Reid Bill Brings Gold Butte NCA Back Into Limelight

By Vernon Robison

Moapa Valley Progress

Another attempt was begun in Congress last week to place the vast Gold Butte complex under additional federal protection and to institute new federal wilderness in the area.

On Thursday, Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev) introduced legislation that would create a new National Conservation Area out of what has become known as Gold Butte: the broad, arid region lying south of Bunkerville, between the Overton arm of Lake Mead and the Arizona border.

“Gold Butte is Nevada’s piece of the Grand Canyon,” said Reid in a written statement on Thursday. “As more and more people discover this remarkable place, we must protect these resources for future generations while continuing to allow recreational opportunities we enjoy today. I look forward to continuing to work with Nevadans and the delegation to improve this proposal through the legislative process.”

Reid’s bill would designate 348,515 acres as the Gold Butte National Conservation Area which would be managed by the Bureau of Land Management.

Within that area, the bill would recognize 129,500 acres to be designated as federally protected wilderness. Another 92,000 acres of wilderness would be designated within the adjacent Lake Mead Recreation Area, managed by the National Park Service. Federal wilderness is managed to preserve a natural condition untouched by human activity.

Environmentalists and wilderness advocates praised Reid last week for bringing the issue up in Congress for discussion once again.

“We are thrilled that Senator Reid recognizes all the amazing things about Gold Butte,” said Mesquite resident Nancy Hall of the Friends of Gold Butte organization. “This diverse landscape represents our cultural history with petroglyphs dating back centuries, it is home to threatened species, and it provides top notch recreational opportunities including hiking, photography, and bicycle and ORV riding.”

Wilderness advocacy organizations have long pushed for greater federal controls in the Gold Butte region. And Nevada lawmakers have worked toward federal Gold Butte legislation in the past. In 2008, a bill similar to Reid’s current proposal was presented in the House by then-Representative Shelley Berkley. But this, and other previous attempts, have been abandoned due to a lack of local consensus on the matter.

Many residents of Moapa and Virgin Valleys, having traditional ancestral ties to the Gold Butte region, do not believe that another federal designation from Washington will adequately address the true conservation needs in the region. They cite the fact that those needs have gone largely unaddressed despite the area’s already being under federal protection as an Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC). They fear that a new NCA/Wilderness designation would eventually just restrict public access to the lands.

“In reality, I think that the conservation goals of the people in Moapa Valley, Bunkerville and Mesquite are fairly close to what Senator Reid is trying to accomplish here,” said Lindsey Dalley, chairman of community-based organization Partners in Conservation (PIC). “But I’m afraid that the administrative tool being pushed is where our objections come in.

“We are disappointed that they don’t want to talk about real on-the-ground conservation goals, only administrative actions. We have always sought to have a substantive conversation about approaches to solving these issues. But all we have gotten is this one-sided conversation about more Wilderness and an NCA. And that, alone, will not solve the conservation issues.”

Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.), who is reportedly planning to introduce matching Gold Butte legislation to the House sometime next month, has said that he is committed to getting input from all stakeholders on the issue.

“He has made multiple visits to the site and has been meeting with residents and officials for several months to discuss the designation,” Horsford’s Communications Director Tim Hogan wrote in an email to the Progress.

But Dalley pointed out that those meetings have all taken place in Mesquite with residents of that community. Horsford has not consulted people from Moapa Valley or from Bunkerville on the issue, Dalley said.

“The Congressman seems to have had a great conversation with only one side of the issue,” Dalley said. “He has engaged only people who agree with him already about the NCA designation, not with people who do not agree. We are frustrated with these types of one-sided conversations. The fact is there is a lot of common ground on this issue that needs to be developed and built upon. But one of our largest sticking points has always been the lack of local input and control.”

This perceived lack of local input and support on the issue is also the sticking point for Senator Dean Heller (R-Nev.). Heller will not be supporting Reid’s proposal, according to Heller’s Communications Director Chandler Smith.

“While greater protections for Gold Butte are needed, good public land policy is made through a transparent and open public process,” Smith stated in an email to the Progress. “This legislation does not meet that threshold. Senator Heller believes that local stakeholders need to have sign-off on legislation that affects their own backyard. Unfortunately, this legislation does not have the requisite local support at this time, so Senator Heller cannot support it.”

Nevertheless, Hogan claimed that immediate plans are in place for Horsford to receive input from all sides of the issue.

“On May 30, representatives from our office will be attending a community forum hosted by Mesquite City Manager Andy Barton,” Hogan said. “Residents from Bunkerville and Moapa are invited to attend to discuss working on the legislation together.”

But as of the middle of the Memorial Day weekend, Dalley said that neither he nor PIC had received any notice or invitations about this upcoming Mesquite meeting.

“Federal wilderness and NCA are just not really designed to operate with local input and control,” Dalley said. “We’ve seen it again and again. But if we could somehow solve that problem, we might be able to move forward. To do that our representatives need to step up and build some trust with us. We need to know that they will carry our message back to D.C. and deliver for us. Right now we can’t even get them to show up in Moapa Valley and talk to people about it. I think that is a bit of a problem.”