed by air.

The applicants are willing to bring people in by car if necessary, but the goal is for uh to avoid VMTs and have site access from air.

As part of the private airstrip use type, they will be required to have written BLM approval prior to the use of the airstrip.

So above is the uh airstrip and current configuration.

The blue highlight is on the Ives and Ranch property, and the yellow is on BLM property.

The applicants have also proposed outdoor storage.

The yellow highlighted areas are for the proposed storage areas.

No hazardous materials will be stored in these locations.

These are intended for cargo containers, uh, fleet vehicles, fire safety vehicles, and things that they're going to use in their day-to-day operations.

With the general industrial heavy or explosive testings, um, so there is no testing that's going to be taking place with uh drones dropping explosives.

Instead, these explosive tests will take place in a fixed location that is secure on a secure range.

And the applicant stated that up to 10 pounds of explosive materials may be used per test, but the majority of these tests will be much lower in amounts than that.

Above is in blue highlighted, that is the ranch area or where much of the operations in day-to-day will take place, and that yellow highlighted area to the south is where the explosives will be conducted.

So, as part of this, there is a hazardous material component.

And that's because the property is going to contain and store explosive materials on site.

Washoe County does have requirements associated with hazardous material, including taking this item to the Board of County Commissioners for approval of that hazardous material requirement, as well as certain strict noticing requirements associated with that, as well as consultation.

So the applicant is requesting to modify standards.

Those standards are parking, uh landscaping, and paving.

And with those, due to the remoteness of this property, and this property is not intended to be open to the general public.

Staff was supportive of these requests to waive standards.

So as part of this review, we did reach out to the ATF to understand their process a little better.

And so this slide touches up on their requirements.

And they were uh they regulate licensing and regulate storage, record keeping, and storage notification.

And so the explosives as part of this project will have to meet ATF standards for storage and an approved uh magazine or storage facility.

Uh, and that's based off the classification of the explosives on site.

They also have to maintain permanent records for all acquisitions, uh disposal and inventory of explosive materials, and they are required to notify the local fire jurisdiction on the capacity storage location and types of explosives.

ATF did provide a letter that says they have inspected the proposed storage sites, and the storage uh has been approved.

So with this project, there's you know, concerns with wildfires and fire-related uh incidents, and so the applicant does have on-site fire response.

They have two 4,000 gallon water trucks on site, they have three utility vehicles on site with fire skids, and then multiple fire handles.

They've also been coordinating with Truckee Meadows uh fire protection district on additional fire safety requirements.

So back to the hazardous material requirement and the consultation.

As part of this, we're required to consult with a number of agencies.

Umeland security and emergency management, which we were we consulted with, um, NDEP and NDEP's CAT program, the Nevada State Fire Marshal, the Division of the Industrial Relations, and Nevada State Department of Business and Industry, the commander or administrator of a military installation, and the governing body of a city or county.

In this case, we went through the clerk's office.

Additionally, we did consult with uh BLM, NDEP, um, and DAO, as well as many other agencies.

So there is notable conditions of approval that I want to highlight.

The first one being on Endow consultation consultation.

So EndO had uh concerns related to uh fawning with antelope and mule deer during the months of May and June, and they provided two potential uh condition options.

One was no explosives to take place at all during May and June, and the other was a timing element of uh sunrise, sunset, and a 50% reduction per month on when explosives can take place.

The applicant was acceptable for that condition, and they uh chose that one to uh enforce.

Uh we also had uh conditions from Northern Nevada Public Health, and that's specific to monitoring wells related to uh potential contamination of uh groundwater.

We also have uh conditions with Chucky Meadows fire protection as well as another condition that was consultated with Endow and Chucky Meadows fire protection, and those are related to uh wildfire protection plan that is approved by the state as well as a vegetation management plan.

The applicants did conduct a neighborhood meeting on July 28th via Zoom.

Four people were present, and then they held a supplemental meeting on August 6th with one resident attending, and there was concerns related to the hazardous material.

Overall, it was stated that the app uh the resident didn't have uh concerns overall related to the project, just the hazardous materials.

Additionally, what is not on here is that the applicants did recently uh present this item to the Gurlag Empire CAB earlier this earlier this week, I believe.

So, as part of the hazardous materials, there's substantial public notice associated with this.

So, this is a pretty remote area, and so we had to go out 75,000 feet to get the required notice uh complete.

Notice was required to be done 30 days before this meeting.

It was required to be in the RGJ or local newspaper.

It noticed the CAB, the GID, as well as multiple high-level individuals within state uh agencies.

Staff was able to make all required five findings and is recommending this project for approval with conditions.

Those findings were consistency, improvements, site suitability issuance, not detrimental in effect on a military installation.

And this is a possible motion.

This motion is also found within your staff report.

I'm available for any questions you may have.

We also have representatives from Truckee Meadows Fire as well as Northern Nevada Public Health.

If you do have any questions.

Thank you.

I have a question.

Uh we're not um yet doing questions for staff.

Uh the next step would be um if there's a presentation from the applicant.

Good evening for the record.

My name is Dave Snellgrove.

I'm planning manager with Bowman Consulting Group, working with the BRDR group and the project team on this project.

My portion of the presentation will be relatively brief with me uh this evening, who will give most of the presentations.

Mr.

Mike Arth, who's the general manager with BRDR.

We would look just like to take time and thank staff.

We had a lot of meetings and discussions with them.

If you look at the conditions, the way they're broken up is a little different than what you're used to seeing.

That trying to tie appropriate conditions in with appropriate portions of the project use is one of the things that we really went and worked with with staff on.

So if you read through the conditions, it'll say what it's applicable to.

Um there were many meetings that went on.

We also had, I was here a few weeks ago with a development code amendment relative to employee housing.

Um, between this project and also the the uh development code amendment.

We had six meetings with the cab or uh uh with neighborhood meetings or workshops that that all had notices.

I mentioned that that uh the meeting with the cab last week that Mr.

Arthur attended, that was that was like last Thursday night.

Um so there were a lot of discussions that went on, and we we've been getting some even as late as today.

We've had a lot of opportunity, and we haven't shied away from discussing things with anybody.

There has been a lot of discussions with Burning Man.

Uh the our team met with them uh this Monday and continued some discussion.

I believe they are in attendance this evening.

Uh Chris did a great job.

Uh oh, blacked out.

There we go.

Chris did a great job in covering, so I'll go through a lot of these first slides very quickly.

The special use permit portions, the runway or an airstrip, outdoor storage, energetics.

Um, because the site is so remote, we we asked for some variation to standards.

It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to do curb and gut curb and gutter type things and paving and standard paving out in the remote area that we are.

The paving staying with more of a graveled surface is appropriate for this area, landscaping and screening around the outdoor storage and general landscaping out here, it's more native Nevada.

And as Chris mentioned, the noise component is only an association with the air strip.

So, in terms of remoteness, we're about two and a half miles from or 2.4 miles from the nearest inhabited non-Ibison uh ranch building.

And uh about 5.8 miles from Fly Geyser area, 11 miles from Black Rock Playa, 13.5 miles from Burning Man, and 26 miles driving from Gurlach.

So it is a remote area, um, and we've got a good distance to the nearest nearest inhabited neighbor, but we do understand there are some concerns.

Chris covered the zoning and master planning, he covered the the uh modifiers in the code that allow for these uses in the GR zone.

I just wanted to cover the the outdoor storage area.

We we tried to find areas that kind of had already been used in that fashion um in the past.

So these are the two areas that are around the housing area.

I will turn it over to Mike as he's got another slides to go through.

Oh, I think I jumped.

Yeah, I'll get a side.

Yeah.

Go one forward.

Thank you.

For the record, uh, Mike Arth, I'm a Washoe County resident and a uh the GM for the Ivison ranch.

I spent my uh the past 15 years of my life as a military pilot, uh, left the military in 2020, went to business school, and uh got interested after watching what's going on in Ukraine uh with the drone industry and trying to understand how I could apply some of what I learned in the military to uh helping helping folks around the world who um you know, even tonight uh will probably in in Kyiv uh encounter six to eight hundred um Russian garrons.

Uh these are Iranian uh designed uh Shahed munitions.

Uh and so there are families uh across Ukraine that are uh they're being bombarded tonight with those kind of munitions.

Our company does not exclusively focus on uh defense applications, although that is an important part of our business.

Uh we have uh efforts in conservation, we anticipate efforts in agriculture.

Uh, there are a great many uses for drones.

I think many of us in the room may have uh uh even flown one or seen one in a public park.

They're authorized to be flown uh here in Reno and uh the state of Nevada has taken a leading uh stance in allowing and inviting in companies like ours to do test operations here in compliance with FAA guidance uh and uh state state law.

And so when we acquired the Ivison site, uh we liked it because of the runway.

We liked the ability to access this for employees.

Um we understood it to be a very old runway, which would be grandfathered in and came to learn uh in talking with folks that it actually been built after the grandfather period.

It also been built violating the uh the line, the property line between our property and the BLM.

And so we've been in conversations with the BLM.

We anticipate eventually doing either a land swap or a license agreement.

Um we understand today that the BLM does authorize uh aircraft when safe to do so to land on their property uh on the BLM property.

And so you can land aircraft across the playas of Nevada legally uh that is authorized by the FAA and the BLM.

Uh in this case, uh it was obviously made as a runway, and so uh the prior landowner was probably in violation of permit here.

We want to clean that up, we want to be good custodians and uh earn the public's trust and do those things that are right for the code.

Um as Mint previously mentioned, there is a noise variance issue here in that to take an aircraft airborne, uh not all aircraft, but some aircraft, you would have to cross the property line while still on the prepared surface.

And so in that moment, you would not be 300 feet above the ground.

And in that moment, you would probably be, depending on the aircraft type, above 65 decibels.

And so we ask for a noise variance here, not for the energetics use, but for this uh particular application.

The vast majority of anticipated use is small piston aircraft of less than 100 horsepower engine.

The FAA requires us to uh fly along with drones uh during certain flight profiles over long distances in order to create a safety bubble and uh visual clearance around the drone activity.

You can do that from the ground or from the air.

Uh we tend to do that from the air, and uh and for that reason it is helpful to us to have an aircraft on that strip.

That aircraft has a 300-foot takeoff distance, a 300-foot takeoff uh landing distance.

And so uh the vast majority of times with that aircraft, we would anticipate never violating the property line and northern noise ordinance with slightly larger aircraft that are passenger carrying PC-12s, uh Cessna 208s or otherwise, uh, there would be some noise uh encroachment on the on the BLM property line there.

But that would be the minority of our use of the airstrip.

Energetics, I think is uh probably the the greatest bit of public interest here.

So I'm gonna try to clarify a few things that may not have been uh totally clear in our application, and I apologize for that.

I am not an energetics engineer.

I I have very limited explosives handling background, uh, but I am the site manager and I'm responsible for the activities there, and I take that obligation very uh seriously.

So we you know, to set aside some concerns, we are not planning nor will we ever drop ammunition from a drone, nor will we fly ammunition on a drone.

Although some of our products may do that in the deployed environment, some of our products may do that on military test ranges in the United States or in other allied nations at the Ivison property.

We are testing explosives separate from the drone activity.

And I can understand why the public is concerned if if you conflate the two.

Uh we do want to store up to 2,000 pounds of energetic material in our magazine, and this would be a is a safety magazine uh that the ATF certifies and has all the proper security safeguards uh shrouded locks, uh certain gauge steel they can take rounds.

Uh we have on-site security personnel, and there's mandatory inspection requirements for this.

The ATF uh audits us on, and we'll not only comply with their seven-day inspection regime, but we'll do daily inspections of this facility.

Uh 2,000 pounds is a pretty big number, not what we really anticipate storing here, but based on the safe distances and the calculations we went through with the ATF.

It was determined that 2,000 pounds is ample for our purposes and needs and also amply safe by their standards.

The vast majority of testing will be static testing of less than 10 pounds of munitions.

In fact, you'll see on the later slides, up to 70% will be of less than one gram of TNT in what is called a blasting cap.

It's very similar to a firecracker that you could buy, maybe not in Nevada, but in many other states.

So important, we're not testing new materials.

We're not an energetics company.

We are a company that has customers who sometimes use energetics in the application of our technology.

And it's important for us to understand how those systems behave and how they might interface with electronic components of our system.

And so we have to at some point test the ability of an electron to get from a commanded signal to the explosive charge.

And that means that for the majority of the cases, we are not actually testing true munitions.

We're testing the agents that enable the munition to actually detonate.

And as previously mentioned, not flying drones on munitions on drones.

I think it's important.

I think the public rightfully has concerns about past instance with rocket dyne or other uh sort of large-scale manufacturers.

This is not a manufacturing operation.

Uh, it's also not a liquid-fueled rocket, right?

We have some rocket ambitions and we would like to test some small rocket motors that are hobby grade rocket motors.

They are ammonium percolate and need to be stored in this munitions uh magazine, but they are not uh sort of the liquid type rockets that uh take things to space and and can otherwise be of obvious groundwater contamination concerns.

We've seen the site before this uh zig uh zigzag shape, the explosive areas in that south uh west corner.

Uh that's approximately a 10-acre parcel uh inside of a 40-acre there.

Uh and we've situated the energetics facility in the greatest depressed bowl on our property, which enables us to uh uh test these things without having noise spillover and propagation from our environment to the best of our abilities.

The closest structure is our own, and so a lot of the safety calculations are actually derived based on our, you know, trying to avoid breaking or damaging our own structures or obviously injuring any of our own personnel.

And uh for those reasons, we state in the application that we are safe to explode up to a 200-pound charge.

Um that would have a 1% probability of breaking the nearest window.

Uh that is a very different activity than what we are doing, which is a 10-pound charge at the maximum.

You've seen these materials before.

Uh, they are serious.

Uh they do require security and safe handling.

Uh, and we have the right personnel on hand who are have spent their careers uh handling these kind of uh uh dangerous goods.

Uh frequency, I think, is an important uh consideration here, especially when we think about noise.

Um you'll see in a moment that the the noise signature of these events is similar to that of a shotgun blast or a car backfiring.

It's very short-lived.

Uh, and we actually anticipate doing very few of these.

Uh so we are not anticipating or in any way planning to be sort of a training area where you'd have frequent bomb blasts and explosive events.

You can imagine a scientist uh preparing a series, a day series of experiments, doing maybe five tests per day at most, and doing that about four days a week, coming in on a Monday, preparing things, testing on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.

Across the year, we anticipate about 18 weeks of that kind of activity.

And so we believe that the public benefits of this project far outweigh the the potential downsides, although we're aware that there's many public concerns and we want to act proactively to address those.

Uh as Mid previously mentioned, about 70% detonators, uh, which is staff able to help me play the video here.

Yes.

Thank you.

There's no sound on this one.

Yeah, this one sound doesn't work, although that's a detonator.

Um that is the vast majority of the work that we plan to do on this site.

That's uh stood pretty close to a few of these.

That's about a 22 going off, um, which would be legal for us to do on our property, but this is not legal for us to do without your permission and uh the board's permission.

All right, this is a hobby rocket motor.

This does have a good sound signature.

We anticipate about seven second burn time for the majority of motors that we desire to test.

Uh we are not the manufacturers of these motors, but we are a user of them and want to understand quality control and have variability between different manufacturers.

These are very similar, in fact, in most cases, identical to the rocket motors used during the triple E test event.

So for those of you that haven't been up before in the Black Rock Desert frequently throughout the summer, hobbyist rocket clubs uh launch quite large rockets out of the Black Rock Desert.

It's exciting to watch.

Uh there have been cases in the past where they put satellites in space from there using using solid rocket motor technology.

Uh some of those are 20 feet tall.

Uh most of our product is more like a six-foot-tall uh rocket.

The motor would be tested on a static test stand and locked to the earth to enable us to do scientific measurement in a way you can't do when you blast something straight up.

So about 15 miles from this site, uh hobbyists are allowed to do this activity uh when they want to in coordination with the FAA.

We believe it's our uh we believe the public should support us doing that same kind of research and development on our own private property in a place where we believe the noise signature can be sufficiently uh mitigated.

And finally, this is a true munition.

All right, that was about a 12-pound charge.

The vast majority of our charges will be one to four pounds, occasionally five to ten pounds, almost never above 10 pounds.

Um we've uh committed to some conditions uh in a private party agreement with Burning Man and other groups that may be interested in that.

That our application may not make it explicitly clear that we will not do greater than 10 pound charges, and we wanted to make that clear for the public.

So we will commit to you that we will not do charges greater than 10 pounds.

All right, I I don't want to spend everyone's time on this, but the I have these exhibits uh and I can talk to some of the the science and math uh behind the distances and the and the size charges, but as previously mentioned, uh these are all small munition charges, although our application references some of the math that drives towards larger volumes being safe, but is not the intended use of this site.

So I believe I'm out of time, uh, but happy to speak to uh questions about noise and and some of the things we're prepared to do and plan to do to mitigate uh noise concerns.

All right, thank you so much.

Um do we have questions from the board?

Linda, would you like to oh sorry go ahead?

Uh before you ask questions, I um need to have one more thing to discuss.

So I do apologize.

Uh Chris Bronzik, Wash County Planning.

So there were two conditions on our uh engineering uh conditions document that we are proposing to change.

So the first one is condition two D.

This is a condition related to FAA documentation.

We want to move that over to planning conditions, and then uh condition two C, which is engineering's BLM condition.

We want to remove that entirely.

And so I just wanted to make sure that that was clear and that we wanted to uh amend those conditions as part of this uh public hearing.

Thank you.

All right.

Um questions from the board.

I had two questions.

Um, in your one of you in your maps.

The the one um, Chris, on the map where you showed um where the explosives would be held and the purple area where and relative to that map is uh is uh runway or is it off that map?

So the runway is not shown on this map, so this is the very bottom portion of the uh is there at like the far north end of the property?

Yes, it is.

Okay, that's what I couldn't understand.

Okay, that's my first question.

My other question, um, reading some of the comments in our letters about wildlife.

Is there going to be any kind of fencing or deterrent to keep the wildlife off, or is that an issue for later discussion?

I'm going to let the applicant speak to that.

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you for your question.

We uh there is some barbed wire fencing around the property that's uh meant for as cattle fencing.

Uh we were open to doing what the uh county and uh other concerned groups might recommend if there is a desire for additional fencing in certain conversations within Dow.

We had uh brought up the idea about security fencing in certain locations, and there were concerns with them and the BLM around uh mitigating wildlife movement patterns, and so we had chosen not to pursue that.

But if there's uh a desire, we were happy to amend our plan to uh accommodate that concern.

All right, do we have questions from other board members?

I'm in that comment just slightly uh to be clear, the the area that will be the energetics test pad is a 50 by 50 concrete pad with certain test apparatus on it.

It's surrounded by uh concrete block that we will bring in and stack, these are stackable kind of jersey barriers, if you will, that will surround the event when it occurs.

Additionally, beyond that, there's another layer which is a dirt berm that will be built up around the site.

And so there's sort of three layers of defensive posture to prevent a wayward antelope from entering the explosive area before a test, in addition to the humans who will be around there, and uh and you know, ensuring that yeah, none of the the horses, the dogs, or the other animals on the property would come and interfere with the test.

Thank you.

All right.

Um, well, if there aren't other questions for staff or the applicant, uh do we have any public comment on this item?

I have Linda Linton in chambers.

Linda This is your opportunity to speak.

Do you want to go later?

Is that your say?

Yes.

Okay.

Evan McKirk.

Followed by Arlo Stockham.

Thank you very much for the record.

Uh, my name is Evan McQuerk.

I'm a Washoe County resident.

I am also the president of the board of directors for Nevada Bighorns Unlimited here in uh the Reno chapter.

Um I have a little bit of a statement and just some comments.

Um our organization is uh one of the biggest um NGOs in the state that represents conservation-minded people.

Um, a lot of our concerns obviously uh come from the wildlife impacts with this.

Uh Mr.

Arth a couple of times has done a very good job of explaining this.

Uh we ex we respect his clarity and willingness to foster discussion.

I think we do need to find a good balance between innovation and technology and businesses that seek to make Nevada a leader in commerce, but our state wildlife shouldn't suffer because of this.

Uh a big part of the impact here uh would be the noise aversion.

Um, all species of wildlife, uh big and small game, as well as cattle and ranching industries.

Uh the drone flights over this critical habitat um would directly impact a lot of the wildlife here, and and that is a major concern.

Um, these areas should be as stress-free as possible uh to limit the impact on the wildlife in these areas.

Um the concerns for future expansion.

I mean, we understand that the business of the the Iverson Ranch uh can be as uh private as they want about this.

Our concerns may be that this is initial push that will be expanded in the future, uh, and and how do we put that genie back in the bottle?

Uh the main questions that we would have um, how does the approval of this special use permit benefit Washoe County in general, its residents, and more importantly, how does it uh benefit the associated wildlife or or take into concerns the impact on the wildlife?

Uh Nevada Bighorns Unlimited strongly opposes this special use permit.

Uh the impacts in the neighboring wildlife and habitat have not been properly assessed and addressed.

Uh it would be irresponsible to approve this permit as presented.

Thank you.

Excuse me, Arlo Stockham.

Followed by Michael Stewart.

Are you going to use that right now?

I am, please.

Oh, good.

Good evening, Commissioners.

My name's Arlo Stockham.

Good evening, Trevor.

Um, I'm representing Bright Holland Company, uh, BBC Investment, and a couple other affiliated companies who own property in this area.

Um, I wanted to highlight um a little background here that didn't show up in the staff report.

Um, there's been many decades of efforts for conservation on the Granite Mountains and down into Wallapai Valley.

My clients have been very active in that.

What you see in red is the project site.

Blue is Bright Holland's remaining private parcels, which are interspersed with the BLM land and mostly unfenced.

And green is land that has been sold to the BLM for conservation purposes in the last 20 years.

Um, those hatched areas on the south end.

That's the BLM designation of a special recreation management area here that's a special protection just short of wilderness to support quiet outdoor recreation.

The other lines getting very busy are the proposed wilderness areas in Senator Rosen's lands bill that was introduced this year.

So there's been a lot of conservation efforts in this area, especially to the south, but also a little bit to the north of the project site.

But at the same time, in reading through the materials, we didn't see any concrete limitations to address some of our concerns.

First up is flyover.

It's incredibly hard to tell when you're over BLM or over these private parcels.

But there's no area designated, and we think that should be required.

We think that area should leave a buffer to the special recreation management area and to private lands and really focus this use in areas where it won't be as disturbing.

And I know there's a lot of wildlife advocates here too.

The heavy wild this area overall is great for wildlife, but especially in that southern area.

Second concern is noise.

That all sounded good, but 10 pounds of explosions are very big, much bigger than what we use for avalanche control at ski areas.

We'd like to see some concrete monitoring and noise limits, not just a strict waiver.

65 dB is a good limit, maybe set a distance from the project so we have something to enforce if it gets much louder.

And lastly, would be the groundwater contamination, potential for groundwater contamination.

We appreciate the conditions requiring test wells, but once the contamination has reached the groundwater, it's too late.

There should be conditions for soil testing and on-site removal if contaminants are found on this property before those contaminants enter the groundwater.

I'm happy to answer questions, happy to work with the applicant.

We don't want to interfere with this.

We'd just like to see some reasonable conditions to protect these other private properties from being devalued as part of this project.

Michael Stewart, followed by Cheyenne Acevedo.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Good evening.

Thank you for the opportunity to address you.

I am Mike Stewart.

Um, my residence is the Lawson Farm, which is at 1000 County Road 34, Gurlach, Nevada.

I farm, I have farmed for 30 years in that area.

Um we grow organic alfalfa hay for the milk cow industry.

Um we um want you to know that we're not opposed to what the applicants want to do on their own property, but we are very concerned about what it could impact on our property.

I own three farms in Wallapie Valley, the Lawson farm where I live, across the valley, the Bailey Farm, and then adjacent to the applicant's property.

I own Shiloh Station.

The water comes off the granite range, comes into our property on Shiloh Station.

We irrigate our alfalfa.

Um we've also developed a corridor through the middle of our farm for the deer habitat.

I was contacted by Mike Cox from the fish and game, and he told me how this is going to affect the bighorn sheep.

And I 20 years ago helped to relocate and reintroduce the bighhorns as a volunteer.

I volunteered my equipment in time, and we're seeing bighorn sheep reintroduced into the area.

So we want to be careful that we don't impact the wildlife on the BLM or on our property.

The application states that the property is completely surrounded by BLM.

Well, that's not exactly correct.

To the north of the property was the Troy Stranofsky property between myself and Strnowsky.

The applicant has purchased that property.

So they are my neighbor immediately to the south of my property.

So I am concerned, and I just want to make sure that we don't make decisions that are gonna adversely affect the sage grouse, the bighorn sheep, the deer.

Um we've worked for years and years to protect these.

So thank you for the opportunity.

Good evening, Chionese Vito, Nevada Department of Wildlife for the record.

The department appreciates the opportunity to provide a statement on the proposed special use permit case.

There were several outstanding questions.

We hope to clarify during this meeting to better refine the department's wildlife related recommendations to help avoid minimize or mitigate potential impacts.

Based on available information, we have identified several species and associated habitats in and around this project area.

The area surrounding the project includes intact sagebrush ecosystems that support several sensitive wildlife resources.

The upper basins and benches serve as crucial mule deer winter range in the project areas adjacent to mapped mule deer migration corridors and fawning habitat.

Pronghorn migration corridors and fawning areas are also in close proximity to the project area.

The undisturbed sagebrush landscape is vital for a stage grouse lecking, nesting, and brood ring.

Proposed activities associated with the project may generate anthropogenic disturbances, including noise, air traffic, and lighting, which have been shown to affect wildlife during sensitive periods.

Winter months and fawning season are sensitive times for mule deer.

During these times, anthropogenic noise may increase stress, elevate energy expenditure, and may displace animals.

Pronghorn are also susceptible to noise disturbance, especially during fawning season.

Sage grouse are present in and around the proposed project area and require undisturbed landscapes for breeding.

Chronic noise and overhead activity can reduce lek attendance and diminish nesting success.

The department has provided seasonal nighttime and carpuscular timing recommendations to the public comment letter sent to the county in October to help minimize potential impacts to mule deer and prong pronghorn during sensitive time periods.

Proposed activities may also pose safety risks during the department's low elevation wildlife aerial surveys.

Therefore, coordination with Endow will be necessary to ensure the safety of all parties.

Finally, the intact sagebrush landscape surrounding the project is vulnerable to wildfire, and the activities associated with this project may increase wildfire risk.

We understand the proponent has already integrated fire risk safeguards.

Even with safeguards, fire risk remains high given the high desert ecosystem and the nature of the proposed activities.

We recommend hiring full-time staff for fire response due to the limited resources in the Gerlock area, as well as a proactive planning approach to reduce post-wildfire invasion of invasive annual grasses on the landscape.

We look forward to working collaboratively to address these questions these questions as the project moves forward.

Thank you.

Stephen Lacam, followed by Robert Warner.

Thank you for hearing us out.

I'm Stephen Lacam, Washville County resident, retired from Washville County Building Department Commercial Plans Examiner, and I work on the fly ranch property as a volunteer.

I am very concerned with the toxic effects of the explosives and the noise, and there's nothing remote about the property in regards to wildlife.

It may be remote because we're not there.

It's not remote to the wildlife.

And it's a serious concern that we would disrupt the wildlife on this property.

And the fact that we'll have a new toxic explosions obviously disperse it, and even if they try to contain it, it's going to be in plumes of dust because Nevada has dust this time of year, it'll get into the water.

Cottonwood Creek runs directly adjacent to their testing site.

That goes down to Highway 34, ultimately into the fly reservoir and the Lawson Farms area.

Even the building that they're putting the energetics in, as a plan reviewer, I would say you'd need to shade that.

Excuse me, Robert Warner, followed by Ashton Casselli.

Good evening, Commissioners.

My name is Robert Warner.

I'm a Washoe County resident, and I'm speaking on behalf of Friends of Black Rock High Rock.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the Iverson Ranch Special Use Permit.

Friends of Black Rock High Rock is a nonprofit dedicated to protecting stewarding and sharing the unique landscapes, wildlife, culture, and recreation opportunities of the Black Rock Desert, High Rock Canyon region.

We operate the visitor center in Gurloch, where we provide maps, regional information, nature walks, art tours, and education on responsible recreation using leave no trace principles.

This year, our programs have brought over 500 visitors to the area seeking quiet reflection, connection with nature, and opportunities to learn about conservation and sustainability.

Our concern with this SUP are significant.

Visitors come to this region for quiet solitude and abundant wildlife.

The high-pitched continuous buzzing of drone rotors will degrade that experience and disrupt wildlife viewing opportunities.

We're concerned about the impacts of explosive detonations on local wildlife and migratory birds.

We're also concerned about the wildfire risk associated with drone accidents and explosive materials.

Finally, we have concerns about the project's potential for future expansion, which has not been clearly defined.

Our recommendation is that the special use permit be denied.

However, if the permit is approved, we strongly request that several key conditions be attached to help protect the surrounding environment and nearby community.

Number one, independent sound monitoring at the property line along Highway 34 at the nearest resident and at Fly Ranch.

Number two, a public feedback and information channel where residents and visitors can view noise monitoring results, receive operational notices, and submit concerns or complaints.

Drone flight restrictions, limiting all flights to Iverson property, and prohibiting flights over wilderness areas.

Number five, or number four, geofencing to prevent incursions into sensitive habitats and private property.

Thank you for your time for considering our concern, and we look forward to working with all the stakeholders to ensure the protection of this unique and valuable landscape.

Thank you.

Ashton Casselli, followed by Larry Johnson.

Ashley Casselli, director of the Northern Nevada Safari Club.

I'm also a director with the Coalition for Nevada's Wildlife.

Um start a letter here.

Uh the Coalition for Nevada's Wildlife expresses it hereby expresses our serious concerns over the proposed drone testing and use of explosives associated with the above special use permit.

The coalition is the issue, policy, and lobbying arm of sportsmen in northern Nevada dedicated to the protection and enhancement of the state's wildlife resources.

Our directors are typically past and present presidents of directors or directors of major sportsmen, wildlife conservation organizations, representing tens of thousands of northern Nevada sportsmen.

We represent fishing, big game, waterfowl, upland game, trapping, sporting dog, and predator hunting interests.

The history of wildlife in Nevada is one of decimation through over-exploitation that resulted in the eradication of our big game species.

It is only in the past few decades that partnership of private sportsmen and the Nevada Department of Wildlife has reintroduced augmented and brought back thriving population of bighorn sheep, antelope, mule deer, and a multitude of smaller species to this region.

Sportsmen have contributed tens of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of volunteer man hours to these efforts across the state, which are recognized as the most ambitious and successful big game reintroduction program in North America.

Game Management Area 014, which encompasses the Iverson Ranch, is a great example of our efforts and success.

Bighorn sheep now populate the mounds of our first time for the first time in over a century.

Antelope once nearly gone are numerous.

Mule deer and sage grouse have recently declined due to wildfire, dry, and predation, but are now targets of targets of concentrated mitigation at measures that are showing success.

For example, Endow is receding large areas of previously burned areas just a few miles south of the Iverson Ranch.

This project will be continued for the next five years or so.

Endow has also captured and place GPS collars on mule deer to study areas of seasonal use, migration corridors, and survival rates.

Water resources are being enhanced, predator control has been initiated to allow bighorn sheep and mule deer recovery.

All of the efforts are paid for by sportsmen's dollars.

The granite mountains are of Area 014 have been for many years been hailed as the holy grail by sportsmen trying to draw a coveted mule deer tag.

Well wildlife species are such as sage grouse, are very sensitive to noise.

Recent evidence collected by the NDAO and Central Nevada has shown that the even an audible hum from a recent constructed geothermal power plant has displaced sagegras populations over two miles away.

This bird, which is on the brink of being listed as threatened or endangered, does simply not relocate, entire populations go away.

Big game species made it through the co big big game species to make it through the cold winter months, using up their fat reserves put on during late summer fall months.

They only have so much energy available.

Any stress on these animals decreases their survival rates in harsh winters.

I'm going to stop my letter there.

Larry John Larry Johnson, followed by Sev Carlson.

Larry Johnson, I'm president of the coalition for Nevada's wildlife.

Picking up on the same testimony.

I know this for a fact.

Guess what it does for wildlife.

The ordinance detonation and engine testing are not currently deemed detrimental if the noise levels stated by the proponents are monitored and verified.

Wildfires being started is a real potential from the inevitable drone crashes, so the response planning and funding requirements are necessary.

Full restoration costs should be borne by the proponent with appropriate bonding.

Although they have fire response equipment on site, these drones on the adjacent areas are flying into mountainous areas, completely non-accessible by equipment.

Hand crews are the only way to reach these in a in a timely manner.

The proposed operations proposed in the special use permit are a direct threat to the efforts of the Nevadans to restore our wildlife resources.

This proposal should be either rejected or heavily conditioned to include at least the following.

Drone flights should be restricted to airspace above their private property.

If not, they should not be allowed to fly drones either to the north and definitely not to the west and southwest of their private property.

Wildfire protection plan should be formulated for approval with all costs borne by the proponent with adequate assurance bonding for suppression and restoration, which are significant.

Most people don't ever get north of Gerlach.

It's our sacred ground, quite frankly.

That's the effort we put in.

The sportsman dollars we pour into these areas that we love are significant.

We cannot allow these impacts to destroy what we have restored.

Thank you.

Sev Carlson, followed by Christie Evans.

Good evening.

Good evening, Commissioners.

My name is Sev Carlson.

I'm a lawyer with Kempfer Kroll here in Reno, and we represent Burning Man Project.

Burning Man Project owns several ranches in the immediate vicinity, including the Fly Ranch.

As you know, the Hualapai Valley is beautiful and picturesque.

It's been home to ranching, hiking, nature walks, and camping for decades.

Also, for your information at the cab meeting, uh, there were about 40 people in person, and there were 30 people participating online.

We've been in discussions with the applicant since the cab meeting.

And we would ask that you consider uh the following four additional conditions of approval that the applicant and burning man project have agreed upon.

One would be to limit energetics testing to no more than 12 pounds of explosive and or detonative material per test subject.

And this would be also subject to the next condition, condition two, which would be limiting energetics test frequency to five tests per day, no more than 375 tests per calendar year, including up to 260 detonators, up to 41 to 5 pound charges, up to 45.1 to 12 pound charges, up to 40 hobby rocket motors, with a total not to exceed 375.

Condition three, uh, that there are no airplane or drone flights on Sunday except four or five times annually at the applicant's discretion four.

No drone or energetic testing between sunset and sunrise, uh except for nighttime line of sight drone testing, if nighttime testing is ultimately approved by the FAA.

And then additionally, we've come to an agreement on the inclusion of three components for an operations plan that the applicant advises its hazardous material shippers to avoid deliveries during the 21-day period uh starting 16 days before Labor Day and can you continuing through five days after Labor Day to avoid the heaviest traffic during the Burning Man event for the applicant to not fly drones within five miles of the Burning Man Airport, which is designated 88 NV during the period beginning 12 days before Labor Day and continuing through the end of Labor Day, which are the dates that that N88 NV airport are operational, and then finally on the operation plan that the applicant will provide at least 48 hours advanced notice of energetic testing to near die nearby property owners who opt in.

So we think with this agreement with the applicant, these measures uh would mitigate potential impacts of the proposed use.

Thank you very much.

Christy Evans, followed by Mel Belding.

Hi, Christy Evans.

Uh so I'm a full-time resident in Gurlock.

That's my home, that's where I live.

I also sit on the Gurlock Empire Citizens Advisory Board.

I go to a lot of meetings about permit applications in our community.

Um I recognize and I hear the concerns about wildlife, and I also want to be real about what goes on out where we live.

We are surrounded by BLM land.

There is a lot of very unregulated firearms use.

There is a lot of off-road vehicle use, the Black Rock Desert Seas Rocketeering.

We obviously have the Burning Man event with which there are regular uh airplanes that take off and land.

We have helicopters that come in and out, we have tens of thousands of vehicles that come in and out, we have mines.

I'm not an explosives expert, but I suspect that the mine explosives that they use are far more powerful than what we're talking about here.

So I want to be real that when we're talking about the serene, peaceful place that I definitely live out there for.

There are many, many other activities that are going on around us that I think are well within the proportion of what this application is talking about.

And I think it's important to keep that in mind.

I will tell you this.

I was a little unsure about this application, uh, but I think the applicant has done an exceptional job of talking to our community, addressing concerns, and being willing to listen to what we have to say and being open to having ongoing conversations about the impacts.

I think it's important to note that the BLM, the stuff that I mean, there's people that set off high-powered firearms in the hills above my house.

It scares my dog.

Gentlemen talked about uh drone scaring his horses.

The firearms scare my dogs, but there's nothing we can do about it.

There's no regulation.

This proposal is going to be highly regulated by a lot of agencies, uh, which is a great thing, and I'm glad to hear that, and I hope that they will work with Endow um and other agencies to protect wildlife because it's important.

But I want to I want to be clear about why I support this SUP.

The Gurlock Empire Northern Nevada rural area has very few opportunities for economic development.

This is a very rare opportunity for something new, a different kind of business to bring some jobs to our area.

There are people that are now employed because of the work that they're doing.

Uh housing is a big problem.

They have housing to provide.

So the fact that this economic activity is a benefit to our community, at least I think it is, and it has that potential.

Uh, it's an important piece of this that I think we need to weigh out.

Every project has a cost and benefit, um, but that is a very real benefit for our community.

Uh, I think they're interested in working with the appropriate agencies, and therefore um, I think the benefit is worth supporting this project.

Mel Belding, followed by Christy Marcese.

Good evening, Mel Belling for the record, Native Washoe County.

I share a lot of the concerns with previous speakers.

Ash and Mr.

Johnson and Department of Wildlife.

Has been there for a lot longer than probably a hundred years or better.

I know the area well.

That's very concerning to me.

What we have left on the granite, mainly in the in the center core is untouched, the lower parts, the alluvial fan, pretty much gone.

Larry mentioned Mr.

Johnson mentioned the efforts that are that have been done, continue to be done.

End Dow is currently going to reseed a lot of the south end of that mountain with sports and dollars.

There's some things that some questions that really need to be asked and answered.

It's not a lot.

Flows through another ranch before it gets there.

How much of that water stored?

They have reportedly two 4,000 gallon water trucks.

4,000 gallons of water.

If we set something on fire by the time something that could convey that water could respond, that fire is going to be north, probably taking out Hog Mountain.

Buckhorn will be gone.

There just needs to be this needs to be addressed more so than the explosives that have been talked about.

So storage of water, how much do we have?

What are we going to do in the winter time?

Water trucks are worthless that time of the year.

They freeze.

If we talk to Story County to the firemen there, it's a pretty much a daily occurrence going to where they have those lithium battery batteries stored there.

And and how if they are there, how are they going to be stored?

Is there fire suppression there?

There's a lot more questions.

I think this needs a lot more scrutiny.

Uh questions answered.

Um, I'm not for this project.

Thank you.

Christy Marcasey, followed by Linda Linton.

Good evening.

My name is Christy Marcese.

I'm speaking on behalf of myself.

I want to say I oppose this approval of this project, this permit, um, how it is currently presented.

The applicant did not consult the county advisory board for wildlife, first of all, um, or any wildlife experts, it seems as though they're speaking tonight regarding the project's impact on local wildlife.

As a result, the effects on the species, such as pronghorn antelope, mule deer, sagrouse, um, bighorn sheep, and other native animals have not been adequately adequately studied or addressed.

This is a serious omission that prevents the county from making an informed decision.

Anyone familiar with pronghorn antelope, just ask a rancher, knows that fiber wire fencing isn't a true deterrent.

They love to dig underneath them and tear them up and get entangled in them.

So that precaution is not really valid in my opinion.

Any um our native wildlife were here long before any of us, and their well-being and future via viability should take presidents over a testing development that primarily benefits a foreign entity on public and leased lands.

If the applicant wishes to pursue this project, it should be strictly limited to their privately owned property where they alone bear the consequences, not imposed on shared public resources and the wildlife that depend on them.

As stewards of this land, it is our responsibility to protect the wildlife that cannot speak for themselves.

Approving this permit without a thorough, transparent and honest evaluation of wildlife impacts would be a failure of that responsibility.

Thank you.

Linda Linton.

Hi, Linda Linton.

I live in Lyon County now, but I lived in Washoe County for 50 plus years, and I do practice law in Washoe County.

Um the requirements for a special use permit include the benefit outweighing the detriment, the risk.

I have never heard no benefit to Washoe County or the state of Nevada at all.

Um I don't know of any military military objects in this area, like what they're gonna put in.

This is like everyone has said before me.

This is right smacked in the middle of mule deer, antelope, sage grass, habitat, and they don't abide by fences.

I've got 10 foot fences around my hang area in Lion County, and deer jump over that.

If they want to come in, they're gonna come in.

The detriment far outweighs any benefit to Washoe County.

This is for Ukraine, it's for military, it's not for the state of Nevada, it's not for Washoe County.

It's just a private owner that wants to use this property for something that no one else has yet.

If this happens, it's going to expand.

That's what happens when you allow a special use permit.

Somebody else comes in and says, well, you know, so and so the county gave us a special use permit.

You've already allowed it.

And how are you gonna enforce any regulations out there?

It's hard enough to get fire department to go out there if there's a fire.

It's hard enough to get Endow to go out there to enforce regulation.

It's I don't see how it's gonna be any regulations are gonna be enforced.

Um I don't see any benefit to Washoe County.

They haven't shown any.

Uh I did hear from um the woman that spoke from Gerlic that at Gurlach that it may be a benefit financially to the community, but anything would be a benefit.

You know, not a military quote unquote outpost training drones.

Thank you.

I do have I have no more public comment chambers, but I do have some hands raised on Zoom.

So before we do that, Ma'am, you left your glasses on the podium.

Oh, sorry.

So I have uh Chris Chris Coston, please state your first and last name for the record.

Go ahead and unmute Chris.

You have three minutes.

Uh hello, my name is Chris Foston, and I'm on the board of directors for the coalition of Nevada's Wildlife.

Hello.

We can hear you go ahead.

Thank you.

My name is Chris Coston.

I sit on the board of directors for the coalition of Nevada's Wildlife.

I'm also a co-chair for the Muley Fanatic Foundation.

Uh I'm representing the Coalition of Nevada's Wildlife tonight and all of its uh represented organizations who have tens of thousands of uh Nevada sportsmen.

Uh we are in strong opposition to the proposed zoning change to the Iverson Ranch, Ives and Ranch.

Uh this will cause unforeseen and foreseen disturbances to wildlife.

Additionally, the risk of uncontrollable wildfire spread is only one of the potential risks if this zoning change is approved.

Uh, when considering the needed infrastructure to support uh the influx in residency employees and temporary labor needed to achieve the intended goals will disproportionately burden the local emergency response infrastructure of Gurlock and Washop County.

Again, the unintended and unforeseen consequences of this proposed zoning change are too much to risk.

When Nevada Sportsman and Wildlife stand to bear the brunt of the disturbances while out of state companies are the only ones who stand to gain anything.

This is simply the wrong place in a state that has many right places for a project like this.

So thank you for uh my statement, and I appreciate it.

I have Carlos Cardillo.

Carlos, please unmute and state your first and last name for the record.

Good evening, um, Commissioner.

My name is Carlos Cardillo.

I am the director of the Nevada Center for Applied Research.

And the executive director for the Federal Aviation Administration designated UAS test site for the state of Nevada.

Nevada is one of the seven state designated by the FAA.

Aviation Federal Aviation Administration to be a UAS test site.

To that end, the FAA has already approved 9,000 square miles of airspace to operate drones of many types on a different altitude.

In fact, the entire state, airspace, could be used for drone testing, provided that these areas are approved by the FAA.

Nevada is working toward a drone economy that is bringing economic value to the community by being a place hospitable for drone development, drone test, and eventually drone manufacturing.

The FAA is very clear that drones cannot fly near people.

But drones are able to fly in FAA authorized airspace over public and private lands.

And when they operate at altitudes above a few hundred feet, there is virtually no noise signature.

Nevada is and should continue to be a place welcoming startup companies, especially in growing industries like the unmanned aerial systems, advanced air mobility, and related operations.

My statement, of course, is in favor of this ACUP.

Thank you for your time.

I have Marjorie Reynolds.

Marjorie.

Please.

Unmute and stay your first last name for the record.

Hi, my name is Margie Reynolds.

I'm a Gurlock property owner for.

Sorry, Marjorie.

That was my fault.

Go ahead.

I'd be recorded restart.

Okay, my name is Margie Reynolds, and I am a Gurlock property owner for nearly 20 years.

I disagree with the earlier explanation that we received substantial notice.

Notifying just 33 people really should have been a much broader geographic area as this project impacts far beyond the Iverson Ranch proper.

Why so few people?

This number is a direct reflection on the efforts put forth.

I don't recall getting any information on these.

Economically, I want to address that.

Losing hunters is going to cut cost Gurloch much more than the handful of people that are employed at Ibison.

Lost revenue from room nights at Bruno's lost TOT tax, lost revenue at the local stores and restaurants.

Ibison has their own chef.

I want to point out at the cab meetings that Gerlockians were shown an example of a similar site somewhere in the Midwest, and this was in the PowerPoint deck.

The image showed a nearby Walmart.

It was stated that similar detonations could not be heard at that Walmart, just.5 miles away or something like that.

This was shown to us to demonstrate that we would not be able to hear the detonations.

However, this was not an equal comparison.

That Walmart location had existing urban noise as well as a dense forest buffer between it and the example's energetic site.

The construction plan described of the explosives block does not appear to address sound issues.

Wallapi just does not have the vegetation.

In fact, it's more of a rock amphitheater.

Very few trees sound travels a very long way in this environment.

As a volunteer on Fly Ranch, I often hear generator noise from a ranch over a mile away.

And there's snow and tree buffers.

So the character of Wallapai Valley is unique in Nevada.

Neighboring Fly Ranch, which is absent on most of the maps shown tonight.

There are over 200 bodies of water, hot pools, cool pools, and we all know it attracts wildlife.

The geyser is internationally known so much that people from around the world come to visit it.

You may know Fly Geyser is on many top ten things to see in Nevada lists.

Well, I'm a docent for Fly Ranch Nature Walks with the Friends of BlackRock who partner in this program so that this public has a chance to view this wonder.

So here's the stage I want to set.

There's a part of the tour where we stop on the dam and we listen to the wind in the trees and in through the reeds, I mean, and we watch the wildfowl and the birds and just listen to the noises.

Pure silence.

Now imagine detonations taking place in the background and no longer being able to share that experience.

I believe that um, oh, one last thing.

There have been sightings of drones in places that seem inappropriate.

These drones have cameras, they have audio.

I've seen them flying over hot springs at night.

They buzz the guard shacks at Fly Ranch at night at one in the morning.

It just feels like it's a contradiction of the existing character of this area.

There have been already been two drone crashes, another drone yet to be found, and at least one bird has attacked a drone.

I urge you to look deeper into this application and ensure all stakeholders are considered.

Thank you.

I have Bryce Pollock.

Bryce, please unmute and state your first and last name for the record.

Thank you.

Bryce Pollux uh with the director for the uh Nevada Coalition for Wildlife, as well as vice chair for the Nevada chapter of backcountry hunters and anglers.

I wanted to echo the sentiment of a lot of the other conservation groups.

And in particular, I wanted to uh echo the sentiment of the gentleman that mentioned the lack of a flight plan as part of this permit.

Um, in terms of the character of the of the area and the public lands in the area, we we seek to protect the quality access to public lands, and the the main concern we have is low altitude flights several times a day.

I know that a drone might be quiet uh once it's 300 feet in the air, but the single engine aircraft that's that's following it isn't quiet.

So I wanted to point that out.

Um these are low altitude flights several times a day.

It's not just you know a one-off of somebody shooting the firearm behind your house.

These are daily occurrences, uh, several times a day, and I don't understand how you could say what the habitat impact is gonna be for wildlife without knowing what the flight plan is.

So for that reason, we are very stopping noise there.

Thank you.

I have George's iPhone.

Please state your first last unmute, state your first and last name for the record.

Thank you.

Oh, yeah, my name is George Forbush, and I'm calling on behalf of the Nevada Predator Hunting Association.

Uh, we oppose this in its current form.

I'm gonna bring something uh different to the table that uh the other NGOs have already talked about.

Um I'm a bomb technician, or at least I was a bomb technician.

I retired from uh law enforcement with 27 years.

I was a bomb tech for 14 years, so I know about explosives.

And I can tell you that this is absolutely gonna disperse wildlife.

Um I've been at Redstone Arsenal out in Huntsville, Alabama, where you have the FBI, ATF, the military, and engineers doing testing on explosives and rocket motors, and those animals move from one range to the other to get away from that.

And the same thing is gonna happen out here.

Um that 10 pound shot or that 12-pound shot of that C4 going off is completely misleading in my opinion.

Um if that was a person standing in that proximity to that shot, your ears would be gone.

Okay.

Uh C4 has a very loud crack to it.

It's called Bersongs.

It's one of the loudest explosives you will hear, and it will echo throughout that canyon or that range if that's what they use.

I don't understand why they're using main charges when all they're trying to primarily do is set up blasting caps.

Um, they would be doing themselves a favor if they just did blasting caps, which does sound literally like a pistol going off.

And they would um alleviate a lot of the noise complaints to wildlife and the complaints you're hearing from people as well.

The other thing is fire.

If they're doing shots in the winter and it's dry, but it's cold, and their apparatus is freeze up, they're not gonna be able to put those fires out.

And like Larry Johnson said, if they're out flying over public land and something crashes, um you can have a fire and it gets out of control.

And the problem that I have with this is we only need to have one fire, and we lose everything forever.

It's gone, it'll look like the moon, and it's not gonna go grow back in our lifetime.

And I agree with the other speaker who said you'll lose the hunters.

That brings in a lot more money than probably what this project brings to the locals there.

So I would seriously recommend that in this current form this be denied.

Thank you.

I have the Gerlock Community Center.

Are you going to be having multiple people speak?

That's correct.

Yes.

Okay, so just each person will have three minutes.

Please, each individual person state their first last date for the record.

Okay.

Pardon?

Hello?

Sorry, I had a microphone malfunction there.

Oh, okay.

This is Russell Byerley for the record.

I am the president of the Gurlock Empire Cab.

I'm the vice president of the Gurlock Volunteer Fire Department.

I am the public work supervisor for the Gurlock General Improvement District.

I am on the board of two conservation organizations here locally, Friends of Black Rock Desert and Stewards of Black Rock Desert.

And I play Santa Claus every year for the kids here.

You could say I'm involved in my community.

So I don't really have any problems with what they're proposing to do here.

They don't make a clear distinction between when these figures are put out there for how many flights, how many detonations, uh, how many decibels.

There's not a clear distinction between which of these are projections and which of them are restrictions.

All right.

So I'm I'm not having a clear understanding of what this SUP, what the limits of it would be if this is approved.

Are is there any requirement for them to stick to these projections, or can they do that quick when you're talking more of what they would like?

Well, I don't have three minutes.

So I would like I would like to see some kind of uh I'm sorry, I'm hearing some chatter there.

There isn't.

It sounds like it's coming from your end.

Um sheriff's work tomorrow.

Yeah, no, I'm sorry, that's that's not us.

Okay, just let me make sure I've muted these uh other people.

Drink that bottle now.

Just a moment.

I don't know.

All right.

Go ahead.

Wonderful.

Uh so uh a previous commenter said that um this proposal does not seem complete, and that that would be my only comment is that I would like to see a clear distinction uh between which of these uh figures for the number of flights, number of detonations, the size of these detonations, which of those are promises, and which of those are best guess estimates of what will be done in the future because SUPs are forever, and this company they might get bought out by some kind of giant corporation, and 20 years from now we're gonna be dealing with completely different set of management who's maybe not as uh willing to stick to these handshake deals.

Thank you very much.

Anyone else from Gurloch?

Elizabeth Gembrell, Gurlock resident, prior cab, G G I D, EDC, etc.

etc.

etc.

Because we're a tiny community.

We care a lot about what's going on out here.

And the people who live here, not just visit, care.

I'm wondering where all this energy was when the geothermal plant wanted to dig up 34 year wells and run drills for 24-7 for two years.

So I appreciate all y'all coming out and talking about the wildlife, etc.

etc.

But I don't understand why the drama is now.

What is happening here is they are putting something on a property that they have already cleaned up hundreds of thousand dollars worth of trash, debris, illegal burn piles, and they're doing it by the book.

They're coming in talking to us, they're letting us know this is what we're willing to do.

We talked about the hot springs.

They said we'll put in geofencing.

We'll pin areas where we won't go.

We'll help you with this, we'll help you with that, we'll talk about it.

Does it need a little bit of you know, finessing?

Sure.

But they're willing to talk to us, and that is important because it is bringing an economic opportunity to Gurlock that is not offered through any other avenue.

We've had people traipse through here years and years of traipsing without offering us a benefit.

They're hiring people with a retirement plan with pay, with medical.

That doesn't happen here.

You get well under the wage, and you just survive one way or the other.

So do I welcome them?

Sure.

Because suddenly they're bringing the 21st century into my community.

They haven't done anything underhanded or shady.

And that's important.

So let's talk about the wildlife.

We have one of the biggest parties on earth with 70,000 people setting off fireworks almost every night, burning things, smoke flooding through all of our lands, raising dust.

And I don't see you guys at any of those meetings say don't permit that anymore.

We have the Rocketeers, which I absolutely adore because they're doing a fantastic service with finding out how we can move into the future.

But they are setting off some serious noisy stuff.

I don't see you guys protesting that.

So pick it.

What is good for my community is what I'm fighting for, and this is good for my community.

I am 100% with them.

Do I always believe we can be better?

Yes.

When you know better, do better.

But don't block the way to having us have a better future.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

That's everyone in Girl Lock.

Thank you.

All right.

So that is all public comment in Chambers at Odzu.

Thank you so much.

So back to the board.

Does the board have questions for the applicant or for Commissioner Nelson?

I have a question for staff real quick.

Can you just summarize the conditions that you wanted to change?

2B and 2C.

Sorry about that.

Chris Bronzik, Washington County Planning.

So 2C is related to an engineering condition for BLM.

Um allowances to use the airstrip.

Planning already has a condition related to that, which requires written permission from BLM before the air strip can be used.

So these are basically a double up uh condition.

So we're requesting to strike that.

Um the other condition is related to FAA documentation.

That FAA documentation was placed on by our engineering division, but it's really more of a planning condition.

And so we're just requesting that that condition be moved from our engineering division to planning to regulate that.

Okay, perfect.

Thank you.

I have a question for my fellow board members.

Um there were here are two conditions he just mentioned that need to be changed, and there were some quite a few ideas that were brought up by the uh open discussion, the open discussion.

In fact, there was um some agreements that were mentioned that have already been made between the uh landowner and uh burning man.

I suggest that we send this back to the planning team to take in a lot of these new suggestions and some of the ones that have already been agreed to and see which ones need to be put into this document before we approve it.

I feel like it's a good idea, but there's some things missing that may have been missed because some of the right people weren't heard from and I think we would all value from um taking us another look at this proposal before we actually make a decision on it.

Any of you have a thought on that?

May I have a move to address on behalf of the applicant?

The question that was just asked.

All right, go ahead.

Good evening, Catherine Reichenberg, uh, Gunderson Law Firm and attorney for the Ives and Ranch Project.

I just wanted to respond to the condition uh commissioner's question and the issue of sort of agreements that have been reached between the Ives and Ranch and Burning Man.

Um, as was stated by Mr.

Carlson.

Yes, we have some additional conditions that the Iveson Ranch is amenable to that could be added to the special use permit.

Um these were reached moments before this hearing, and we apologize that they were not included as of yet.

We did also, I wanted to confirm speak with Endow and had several in-person conversations regarding wildlife.

Um I understand there are additional concerns in addition to these um issues with Burning Man.

I'm happy to provide whatever needs to be provided to the uh planning commission.

And if you'd like me to reiterate those now, I'm happy to do so.

Um I I think the gentleman from Comfort Crawl did read those into the record.

Um, if you'd like to provide them in writing to the clerk.

Um I'm not opposed to including those conditions since you've agreed to them in writing with Burning Man, include them as a condition of the special use permit, so it's not up to uh private party to enforce those.

Okay, I'm happy to provide them.

Thank you.

And as I understand things with endow um the conditions already included uh in the staff report um include endow's recommendation.

Did she mention things that had not yet been put in the staff report?

Was I in error in that understanding?

Well, uh we're empowered to go ahead and ask her.

Would the uh gentlelady from endow come on up?

So uh as I heard your statement, um you listed a number of potential impacts and you listed that you've been in discussion with the applicant.

And we have in the staff report um a recommended mitigation and condition of the special use permit that was provided by endow.

Is it and I was positioned that the conditions in the special use permit currently aren't your recommendation or are they?

Uh thank you for the question, Shiny Civito Nevada Department of Wildlife for the record.

Um the statement I provided earlier was to reiterate the potential impacts to wildlife based on the activities from this project.

Uh we did recommend those um seasonal timing restrictions for both Neil Deer and Pronghorn fawning seasons, which the applicant agreed to.

Um and that was provided in our comment letter that we sent to the county in October of this year.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Mr.

Chair, I would like to confer with uh with staff.

I there may be concerns about the ability for staff to enforce some of those conditions.

I think it would be pref preferable uh to to prepare some uh maybe an agreement uh as a condition between burning man and the applicants if uh if you it sounds like they have an agreement in place.

Certainly the specifically the limitations on the number of the different child sizes of charges.

Uh that sounds like something to me that could be the counties.

Potentially that staying away from burning man's airport and stuff is an FAA and or Burning Man specific.

Yeah, I think there are certainly uh we can look at some of those conditions.

I think some of them may be enforceable.

I'm concerned about just grouping all of them as conditions uh without doing a more thorough uh the review with the West, especially with our legal staff.

If if you would give us a moment to confer, uh we could we could get back to you on those.

Thanks.

How about we take a 10 minute break?

Would that help you, Trevor?

Uh how about five minutes?

It is uh 743.

We'll come back at 748.

The recording has stopped.

I think he did send an email.

Yes, yeah.

Okay.

Oh, that was not just a lot of people.

Also answer any questions if you'd like her to be involved.

She's gonna send it to this to Chris.

So I sort of watched it.

I think we invited the opening condition.

So everything that we're gonna do.

And uh he's got taller and he's got more grounded.

So they get like a so that's where I'm gonna go.

I gotta figure out where I but you know, my son he's can't be over here because well he has the weather for the main reason because he has a lot you call it.

He's assigned the week.

Sort of like the officer of the day.

Yeah, I think it's so he's not complicated.

So anyway, that was it's gonna be a chance.

I don't know if we're like that.

Yeah.

We never do the traditional Thanksgiving, we always do things like the theme.

And then this year we don't have to really think because we can use Red Sky and this year when all the people come over.

And our theme is for our best.

So everybody's bringing his process.

Oh wow.

Wow.

Interesting.

That sounds fun.

Yeah, my husband and I hate turkey.

If we do anything, it's useful.

No, there's such a lot of water.

A few years back, I got type my turkey.

My wife didn't like to ribe.

And oh ribot, I think.

Yeah.

I like what I like to use.

Yes, mashed potatoes.

But uh it's uh really strange.

Well, I was I was really touched by some offerings and I don't know.

You know, I asked what he's gonna bring.

Sure now fire you know when this is uh couple of years back uh birthday party for and he saw me and that little guy he just went back to me and he hugged me off and uh uh we had a lot of fun.

I told him how long I told her, Oh, I studied maybe a little advice.

Well I I well I got my black belt.

It's always there.

More calm.

We'll just announce it when we get back in five minutes to say we quit ten minutes.

They need more time.

So we'll see how to do it.

Uh attention in chambers, we're gonna do another five minutes.

They're still discussing.

So we have about another five minutes.

Uh critical time in his career that uh he passed the uh associate uh uh warden season.

So now he's looking for authorization.

Yeah, so I don't know where he there isn't any opening at Santa Coin.

He would like to stay there.

That's a well-run person.

He's a same thing.

Well he was at Superville too, or in C C C and uh they closed it, so he immediately started looking for another job.

Not working in a prison but working for the prison of the case.

He doesn't really tell me what they have to do.

And uh so he's uh he's doing well and he wants he wants uh he wants me to hear he's looking at retirement.

He can retire now if he wants to, but it makes too much money quit.

He just has to but when he does retire, he wants to retire down like this is how law is down there.

Oh, does it?

Yeah, like it's a good idea.

Yeah, they have tickets down there and quite waiting.

I've been down there a couple of times.

Yes.

So really friendly like the medical.

Yeah, they got a great hospital site.

Yes.

Yeah.

Okay.

We'll put a further over half of it.

So the sun doesn't make it.

And then these gonna get a pontoon boat.

I want a speed boat.

So we got that overtime people to go down there.

You were just up there drinking beers and that's all right.

Yeah, I know.

There's one thing that I don't know if we're still.

Yeah, that's how we gotta do it.

We do have no problem.

No, I know I know that it's taken care of by the AT.

Someone wants to just on the spot.

Let's take a break.

And then that's like go figure out what it has to do with the nice.

I don't know how Dan was like positive.

Well, what I read is it's been three hours almost like that.

I ask for breaks sometimes too, just like when there seems to be confusion or when I feel like everyone's getting completed or whatever.

Sometimes I'll be like, I got it.

Uh huh.

No expressions.

Questions about what?

That's why that was.

No, I mean if you you don't feel comfortable enforcing it, because we I mean I don't that's not a legal question.

That's uh yeah.

Yeah.

You don't do enough genre.

Yeah.

I just don't want to do it because I don't know.

This meeting is being recorded.

All right.

Um does staff or council have direction for the board on whether any of the conditions in the private agreement with Burning Man would be suitable for inclusion in the conditions of the special use permit.

Chris Bronzik, Washoe County Planning.

Yes.

So there was a list of uh four potential conditions uh provided to us.

We're in agreement with um three.

So the first one would be uh limit energetics test frequency to five tests per day.

The second would be no airplane flights or drone flights on Sundays.

Um then the at discretion of the property owners for those five Sundays per calendar year.

Um drone or energetic testing between sunset and sunrise, except for nighttime line of sight drunk testing if approved by the FAA.

So those were the three that um we were comfortable enforcing Mr.

Yes.

Um I noticed in uh in the presentation that's part of the requirements that ATF approved the magazine to store the explosives.

Um can you elaborate more on what uh type of uh security you have for that?

Because I don't like the idea of having 600 pounds of explosives and no security for it.

Um and what is the security that you are having?

I tell you, we would share those concerns as a private company whether or not the ATF was uh uh regulating us.

In our case, we're compliant with the ATF and we go above and beyond in order to protect our own interests, obviously, and our our commitment to the public.

Uh the safe itself, the magazine is is built particularly, you know, specifically to be impenetrable.

Obviously, there are many people you can go on YouTube and watch them uh try to try to tear things apart.

On site, we have a staff member, 365 days of the year.

On the magazine, there would be a camera system, uh, an alarm system, uh flood lights, and other mitigating measures that if it was approached, it would become clear to our staff member that it was uh uh under scrutiny.

So those are our plans.

Uh they're uh not all required by the ATF, but they're things that we want to do in order to guarantee uh the safety of those materials.

Is your staff gonna be so you have basically designated security as he trained or licensed?

Uh so our uh our our uh ranch lead is uh a retired uh police officer.

Uh number of our staff members are former military members uh and uh uh act as a deterrent on site.

Um and we are open to other suggestions from the county if there's a a requirement for on-site security that is not required by the ATF based on the distances that we are and the nature of the magazine that we've selected.

Um but we're open to to those conversations.

Because just like the you know, the the remoteness of the site, uh although that lends to favor this type of use.

Um it also favors uh somebody or a group the way our uh population now is sort of um Nancy, I guess, but uh um I was concerned about somebody going out there and and taking it.

I know I I've used the stuff, so I know what it does, and and in the wrong hands, it could be quite devastating.

And you've got all the ingredients right there in this one spot uh uh to build whatever you want to build.

So um I I was concerned and I wouldn't be able to find uh make the finding that it's safe without knowing what the security is in and requiring it.

And then I don't know.

My thought, not knowing what you had in mind was just you know, making a requirement, you get two armed uh people there on site, have your cameras and your lights, um, and uh and a feed going to a central uh control point to make sure that that thing is manned and and operating around the clock.

So uh if you have the some of that stuff, uh that makes me feel better.

Um that I'd like to be fit up to more than one person.

Yeah, I did this I uh employs 12 uh full-time staff members who work on site as well as a rotational group of engineers.

So at any any given day to you know, Monday through Friday, we would expect uh add-in strength to be between 15 and 40 people on site.

Um some of those can certainly be armed.

Many of them have uh appropriate training already, and we can commit to to accomplishing the training and compliance with Washoe County and state requirements for carrying a weapon.

Um the uh the idea of a single individual, you know, 365 days out of the year we could commit to to having two people if that was the the uh commission's uh desire.

Well, I would feel much better with that than uh in knowing that they were adequately trained.

I don't want any uh um cop running around and acting uh having guard duty.

Uh but um it's a real concern, and I don't know how how stable the population is going to be.

And this is a public hearing, and everybody in the world is gonna know if it's approved that there's some explosives available.

So okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Mr.

Chair, this is Rob.

I got a question if it's all right.

Go for it.

So um I guess it'd be for staff.

My question is what's the altitude that the drones and the um tracer planes are gonna be flying at, or I should say uh following planes.

I think that's going to be a a better question for the applicants.

Uh okay.

This would be regulated by the FAA, not by county rules or law.

It's correct.

I'd be as forthcoming um in this conversation and any other that the public wants to have with me.

I've provided to the folks in Gurlach my cell phone number and my email address.

It's on our presentation materials, and I'm happy to take questions uh over email as people have concerns around this.

Drones are obviously a relatively new industry.

Part 107 defines what's legal by uh sort of right uh of a drone pilot who's licensed in a commercial operation uh and airspace maps describe what is allowed in the United States.

We as a private business will commit to the public and in uh the area that we won't fly over their private property, but I'd like the public to understand that under the rules of this country, under the law, uh, you know, Delta Airlines, United Airlines, and drone companies have the right to fly over private property at appropriate altitudes.

We're not gonna do that, and that's part of our agreement with Burning Man.

Uh, they own a great number of the properties around us.

Uh and any other landowner who would like us to designate geo fences around their property on our software.

We will not violate the the uh vertical boundaries of their of their property.

Um this is called called Class G airspace.

So this is this is air space that is uh a free play.

And in the United States, you don't need to fly with a radio on your airplane to operate in this kind of airspace, right?

This is this is some of the most unregulated airspace in the country.

It's one of the reasons why the FA is designated Nevada as a state where this kind of test activity can occur.

Obviously, we have to take certain precautions and safeguards.

Uh Class A airspace begins at 18,000 feet MSL, so above mean sea level.

Our altitudes out in uh Gurlac are around 4400 feet, as I'm sure many of the hunt the hunters here know.

Uh there's a complex overlay of airspace, and what I guess like the best way to summarize it for everyone here is that we will not violate the law.

All of our pilots are licensed to do the activity they're doing, their license would be at jeopardy.

We as a company would have potentially our permissions from the FA removed from us if we were to violate their designated authority uh that they've uh given to us to do this test.

There's a separate uh process through the FAA to apply to do non-standard things that aren't uh specifically authorized in part 107.

We have applied to the FA for those permissions and been granted them under what is called a certificate of authorization or commonly called a COA in uh in uh the UAS world.

So as a company we operate under that COA.

We are also working with the University of Nevada Reno, who owns uh a separate COA for the state of Nevada, in which they can authorize certain permissions to fly at various altitudes and air speeds under their COA and their review process through an independent safety review board, which occurs uh prior to test events.

We'd be able to author uh operate under their authorities that have been delegated to them by the FAA to the governor of the state of Nevada and from the governor to the University of Nevada Reno.

So again, everything we do is legal, but we're also willing to accommodate the public interest and and do geofencing, you know, do designated flight paths.

It is legal for us to fly our drones under some of these colors up to 18,000 feet.

Uh that is not something we're currently doing, but it's something we might look at in the future.

The vast majority of the flight activity occurs between a thousand and five thousand feet AGL, so above ground level.

So this is well outside the earshot of uh of certainly humans, um, and I think the vast majority of of uh mammals on the surface.

Um I think without getting too specific, there's a variety of test profiles at those altitudes, and we take all the proper precautions to make sure that we have safe offset and appropriate altitude for the airspace and for the FAA's permissions.

Yeah, that you didn't I didn't think that you were gonna get into all that.

I just wanted to know approximately what your altitude was because I'm concerned about the wildlife in the area.

Are you gonna you're gonna be flying 500 feet AGL, or are you gonna be flying 5,000 feet?

I mean, there's a big difference for the wildlife, and that's that's the the gist of my question.

And then you said that you're gonna have other aircraft following it, so are they gonna be at the same altitude?

They're gonna be at a higher altitude, they're gonna be a lower altitude.

I'm trying to picture this in my mind to see how I'm gonna vote.

Um, so if any help that I could get on that would be appreciated.

The majority of our test profiles are between a thousand and five thousand feet AGL.

Uh the the uh the aircraft has to take off from the ground, and so it transits altitude to get from ground level up to that cruising altitude.

The chase aircraft is kept in, it has to be keep in visual sight.

Sometimes that looks like a couple hundred feet, and depending on weather conditions, uh it could be as far out there where the visibility is great, you know, 500 to 1000 feet of separation.

I'm the uh chief test pilot for the the chase aircraft, if you will.

Uh we have the engineers who are testing the drones, but I I'm one of the principal individuals chasing the the aircraft, uh chasing the drones.

Okay.

And you're gonna have two tens, one eighty-fives, one eighties.

What what's gonna be the chase aircraft?

I'm sorry, you said it earlier, but I didn't know.

We we use what are called light sport aircraft to chase these.

Uh the the aircraft fly pretty slowly.

Like a piper or something.

Yeah, our particular one is is uh it's a light sports about a 600-pound airplane that can fly as slow as 30 knots in order to keep to not overfly the drones, which are uh quite a bit slower than than other aircraft.

Okay.

And then how far away from um your base do you think you'll be flying?

Just approximately you're gonna be like a hundred miles, 50 miles, 20 miles, 10 miles, five.

It really depends on the the flight profile and the specific test objectives that we're going after.

Uh the vast majority are between five and and twenty-five miles.

Occasionally we fall in 100, 150 miles, depending on airspace restrictions and and other uh uh kind of test points that we're seeking.

Okay, so you should be pretty high, high above the um the affected wildlife.

Um I know that it's okay to fly over BLM land.

It's yeah, it's it's a given.

That's true.

That answers, yeah.

If I could give you one more bit that uh the public had brought up about wilderness areas, I think um that's obviously a concern.

It's it's uh not against the law to fly over wilderness areas, but the uh the FAA put out a circular probably 25 years ago.

Um, you know, when we talk about wilderness areas, we're specifically talking about areas designated under the Wilderness Act of 1964.

Uh organizations like the Air Force or the Navy do not allow their pilots to fly over those areas.

Civilian pilots are authorized to fly over those areas.

We could fly over those areas legally under the FAA.

We as a company will not do that.

We understand that there's a great deal of public concern around the wilderness areas that are around our property.

The nearest wilderness areas are about 40 miles to the north and 140 miles to the west, up and over some pretty serious terrain that we don't really need to test our aircraft over.

Um, and and we we will not violate the public's trust by flying over wilderness areas, uh, although it is legal to do so.

The vast majority of our test profiles actually don't happen in proximity to the Iveson Ranch, they happen over the playa, which is seven miles wide, 25 miles long and and free of vegetative matter, which uh could burn, you know.

Our batteries that we use are very low risk to fire, but we take additional precautions to fly over the playa uh for the majority of our test profiles.

Um any further questions, sir.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

Any further questions from the board?

Um, uh I really appreciate all the public comment that came in on this, and I take it real seriously.

I've hunted antelope in the granites myself and spent a fair bit of time in North Washoe, and it is in fact a beautiful place that not very many people get to see.

Um appreciate everyone's passion for conserving it.

And I think that a lot of good questions have come up, and I've heard some good clarifying information from the applicant on this for me that hearing that the typical test flight plans are a thousand to five thousand feet and over the playa.

Um take seriously the concern about fire, but I actually think that having a truckie meadows approved fire protection plan operating out there with trained uh personnel and equipment is probably a net benefit to fire safety out there.

Um I'm comfortable with making the findings on this.

Um further discussion with the board, or I'm happy to make the motion.

All right, so I will make this motion, including the amendments to the conditions that staff raised and the three conditions that staff can find from the private agreement with Burning Man that were read out tonight, and which uh the county feels comfortable enforcing as a regulatory authority.

I move that after giving reason consideration of the information contained in the staff report and the information received during the public hearing, the Washoe County Planning Commission approve with the conditions as amendment as amended, special use permit case number WSUP 25-0018 as it relates to the requested special use permit for high technology industrial use type for drone research and testing and for a private airstrip use type for BRDR properties with the conditions as amended included as exhibit 8 to this matter, having made all five findings in accordance with Washoe County Code Section 110.810.30.

I further move to recommend approval with conditions to the Board of County Commissioners of a hazardous material special use permit for a general industrial heavy use type to include explosives testing and the use and storage of certain hazardous materials in the high desert planning area as required by NRS 278.147 and Washoe County Code Section 110.810.42 for BRDR properties with the conditions included as exhibit A to this matter, having made all five findings in accordance with Washoe County Code, Section 110.810.42D.

I further move to vary the development code standard in table 110.410.10.4 to remove the parking requirements for employees to waive the requirements of WCC section 110.410.25C through G, design of parking areas to waive WCC 110.306.50A, which requires runways to be located a minimum of 300 feet from any property line and to maintain a noise standard of 65 decibels to waive WCC 110.306.50C, which requires parking per airplane parked, and to waive landscaping requirements found in WCC 110.412.45.

And I'm sorry, uh Mr.

Chair.

Did that uh motion also include the removal of condition 2C and uh moving 2D to planning?

Yeah, my motion included the amended conditions as described by staff.

Fair enough.

Commissioner Owens for a second.

I have a motion and a second.

All those in favor?

I don't know and we had are we going to discuss the motion?

Uh you're just gonna vote.

We usually vote right after.

Do you have would you like to discuss further?

Well, again, I'm concerned about the the security of the facility, and I'd like to add a condition requiring licensed arm.

Could I get staff's opinion on that?

Seems like a Washoe.

I mean, we got we reached out for a comment to Washoe County Sheriffs.

They didn't provide conditions for this from them.

They would be the agency that would have to enforce that kind of they're not gonna go ahead and do it.

This is a private company.

No, I I understand, but Washoe County Sheriff's Office would be the agency within the county that would be enforcing any kind of uh private guard training or licensing that you're talking about.

I'm not sure.

I'm sorry, Mr.

Flick, can you speak into the mic, please?

Yeah.

Security firm.

It was licensed.

Okay.

And the and the individuals working for a security firm are licensed in order.

And they're also uh well in Nevada to be able to carry a gun.

But they would have to be armed, trained.

Um, that's my concern.

I I understand.

The ADF has their magazine specifications and what have you, but I just I've seen too much damage done by this stuff in the wrong hands, and I just don't want my name attached to it.

Um if we don't have adequate security.

All right.

Well, uh at the moment we have a motion in the second.

Uh if it's all right, I like to proceed with a vote.

And if no it doesn't pass, we can make a motion including that condition.

Uh all right.

Uh all those in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

And any opposed?

Uh nay.

Yay.

All right.

Uh the motion passes.

Thank you.

Don't you want to know which condition that I don't think that's I do believe we had uh it was a five to two vote.

Uh Commissioners Flick and Kennedy voting in uh voting nay, if that's correct.

That's what I heard.

Yes.

Well I'm voting nay because I don't see it.

See anything in uh conditions that state that it's uh the public isn't uh um protected against uh this facility as far as the explosives are concerned.

Uh Mr.

Chair, if I can read the uh the appeal procedure.

Uh most decisions rendered by the planning commission are appealable to the Board of County Commissioners.

If you disagree with the uh decision of the planning commission and you qualify as an agreed person or party, you may appeal in writing within 10 calendar days from the date that the decision be an appeal is reduced to writing.

Filed with the Secretary of the Planning Commission and mailed to the original applicant in the proceeding being appealed in accordance with Washoe County Code.

Uh please call the planning staff immediately at 775 328610 for information on the appeal procedure and the application fee.

Thank you.

I believe that's the end of public hearings for the night.

Uh do we have any future agenda items requested by the board?

Well with this under the uh page 20 of the staff report under staff comment and required findings, WCC section 110.810 point 30, Article 810.

Special use permits require that all of the following findings be made to the satisfaction of Walsh County Planning Commission before granting approval of the request.

And I am saying that finding D.

Issue not detrimental.

That the issuance of the permit will not be significantly detrimental to the public health safety.

And that's what I'm hanging my hat on.

Or welfare understood, Mr.

Flick.

Your vote against it and your reasoning is in the I'll be quiet.

Right.

Uh do we have any requests for future agenda items?

Request for information from staff.

Do we have any reports on previous planning commission items?

Nothing to report.

Anything from legal uh nothing from legal.

I will just mention that this is my last meeting with you, and I've really enjoyed working with all of you.

Thinking thank you for making everything so pleasant for me in representing this board, and I really appreciate that.

And so thank you to staff planning staff as well.

I really appreciate all of you.

Thank you.

Thank you for helping us and honoring us with your presence.

Enjoy your new position.

Thank you so much for your service.

I hope your evenings are a little more relaxed now.

All right.

Do we have any further public comment?

I have no public comment in chambers.

I do have a hand raised on Zoom.

This is the Gurlack Community Center.

Please state your first and last name for the record.

Hello?

Everybody who spoke tonight.

Thanks.

We'll try a new microphone.

Elizabeth Gambrell, Gurlock, Nevada.

I want to thank everybody for all their comments tonight.

And I'm not really um prescient or anything, but not sure how many of you have ever driven out to the Iveson ranch, because it's 127 some odd miles between pavement and dirt to get there.

And then you have to go up this really long driveway and navigate two or three possible rights or lefts.

And then you got to deal with these great pyronies that are out there and the other people who are hanging out.

So what I read in the WASAP about the building they're building for these munitions, it is equivalent to what we had in Baghdad, Afghanistan, and several places around the world that we deployed as military members.

So I actually think it's going to be pretty all right out there.

I just wanted to put that input in.

Thanks, y'all.

Have a really nice night.

Drive safe, be well.

Thank you so much.

Any more public comment?

Anyone else for Garlack Committee Center?

No, that was it.

All right, thank you.

That's the end of public comment.

Thank you so much.

We are adjourned.

The recording has stopped.