Lake Roosevelt NRA: Administrative History (Chapter 7)

CHAPTER 7:
Building and Maintaining the Park: Administrative and Visitor Facilities (continued)

When LARO was established in 1946, a number of roads already existed within the NRA. As is true today, state and county highways paralleled the lakeshore and provided the major access and approach roads to Lake Roosevelt. LARO employees have been concerned primarily with the access roads that lead to the park's developed areas. Park Service staff in the 1940s felt that the construction of approach roads to recreational sites was of primary importance to developing the NRA, partly because good access roads would allow concessionaires to develop particular sites. As soon as funding was available for construction, in 1950, the roads to the Kettle Falls, Fort Spokane, and North Marina recreation areas were improved. By the late 1950s, LARO had some twenty-seven miles of primary and secondary roads within the NRA boundaries. Most were graded and graveled to a minimum standard "to preserve the primeval effect of the shoreline," [16] but those in areas of heavy use were paved. LARO also maintained many spurs, loops, parking areas, interchanges, and terraces. [17]

Mission 66 proposals related to LARO's roads involved improving existing roads and building new roads to provide access to proposed new areas. Some seventy-three new miles of roads were proposed to be added to the existing twenty-three miles under the roads and trails budget of $90,000. In some years of the Mission 66 program, road improvements were the largest item. LARO maintenance crews maintained the roads within the NRA, and local, state, county, and city crews worked on the roads on an equipment-rental basis. One of the on-going jobs was making sure that old roads that ran right into the reservoir were well marked or barricaded. During the 1970s, routine maintenance work continued with re-surfacing and grading roads and parking lots. The roads in the NRA have not yet reached the levels anticipated in the Mission 66 prospectus; as of 1994, the total road mileage was sixty miles, of which twenty were abandoned roads. [18]

LARO prepared a preliminary inventory and survey of needs for roads within the NRA in 1980 that provided sufficiency ratings compared to national standards. The Surface Transportation Assistance Act of 1982 authorized the Federal Lands Highway Program to implement phased improvements of Park Service roads. As a result, the Park Service conducted Servicewide transportation planning for all public use and administrative park roads. LARO maintenance staff worked with the Denver Service Center and the Federal Highway Administration on an updated road inventory and needs study, campground road classification, and road improvement study. The resulting report concluded that LARO's roads were generally in fair to good condition, despite some deficiencies, and it made specific recommendations for construction and maintenance projects. [19]

Road maintenance equipment at LARO in 1980 consisted of three 2-1/2-ton trucks, one backhoe, and two tractors. Maintenance crews at that time spent 2 to 5 percent of their time on road maintenance. The work included mowing the roadsides, repainting traffic stripes, plowing snow, irrigating several locations, and picking up litter along roads. [20]

Increased visitation beginning in the 1970s led to visitors venturing into previously little-used areas of LARO, many driving off-road vehicles (ORVs). Old farm and logging roads were opened up, and new trails were created to access the land exposed during the winter drawdowns. Some visitors destroyed physical barriers in order to access particular spots. This spread-out use created problems with sanitation, fires, soil erosion and compaction, disturbance of wildlife, damage to cultural resources, and noise (particularly in the Crescent Bay Lake area). [21]

Executive Order 11644 (Use of Off-Road Vehicles on Public Lands) issued in 1972 directed federal land-managing agencies to develop regulations and designate areas of use for ORVs. In 1974, the Park Service closed all National Park System areas to ORV use except those specially designated as open by Federal Register notice or special regulation. In 1980, LARO employees installed about three hundred barrier posts, and the following year LARO rangers instituted special measures that were only partly successful to control the use of unauthorized roads by ORVs. LARO's 1982 Resource Management Plan identified ORVs as a major management problem and recommended a survey, policy development, barricading of sensitive sites, and restoration of damaged areas. In 1982, a survey recorded over fifteen kilometers of unauthorized roads in the Fort Spokane district, most accessible by two-wheel-drive vehicles from public road systems and not associated with ORVs. The survey provided a method for classifying LARO's roads, and it resulted in the closure of many of the unauthorized roads in that district. [22]

One area that received special attention was Rattlesnake Canyon east of Crescent Bay Lake, where motorcycles and ORVs were causing erosion and noise pollution. In 1982, LARO and Reclamation banned ORVs from the area. Although LARO staff prepared draft ORV regulations in 1982, they proved controversial and were not enacted. Instead, staff recommended a review of the current status and preparation of a management plan that would designate ORV routes as required by the 1972 Executive Order. Finally, in 1992, LARO established a new policy restricting motor vehicles to established roads within the NRA and specifically prohibiting their use in drawdown areas. This decision was made primarily to protect archaeological sites. Two years later, the Colville Confederated Tribes (CCT) also restricted non-member ORV use, including snowmobiles and dirt bikes. Regulating ORV use is not currently a significant issue for LARO's law-enforcement personnel; the problems are small in scale and mostly occur during drawdown periods. [23]

Owners of land adjacent to certain roads within the NRA have requested easements for access roads over the years. One example is the road to the Spring Canyon developed area. In 1952, the Julius Johnson estate gave land for this road and other purposes to the Park Service, and the road was constructed a couple of years later. At least one person was given verbal approval for infrequent access to his land from the road for agricultural purposes. In 1986, several requests were made for residential access from the road to proposed subdivisions. The Park Service opposed all these requests because they believed that other practical access routes existed and because they did not want to grant an easement and set a precedent. In the early 1990s, LARO formalized its easement policy by stating that no new roads would be considered for easement recommendation to Reclamation; that any easements had to remain open to the public; and that adverse impacts to the NRA must be minimal or non-existent. Some easements were granted on roads predating the acquisition of the lands by the federal government and in cases where the Park Service had made previous commitments to provide easements. [24]

Until recently, the Park Service was not authorized to participate financially or otherwise in road maintenance projects on roads outside the NRA boundaries. This has led to some difficulties at LARO. For example, in the 1980s many residents along the county road between Laughbon's Landing and Porcupine Bay, built by a developer, complained about the dust generated along the gravel road. LARO and Lincoln County and the homeowners all agreed the road should be paved. County commissioners were unwilling to spend money on the road because a very high percentage of the traffic consisted of Porcupine Bay campground users. Eventually, however, the county did pave the road. [25]

Due to the large water area and small land base, we have not developed a major emphasis on trails. . . . The southern half of the lake is quite dry and hot with limited hiking interest even though I find spring and fall very pleasant to kick around in the sagebrush. (Snakes are somewhat of a deterrent!)

-- Jerry Rumburg, LARO Chief of Interpretation, 1981 [26]

LARO has not developed an extensive trail system, primarily because the NRA consists of a narrow strip of land along the shores of Lake Roosevelt and is not particularly conducive to hiking. The Mission 66 prospectus for LARO proposed a lakeshore foot trail running the entire length of the lake with layover points and shelters spaced a day's hike apart, but this has not been constructed. In 1972, LARO had only one trail more than one mile long: the self-guided interpretive trail at Fort Spokane. LARO considered constructing a nine-mile trail between Fort Spokane and Porcupine Bay in 1979, but this was never built. A number of trails were constructed in the 1970s, so that in 1980 LARO had six trails totaling 3.83 miles: Bunch Grass Prairie Nature Trail, Lava Bluff Trail, Fort Spokane interpretive trail, Fort Spokane campground trail, Kettle Falls interpretive trail (connecting campground and beach), and St. Paul's Mission trail. Of these, the Fort Spokane interpretive trail was the most popular, with highest daily use in 1979 of sixty-five visitors. By 1987, LARO had nine miles of trails. [27]