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March 28, 2024 4:07 am
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Working Together On Repairs To Gold Butte Road

By VERNON ROBISON

Moapa Valley Progress

Volunteers from Friends of Gold Butte, members of Great Basin Institute, BLM staffers and a Clark County crew work together to smooth potholes in the main road to the Gold Butte National Monument. PHOTO BY VERNON ROBISON/Moapa Valley Progress.

Two government entities, working together with conservation groups and a small army of volunteers, spent the past two weeks improving access to the Gold Butte National Monument just south of Bunkerville.

The coordinated effort aimed to repair hundreds of potholes in the aged paved road that is the main access into the Monument.

Involved in the project were crews from Clark County Department of Public Works, officials from the Bureau of Land Management, workers from the Great Basin Institute and a host of volunteers recruited by the Friends of Gold Butte (FOGB) organization.

Last week, the project focused on a roughly 10-mile stretch of road between Juanita Springs and Whitney Pockets at the gateway to the Monument. The road in that area has been notorious for being tough on visiting vehicles.

“When people stop in at our Mesquite office to learn more about visiting the monument, we always tell them that this road is ‘paved-ish’,” said FOGB coordinator Brenda Slocumb. “Technically it is paved. But it has long been very rough road.”

Despite the fact that it is a National Monument under the care of the BLM, Clark County Maintenance Supervisor Terry Burklund has devoted a small measure of county resources to road maintenance in Gold Butte over the past three years since he has been working from the Overton Community Center office.

“The fact is that if something happens out there it will be our emergency personnel that will be responding,” Burklund said. “So even though it belongs to the BLM, it is in our best interest to keep the roads passable.”

At the beginning of each year, Burklund has scheduled a blade operator to do basic maintenance on the vast Gold Butte Backcountry Byway, a 60 mile dirt road loop extending south from Whitney Pockets to the historic Gold Butte township site and beyond.

Burklund explained that blading that road once per year takes about two weeks. So during that two weeks, he has also sent a two-man Public Works crew to put cold mix asphalt patches into the most severe potholes in the paved segment as well.

“We can usually only manage about 50 tons of material and only the two weeks of manpower for our crew,” Burklund said. “So we haven’t ever been able to put much of a dent in it.”

But at the end of last year, BLM officials from the Las Vegas Field Office contacted Burklund to ask if they could help with this year’s road work.
“That hadn’t ever happened before so I was pretty excited about it,” Burklund said.

Initially, the BLM offered to match the amount of material provided by the county.
Burklund said that he was pleased with that, but he doubted he would have any additional manpower in his budget to move that much material in the two weeks allotted.

The BLM was likewise unable to offer paid staff as manpower for the project. But they did offer to sponsor volunteer groups if they could be recruited, Burklund said.
“That was great because the County can’t work directly with volunteers in something like roadwork due to liability issues,” Burklund added. “But the BLM has a volunteer program where the volunteers would be covered.”

The BLM staff reached out to the FOGB organization who gladly recruited a willing team of volunteers for the project.
“They were happy to volunteer for this because everyone wants it,” said BLM Gold Butte National Monument Director Lee Kirk. “I have heard a lot of concern about that road from the communities out there whenever I go to town board meetings. So it is on everyone’s mind. Through our volunteer program, we could help by covering them while they worked on the roads.”

Slocumb said that it was not at all difficult for her to fill the schedule with volunteers over the two week project. The lion’s share of the workforce were residents of the Virgin Valley area who use the road often. The group included members of the Desert Fossils, a senior hiking club out of the Sun City in Mesquite.

The Great Basin Institute also sent a crew to assist with the project.
There was even a retired couple who came from Las Vegas to volunteer. Hatsuo Takeuchi, 72, and his wife Eliane, 75, spent the two weeks camping at Whitney Pockets. Every morning they got up early and joined the crew in patching the roadway.
“We get started at around 7 am and work on it until mid afternoon,” said Hatsuo Takeuchi. “That gives us time at the end of the day to be out enjoying nature. We love it here.”

With willing help on the job, Burklund decided to seize the opportunity. He found county funding to add 40 more tons of material to the job, hoping to keep the crews busy for longer. The BLM followed up by matching that amount again.

By the time the project was finished, about 180 tons of cold mix was put down on the road within 10 days.

Slocumb expressed appreciation for all who volunteered their time. “We have the best group of volunteers on the planet,” she said. “It is just an amazing group who are enthusiastic about the Monument and its importance.”

Burklund was pleased with the results of the joint efforts. “It has made such a huge difference, the road is world’s better than it was,” he said. “This makes it so much easier for us going forward to chase the potholes and keep things maintained.”

Kirk agreed. “It was a great project and it was good to have so many working together to get something done,” he said. “It will definitely make future maintenance easier. And it will allow us to come up with strategies for future improvements to the road out there.

That will be needed since it is a National Monument now and it is seeing increased visitation.”

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3 thoughts on “Working Together On Repairs To Gold Butte Road”

  1. Roberta Dee Townsend

    We had a chance to visit last weekend and the road is AWESOME! Huge thanks to ask who worked on the project!

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