By Vernon Robison

Moapa Valley Progress

Though water levels have risen significantly at Overton Beach, National Park Service (NPS) officials say there are no plans to re-open that area to the public this year. But at an October 12 meeting of the Moapa Valley Town Advisory Board, NPS officials vowed to work with local business leaders in the coming weeks in open-ended efforts to restore visitation at the north end of Lake Mead.

The road to Overton Beach was temporary closed in April of 2010 when lake water levels had sunk to an elevation of 1,095. After heavy snow fall in the western Rockies last winter, however, lake levels are now up around 1,118 feet and rising; high enough to launch boats again from the ramp at Overton Beach. Nevertheless, the road to the area still remains closed.

To address this matter, Lake Mead Public Affairs Officer Andrew Muñoz and Concession Program Manager, Kris Kirby attended the MVTAB meeting last Wednesday to answer questions.

At the meeting, local residents expressed frustration at the closure and an eagerness to see the road re-opened to at least allow access to the shore and the boat launch.

But Muñoz said that the probability of reopening the road to Overton Beach in the next few months is next to zero. This is because of the many uncertainties involved in the current situation, he said.

Muñoz said that the Park Service has to consider the operational costs involved in re-opening the area. Opening the road would require man hours to patrol the area. Fencing and infrastructure would also be needed to secure the various buildings even if they remained closed, Munoz said.

“Just to swing the gate open we would be looking at $45,000-$50,000 per year in costs,” Muñoz said. “To bring the facility back to life completely would be as high as $200,000.”

All of this expense would be required with no guarantees yet that the water levels would stay high enough to continue operations at Overton Beach even over the next five years, Muñoz said.

In addition, the NPS has a great deal of uncertainty about its current budget, Muñoz said. He explained that current spending is being done under a temporary Continuing Resolution from Congress.

“We don’t know what funding we will have to work with,” Muñoz said. “There is a lot of uncertainty still.”

Muñoz mentioned the new fee station that is being constructed at the Overton entrance of Lake Mead and is expected to be in use by early next year. But he said fee revenues alone were not expected to be enough to provide what was needed for Overton Beach.

Given all of these uncertainties, Munoz said that Lake Mead officials had decided it wouldn’t be the right decision or the best use of taxpayer dollars to open the gates at Overton Beach right now.

“We decided to concentrate our resources at Echo Bay to provided better services there,” he said.

Kirby talked about economic projections being made for the north end of the Lake. She stated that the NPS was working on a new 10 year concession at Echo Bay. Market studies done for that process had shown a “new reality” in park visitation due to the economy.

“Tourism has been hit hard,” Kirby said. “Visitation has changed significantly. Forever Resorts (the current Echo Bay concessioner) has been trying to market the area. But visitation keeps going down and they are struggling.”

Kirby did point out that Forever Resorts had been hesitant to put a lot of money into the facility because they are currently only operating on a three year contract.

In any case, with this “new reality”, Kirby said that the NPS couldn’t financially justify a second concession operation at Overton Beach in the near future.

“If Overton were to open it could impact Echo Bay visitation,” she said.

MVTAB member Judy Metz blamed some of the lower visitation numbers on the NPS closures at the north end of the lake in recent years.

“As a business-person I can tell you that our downtown area felt an immediate effect back in 2007 when you closed (the concession at) Overton Beach,” Metz said. “In addition you had the road torn up for two years and people didn’t want to take that road. If you are looking at reasons for lower visitation on the north end, you ought to take a close look at those things.”

MVTAB member Dustin Nelson said that the NPS needed to open up the process to allow concessioners to be successful.

“If you create an environment for that contract to fail; guess what, it will,” Nelson said. “If you don’t show your commitment to its success and that of the surrounding communities, why would the concessioner? You close things off and you say ‘It’s all good’. But it affects our access and our lives.”

Metz recalled that, in 2007 at the time that concession services at Overton Beach were being closed, she and other community members had tried to work with NPS officials on other alternatives.

“We dealt with the Park Service, Department of Interior, Congressmen, Commissioners and others trying to find a way to keep services there,” Metz said.

Metz said that the community had even brought people forward who wanted to take what was left of the Overton Beach concession and work with it.

“We tried to explain that they should look outside the box; that the Lake wasn’t the only thing,” Metz said. “There were RV spots and the trailer park that would bring people here for a staging place to other recreational uses. But we were told that this was just not how it was done.”

“Then after all of that we were told that, at least, that road would never be closed,” Metz continued. “They promised us that; because they were taking everything else away from us. So I was very disappointed to see it closed last year. I felt like that was the one little thing that they left us and now even that didn’t happen.”

Metz urged that the NPS should put more effort into the idea of re-opening and revitalizing the area.

During the public comment period, local businessman Kent Slight asked about revenues expected from the new fee station. He asked how many vehicles currently pass through that area.

Muñoz estimated that it was around 120,000 vehicles per year. But he said it was difficult to project from that number just how much fee revenue would be collected for the park.

“I find it difficult to believe that if you have 100,000 vehicles coming through paying fees that you can’t find $50,000 to open the road to Overton Beach,” Slight said. “It would be a deficit positive situation because opening the road would bring more visitors that now would pay fees.”

Commissioner Tom Collins, who was in attendance at the meeting stated that the sign blocking the road at Overton Beach bears the word ‘Temporary’ because he had asked them to include that.

“This is a town advisory board and there are probably better places to go get this solved,” Collins said. “I sit on the Colorado River Commission and the Southern Nevada Water Authority board. We have had one year of good snowfall. But things change and they change very quickly. Will the road be re-opened? Yes, it will be re-opened. But it is a complex thing.”

Moapa Valley Chamber of Commerce chairman, Jeff Phillips expressed interest in working with the NPS on a business-friendly resolution to these issues.

“Tonight we have received an extension of hands from the Park Service to work with our local community,” Phillips said. “We appreciate that. We, as community business leaders would like the opportunity to meet with them and see how we can move forward from here.”

Muñoz agreed.

“We want to work with you,” he said. “Where we are right now is not where we want to be. Mistakes have been made. There is obviously some animosity here because of those past mistakes. But we can move forward and work with the business community and look for ways that this community can become that gateway to the Lake Mead Recreation Area.”