Brenda and Will Brants stand on the porch of the vacation home they bought seven years ago at Lake Mead's Overton Beach Marina. The National Park Service is closing the long-term trailer village. Officials will shut off the utilities and lock the gates on Monday. Photos by John Gurzinski. After years of enjoying views of Lake Mead, tenants at the long-term trailer village at Overton Beach Marina have been given until Saturday to clear out. The National Park Service ordered the village closed and the vacation homes removed after its private operator went out of business at the lake. Workers prepare to remove a mobile home from the long-term trailer village at Lake Mead's Overton Beach Marina. Effective Saturday, the village and several other land-based facilities at Overton Beach will be closed. Click image for enlargement.

LAKE MEAD NATIONAL RECREATION AREA -- Defiance has given way to resignation at the Overton Beach Marina trailer village, where owners of about 30 vacation rentals are scrambling to clear out before the National Park Service closes the place for good.

Will and Brenda Brants spent several hours on Wednesday loading the contents of their mobile home onto a flatbed trailer.

As recently as two weeks ago, Brenda Brants said, no one had moved out of the long-term trailer village because tenants hoped to persuade park officials to let them stay.

Now the village is a flurry of activity, as tenants and hired work crews tear down sheds and awnings and haul away mobile homes that used to serve as weekend retreats.

"It looks like a war zone around here," Will Brants said. "This was a nice park. It was the nicest park on the lake."

Tenants have until Saturday to leave. Park officials plan to shut off the utilities and lock the gate leading to the village on Monday.

"It's been pretty devastating news for everyone," Brenda Brants said, her eyes red from crying. "It's always been such a great retreat. I can't tell you how great it is to get out of the rat race in Las Vegas, and come out here and calm down and think things through."

The park service announced in December that it would be closing the 31-space trailer village, 40-space RV park and convenience store at Overton Beach. The agency cited "low water conditions" as the reason.

After being almost full in 1998, Lake Mead's surface has dropped about 85 feet.

In February, the water level dropped so low that the docks and covered boat slips at the lake's northernmost marina had to be split up and moved to two deeper-water marina locations.

Without the marina and its revenue, the long-term trailer village and other "shore side" facilities were deemed not financial viable, said Roxanne Dey, spokeswoman Lake Mead National Recreation Area.

"We considered every alternative that we're allowed to consider by law," Dey said. "There just wasn't an alternative."

But many trailer village tenants don't see it that way.

Kathleen Coates Hedberg, whose vacation home in space No. 17 has been in the family since 1987, said park service officials barely acknowledged her suggestions and pleas for more time.

"The National Park Service isn't listening to reason," Coates Hedberg said. "They're very firm (that) we're being kicked out."

"It's a closure of convenience," Will Brants said. "They'd just as soon not mess with it. They don't get any money from it, so what's the point?"

Trailer village tenants own their vacation homes but rent the land beneath them on a month-to-month basis.

The village at Overton Beach lost its manager in December, when private marina operator Overton Beach Marina Inc. allowed its contract with the park service to expire and essentially went out of business.

Company officials agreed to stay on through Saturday to close out their land-based operations.

Dey said the closure decision was based on information from the company and other private marina operators at Lake Mead, as well as an economic analysis commissioned by the park service and performed by the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Will Brants said he formally requested the document under the Freedom of Information Act about two months ago, but the park service refused to release it because it contains financial information from a private marina operator.

The Review-Journal also asked for the report and got the same response.

"The figures they used in that study are from the concessionaire. Unfortunately, we are not allowed to release their information," Dey said.

"If you asked me how much money we collected in entrance fees over the past year, I could tell you. But by law, we are not allowed to release private concessionaire information."

Seeing no hope for a reprieve, Will and Brenda Brants began cleaning out their trailer a few weeks ago.

Will Brants said they were promised some help, but as of Wednesday afternoon the park service had not even provided them with Dumpsters at the site.

"I can't throw anything away. I've got to haul it all back to Vegas with me," he said. "I don't want to leave stuff behind and get a crazy bill later" from the park service.

Dey said park officials are trying to be accommodating. Already, several tenants have been granted additional time to pack up their belongings, she said.

"If you say you need another year, the answer is going to be no. If the request is reasonable, we certainly want to be reasonable on our end."

Dey said arrangements were being made Thursday to make some large trash bins available at the trailer village.

But a far bigger problem, Coates Hedberg said, is what to do with the trailers themselves. Some of the structures are worth less than the cost of moving them, and most mobile home parks won't accept trailers built more than 10 years ago anyway, she said.

For the time being, the Brantses plan to have their mobile home moved to a lot in North Las Vegas.

"Ultimately, it's going to go to the dump," Will Brants said. "That's the reality of it."

The park service has not decided what to do with the trailer village once it has been emptied out.

For now, park officials plan to maintain the boat ramp, ranger station, public restrooms and fish-cleaning station at Overton Beach.

Dey said the marina and some shore-based facilities could reopen if the water comes back up, but the trailer village is probably gone for good.

She said that area is likely to be used for recreational vehicles only, assuming the road and the concrete slabs aren't removed altogether.

The water level at Lake Mead is expected to drop at least a dozen more feet by September, then rebound slightly toward the end of the year.

Based on what he's seen in 25 years of coming to the reservoir, Will Brants has no doubt the water will return.

"Of course it will. That's what this lake is designed to do," he said.

But Brants doesn't plan to be there to see it. As soon as he gets rid of the mobile home, he intends to sell his 30-foot boat.

After that, his days at Lake Mead will be over.

"I'm done with the park service. I've had enough," he said.

The last thing he plans to do on the way out is sign his name to a class-action lawsuit he expects to be filed against the park service and Overton Beach Marina Inc.

"You can't just walk away. It may be good money after bad, but if that's what it is, that's what it is," Will Brants said. "I don't feel like I've been treated fairly, period."