Glen Canyon NRA Project Update April 2025We are making progress on the contracting documents package for our Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA) funded Utilities Project for Wahweap and Lone Rock water and wastewater systems. Phase I is currently in the solicitation process. We anticipate it to be under contract in late 2024 for the remaining design effort and construction effort. Phase II addresses water facilities by constructing a new water well, water treatment plant, water storage tanks, and upgrades to the water distribution system. Phase II is currently in the pre-design phase.
This ramp is currently open to paddlecraft only. Planning and design continues for a construction project which would extend this ramp to enable public water access for a variety of user groups. The park is working with the Navajo Nation to determine the preferred design option. The contractor will finalize this work into a report for the park to move the project to schematic design next. The park received FY 23 Disaster Supplemental funding for this project. This funding will cover design to construction of this project. April 2025: Ready to award the design-build contract, pending Park Service Director approval. The NPS (Glen Canyon NRA and Canyonlands National Park), the economy of Utah, and the river rafting community are affected by the need for a sustainable takeout ramp at Hite for Colorado River trips in Cataract Canyon. Glen Canyon secured FY 23 Disaster Supplemental Funding to rapidly advance the planning and design for a new river takeout ramp that will be more sustainable long-term. This will fund a design build contract for this project, restoring access to the river at Hite. NPS had previously undertaken hydrology assessments that have identified feasible recommended locations. The location selected for this new ramp is on the south side of the Colorado River, just west of the bridge at Hite. We are moving quickly to obtain schematic designs and begin our environmental assessment process. A design build contract, which culminates in construction, will then be announced by our project managers at Denver Service Center. We don’t have solid dates for construction start and completion at this time. Once we have schematic designs, the NPS will begin the environmental and cultural compliance process. That National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process will inform our contracting timelines for a design build contractor. We will share updates as they become known and after we have the schematic design for the ramp. We appreciate your interest and look forward to working with all interested and affected parties on this. We are moving forward with long-term planning for access infrastructure that will have features and functionality that will support water visitation to Rainbow Bridge National Monument at lower water elevations. On August 8, 2023, the NPS Denver Service Center issued a solicitation for architect and engineering services to relocate and rehabilitate the Rainbow Bridge floating walkways and anchor system. One of our first larger projects planned in this location was a project for a low boat ramp at Bullfrog Stanton Creek. The Bullfrog Stanton Creek location offers lower elevation ramp possibilities. With the updated Bureau of Reclamation target elevation commitment for Lake Powell at an elevation of 3525' and existing Bullfrog ramps already providing access as low as 3519', an investment in that Bullfrog Stanton Creek ramp is not as urgent currently. The design and costing work we have done with that project may still be useful in the future. In February 2024 we began collecting data points on possible vessels thaat needed to be salvaged. Next steps included defining the means and methods and timing of implementation. There is no planned end date for this data collection effort as the park needs to collect and store this data in perpetuity.
April 2025: The project is on hold. We are planning a mid-lake fuel service station that will be operational at low water and not dependent on support systems from a fixed, land-based station. Congress authorized funding support for this alternative fuel station in the Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 budget appropriation in a Disaster Supplemental. A contract was awarded to a marine engineering firm (Stantec) to provide a design for this new infrastructure. A Stantec team did field work to survey and develop design concepts for this replacement infrastructure. 
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Last updated: April 23, 2025