RYAN NAKASHIMA Associated Press writer | Posted: Monday, September 25, 2006 12:00 am
NORTH LAS VEGAS, Nev. - When Bob Combs began farming pigs here 43 years ago, his was the only light for miles out in the desert, and he could safely shoot his rifle in any direction at the stray dogs that came to attack his livestock.
Now, houses bump up against his 150 acres of farm land on all sides. The city around him, North Las Vegas, is the second fastest-growing in the United States.
"They keep moving in towards me all the time," said Combs, a lanky 67-year-old with a slow drawl. "I shoot straight up, I'm all right."
Neither odor complaints nor the million-dollar offers from developers have gotten him to move.
That's because Combs says his R.C. Farms has a higher mission than just producing pork.
Thousands of his pigs eat food scraps from the biggest casino resorts on the Las Vegas Strip, recycling tons of material that would have gone to waste, and his mission statement claims: "Through recycling we are assisting in one aspect of God's greatest creation … life."
"I want to be recognized as a community asset and not a public nuisance," he said.
But many nearby residents and the mayor of North Las Vegas portray Combs' farm as a smelly relic that is getting in the way of progress.
Rose Glisch and her husband, Norman, 70, moved into a three-bedroom home in the residential community that popped up across the street from the northern border of the farm two years ago. Cleverly devised street names hint at the distinctly rustic fragrance in the air - like Horsehair Blanket Drive and Sterling Spur Avenue.
Rose Glisch is less romantic about the reality of living nearby.
"It stinks," she said, while training her puppy to walk on a leash on her driveway on a recent afternoon. The smell doesn't keep them shuttered inside, but conversations with neighbors tend to revolve around the same topic: When is the farm going to shut up shop?
One neighbor, 27-year-old roofer Eddie Marquez, said the thick, sickly smell in the air once reminded him of a reheated tripe burrito he had just eaten. "I was like, 'That's not right!"' he said. "I'll never eat tripe again."
"If I was his age and had his money I would have sold that a long time ago and got out of it," Norman Glisch said.
Mayor Mike Montandon said he was in the room when a developer offered Combs $75 million for the land, a figure Combs won't confirm but doesn't dispute. The offer would have been a reasonable amount, given that the land could hold 900 homes, enough space for 2,000 people in a city that saw its population grow 11.4 percent last year to 176,000 residents. It is now home to more than 200,000.
Not only is the property in a prime housing location, but a dusty roadway that splits Combs' land in half is being planned for a major transportation corridor that is to support a university campus, a hospital and mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods.
"The vision doesn't necessarily include a pig farm in the middle of the city," Montandon said. "At some point, he's going to flip a coin and decide between waking up at 4:30 in the morning and putting muddy boots on, or $75 million."
"And right now, he prefers getting up early in the morning and putting muddy boots on," he said. "He has no desire to be a rich man."
Inside his modest single-story home, less than a hundred paces from rows of fly-covered pens and a towering, brown, slime-slathered cooking vat, Combs talks about being the third generation of pig farmer in his family to use scraps.
He shows a reporter a 1994 Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of a starving Sudanese child crawling toward a U.N. food camp as a vulture looks on. It serves as inspiration amid the grime. Combs said he knows he is doing something right by recycling tons of food waste from a city 10 miles to the south renowned for excess.
"That one always inspired me when I get disgusted with my business," Combs said. "You get depressed about it, and ask yourself, 'What am I doing here? Why?' This photograph inspires me always to stay at the helm."
Combs' some 3,500 pigs gobble up a slurry stew that is made by boiling organic garbage from 22 casino-hotels, including Bellagio, The Venetian and Caesars Palace. Project CityCenter, a $7 billion megaresort and casino planned by MGM Mirage Inc., has asked Combs to submit a bid to recycle its waste when it opens in 2009.
"R.C. Farms helps MGM Mirage recycle food waste that would otherwise be shipped to landfills," said MGM spokesman Gordon Absher. "And so it's of benefit not only to the company but to the community."
About 150 employees now work in casino loading docks separating bread crusts and lemon wedges from silverware and plates that are returned. Another 15 or so run the farm, which also recycles aluminum, plastic, cardboard and grease.
The operation is so successful that last year R.C. Farms accounted for a third of all the 621,000 tons of solid waste that was recycled in Clark County. At about 19 percent, the county is short of a state and national goal of recycling 25 percent of all solid waste.
The ratio "would decrease even further" if the farm were to disappear, said Dennis Campbell, a solid waste manager for the Southern Nevada Health District. Among other alternatives is a limited curbside recycling program in the county, which has a meager 2 percent participation rate.
County officials, prompted by years of odor complaints, including 42 in 2005, have been speaking regularly with Combs about moving his farm, which is still on unincorporated county land.
Most of Nevada's available land is owned by the federal Bureau of Land Management, however. Completing a swap would take an act of Congress, said County Commissioner Tom Collins.
"Everything he's doing is good," Collins said. "We're going to try to continue to do that and alleviate the problems that North Las Vegas has caused by allowing residential growth to come too close to the farm, which is, you know, shame on them."
Home builders that have put up 10,000 houses in a five-mile radius say despite the farm's presence, major discounts have not been given to buyers in the area. New home prices are more affected by the original price of land, amenities such as lot choice and landscaping than the distance from the farm, they say.
KB Home's Sierra Ranch development, less than half a mile away and well within smelling range, was the sixth best-selling development in the Las Vegas Valley in the second quarter, with a median price of $322,373, according to research firm SalesTraq.
Centex Homes developments nearby are also selling well, said spokesman Neil Devroy. "We'd like to see (the farm) go away, but we've been able to operate and have had great success in that submarket."
If Combs did pull out, home values nearby would jump an estimated 15 percent to 25 percent, said Steve Bottfeld, a real estate analyst and president of BottfeldReport.com. Barbecues and swimming pools would also see more action once the air cleared, he suggested.
"If I remove the smell, I have now improved the quality of life significantly because now I can not only use the indoors of my house, I can use the outside of my house," he said.
Combs has tried to be a good neighbor - he's installed misters that cool the pigs and take odors out of the air, and put in concrete beneath pens to help wash away the mess.
Even if he does move farther afield, Combs said he hopes to leave a small operation where it is, partly to show off to tourists and educate the thousands of schoolchildren he guides through every year.
It's been a good life that has allowed him to raise a family, thanks to hard work and the wisdom of his father and forefathers, he said.
"I've been blessed to have this place here," he said. "I just fell into it … and came out smelling like a rose."