BLM seeks input on what to build at Sloan Canyon

A dozen years after Sloan Canyon was designated a national conservation area, the Bureau of Land Management is looking for help to decide what improvements should be made, and when.

The agency will hold a public strategy session at 6 p.m. today in Henderson to discuss a range of options for increasing access and adding amenities to the 48,438 acres of rugged desert and ancient rock art south of Anthem.

The two-hour meeting will be at Levi Strauss &Co., 501 Executive Airport Drive, off St. Rose Parkway near the Henderson airport.

Following a presentation by conservation area staff at 6:15 p.m., participants will be asked to share thoughts about planned developments. Written comment cards also will be available.

The bureau finalized plans in 2006 for a paved entry road and elaborate visitor center a short hike from the largest of Sloan Canyon’s petroglyph galleries. That project was shelved during the recession, which slowed Henderson’s encroachment on the area and left a transition zone neither the city nor the BLM was eager to develop.

Sloan Canyon access now is by 4 miles of rutted and rocky power-line road only suitable for high-clearance, four-wheel-drive vehicles.

There are a few dozen miles of hiking trails, a pair of information kiosks and little else.

Money is not the issue.

When the conservation area was created in 2002, lawmakers seeded it with $63 million from the sale of 480 acres at the southern edge of Henderson.

More than $9 million has been spent on trails, kiosks, surveys, studies and planning documents, but the interest-bearing endowment fund now holds about $64 million.

As part of their presentation today, BLM officials will discuss how various development plans will affect the available funding.

In recent years, some advocates has called for more to be done to protect the area, but bureau officials have largely taken a slow, cautious approach to avoid depleting the seed money with new, out-sized facilities requiring additional staffing.

Original plans for a visitor center with a restaurant and room for meetings and weddings have been scaled back to a simple “contact station” that may not be staffed.

The presentation will be posted on the bureau’s Sloan Canyon web page, blm.gov/s3ld, on Friday.

Comments will be accepted online at www.surveygizmo.com/s3/1906892/SloanNCA through the end of the month.

Contact Henry Brean at hbrean@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0350. Follow @RefriedBrean on Twitter.