There’s a whole lot of nothing out here in the desert acres southwest of Anthem’s suburban reach. It’s quiet, and a lot of Anthem residents would like to keep it this way—or at least stop this proposed project: two open-pit mines.

Mexico-based mining company Cemex and California-based Service Rock Products want to lease 640 acres of Bureau of Land Management land here, some 2.5 miles from the edge of Anthem, for aggregate mining projects that would operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for an estimated 30 years.

The project was proposed nearly a decade ago, long before 40,000 homes were built in clean, affluent neighborhoods on the edge of Henderson. The land was determined to be rich in aggregate minerals used in construction, and the companies like the site’s proximity to I-15 for easy trucking.

But now there are more things to consider: heavy machinery, explosives, toxic dust, wrecked views—all of which nearby residents say threaten both the quality of life and the value of homes that have already lost as much as 50 percent of their value in the recession.

Protests began in 2007 at the first public meeting on the mines, and residents are still working on their opposition efforts.

“[It’s] a danger to you and your children,” says an item in a recent Anthem Highlands Community Newsletter. “Activities would include stripping, drilling, blasting, loading, hauling and dumping (both production and waste), use of heavy and extremely noisy equipment such as loaders, trucks, drills, cranes, jaw crushers, cone crushers, processing and product delivery conveyors, excavators and bulldozers. The mining process uses massive amounts of scarce water ... WHAT CAN YOU DO??? If you have a computer, send an e-mail to the Bureau of Land Management voicing your concern ...”

Anthem resident George Meese says the opposition group is also collecting petition signatures, and that some residents from nearby Seven Hills are joining the opposition. “We got about 5,000 petition signatures, and at least 1,000 letters opposing the mines, but we’re still working on it.”

But BLM spokeswoman Kirsten Cannon says that right now, the project is in an environmental-study phase and that construction, if it comes to pass, wouldn’t begin for at least another year, probably longer.

“It’s a long way out, and there will be public hearings when the study is finished,” Cannon says. Originally the environmental study was scheduled to be completed this year, but now the target date is June 2010; Cannon did not immediately know what had caused the delay.

Of additional concern to residents—and perhaps to Nevadans generally—is that very little of the money that Cemex and Service Rock Products would pay for the mineral rights on this land would remain in Nevada. As a federal agency, the BLM would distribute the funds among other projects, a large share of which are in California.

“I can’t understand that,” Meese says. The 1947 Mineral Materials Act gives the BLM authority to sell or grant free-use permits to the public to mine certain minerals.

While this is a site-specific controversy, mining interests generally are taking heat from some Nevada politicians who argued during the last legislative session that the industry takes too much and gives too little to the state; Democrats are likely to want to revisit the issue of increasing mining taxation in the 2011 legislative session.

Sen. Harry Reid, Rep. Dina Titus and Rep. Dean Heller have all expressed concern about the Sloan Hills project. Titus and Heller wrote a letter to the BLM earlier this year saying, “Recognizing the importance of the mining industry in Nevada, we are keenly aware of the requirements for a responsible mining operation and are concerned that this particular location is not suited to a new aggregate mine.”

County Commissioner Steve Sisolak has vehemently opposed the mine—even wearing a protest T-shirt at a public hearing on the matter last spring—but the county has little regulatory power over the project; its scope is limited to air-pollution regulation.

In addition to the homes on the northeast side of the proposed pit site, the Sloan Canyon National Conservation Area, which contains petroglyphs believed to be thousands of years old, sits five miles to the south and east.

Federal law also assigns the BLM to “conserve, protect, enhance and manage” conservation areas “for the benefit and enjoyment of present and future generations.”

After the environmental-impact study is complete and public input is received, the final decision regarding the mines is scheduled to be made by the BLM in May of 2011.