Wednesday, February 05, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Interior official views Red Rock as model for BLM lands

Rebecca Watson, assistant secretary of the interior for land and minerals management, looks across Red Rock Canyon on Tuesday at the Pine Creek Canyon overlook. Photo by John Gurzinski.

On a sunny day when a wild burro crossed her path and rock climbers scaled Red Rock Canyon's sandstone cliffs, Assistant Interior Secretary Rebecca Watson made her first trip to the park west of Las Vegas.

She came Tuesday to talk about the $5.2 million President Bush wants to spend on recreation nationwide for the Bureau of Land Management.

Watson, who oversees land and minerals management for the Interior Department, said Red Rock Canyon is shouldering its share of the recreational load for the Las Vegas Valley through user fees and that next year's proposed budget will send roughly $585,000 in recreation money to projects elsewhere in Nevada.

Because of its fee demonstration program and partnerships with volunteers and nonprofit groups, Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area is a model for how other BLM areas should cope with urban growth, Watson said.

"This is a microcosm of the challenges BLM is facing across the nation," Watson said after snapping photos at the first Calico Hills overlook on the 13-mile scenic drive.

Watson said she was awestruck by the canyon's red-and-beige outcroppings. To be able to view these features "just minutes away from Las Vegas and neon is hard to believe," she said.

The canyon epitomizes what Interior Secretary Gale Norton and President Bush describe as "citizen stewardship," which gives the public a sense of ownership of its lands through preservation and upkeep spearheaded by such groups as the Friends of Red Rock Canyon and the Outside Las Vegas Foundation.

Since November 1997, visitors have paid $5.5 million to enter Red Rock Canyon under a government program designed to improve the visitor experience. Entrance fee revenues are spent at the parks where they are collected.

In just five years, Red Rock Canyon alone has generated more for recreation locally than Bush intends to spend combined nationwide on BLM lands in 2004.

To help pay for the bureau's proposed $5.2 million recreation budget, the Bush administration wants to increase fees for special events by an unspecified amount. Last year, the Las Vegas field office collected about $22,650 in fees for off-highway vehicle races on public lands in Southern Nevada.

The BLM's share of the Interior Department's $10.7 billion proposed budget is $1.7 billion. It includes $550,000 for geothermal energy development and $300,000 more for wind and solar projects.

Watson and the BLM's Las Vegas field office manager, Mark Morse, said land sales, including 1,000 acres in June, will support community requests for land to develop.

With some of the money generated, the BLM will try to acquire roughly 500 acres on Blue Diamond Hill in view of Red Rock Canyon to protect it from housing developments. A trade with the land's owner, James Hardie Gypsum, is not feasible, they said. Morse said the BLM also is not interested in acquiring the company's mine site.