JiveBlog

NORTH LAS VEGAS, Nev. -- When Bob Combs began farming pigs 43 years ago, his was the only house 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 farmland 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, 67, who is lanky and speaks in a drawl.

Neither odor complaints nor the million-dollar offers from developers have gotten him to move. 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 otherwise go to waste. His mission statement asserts: "Through recycling we are assisting in one aspect of God's greatest creation . . . life."

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"I want to be recognized as a community asset and not a public nuisance," he said.

Many nearby residents and the mayor of North Las Vegas, though, portray Combs's 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.

"It stinks," Rose Glisch said. The smell doesn't keep them shuttered inside, but conversations with neighbors tend to revolve around the same topic: When will the farm shut up shop?

Mayor Mike Montandon said he was in the room when a developer offered Combs $75 million for the land, a figure Combs will not confirm but does not 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 whose population grew 11.4 percent last year, to 176,000 residents. It is now home to more than 200,000.

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Not only is the property in a prime housing location, but a dusty roadway that splits Combs's land in half is also 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."

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 1993 Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of a starving Sudanese girl as a vulture looks on. It serves as inspiration amid the grime.

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"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 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.

Combs's roughly 3,500 pigs gobble up a slurry stew made by boiling organic garbage from 22 casino-hotels. Project CityCenter, a $7 billion mega-resort 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."

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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.

But most of Nevada's available land is owned by the federal Bureau of Land Management. 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."

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