Sand dune roads repaving project finished
‘They were in desperate need of repair’
Completion of an $11 million repaving project of two major roads within the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area was celebrated Friday with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Buttercup Ranger Station, 20 miles west of Yuma.
The work was done over the six months between the closing of last winter’s dune season and the opening of this year’s on Oct. 1, turning Grays Well Road off Interstate 8 and Gecko Road, in the Glamis area of the northern part of the dunes, into sleek black roads with bright white and yellow pavement markings.
Adjacent parking areas and campgrounds were also repaved, including the Plank Road on the west of Grays Well. The total project spans about 11 miles.
“Gecko Road is one of the busiest roads in the BLM’s land in the state (of California) and it hasn’t had any improvements in over 20 years, so we are highly appreciative,” said Ray Castillo, Imperial County supervisor for District 5, which includes the vast sand dunes.
Gecko Road is used by up to
200,000 vehicles every year and Grays Well by another 100,000, and were in pretty bad shape, said Charla Teeters, program manager for United Desert Gateway, a coalition of Imperial County chambers of commerce which partners with federal officials.
“They were in desperate need of repair, the sides were starting to crumble off,” she said.
All of the repaving accomplished in six months by contractor Pyramid Construction of Colorado did affect access to the dunes during this summer, but the lower number of users kept the real disruptions to a minimum, BLM Outdoor Recreation Coordinator Michelle Puckett said.
Excitement has been building on social media over the summer as those who don’t visit during the depths of summer have kept up with progress, she said: “It’s funny, they’re preparing their vehicles for the season, and we’re preparing their favorite areas for when they come back.”
The overall project took five years of planning and work by the BLM and other agencies, including securing the two Federal Highway Administration grants which covered the cost, one for each road.
Other speakers at Friday’s ribbon-cutting included Tom Zale, field manager for the BLM’s El Centro field office, and Brawley Mayor Pro Tem Helen Noriega. The event drew several officials from the BLM’s top California office in Sacramento, and one from Washington D.C., BLM Director of Law Enforcement William Woody.
He said he just returned to the job after holding it for seven years in 2010, and on his first trip back to the dunes since his first stint. The improvements to the Buttercup station alone struck him, with the single trailer it used to have replaced by a building with a vehicle yard.
He said he’s been impressed by the way agencies including BLM, Imperial County Sheriff’s Department, U.S. Border Patrol, U.S. Forest Service and California Highway Patrol, to provide the best services for the Dunes, a point also made by Zale during his remarks. “All of these guys are in all of the meetings,” he said.
This area, sitting just hundreds of feet away from the Mexican border at its southern end, has been receiving a lot of attention in D.C., but for a different reason than the up to 1 million visitors estimated to visit the dunes every winter.
“Everybody wants to talk about the border wall, but none of them know anything about all this, that’s going on up here,” he said, adding that he hopes to be able to bring some of those federal officials to the dunes sometime.
Friday’s event also served as a kickoff to the new season and the first big holiday weekend for Halloween. BLM law enforcement officers will be conducting DUI checkpoints at several spots between 12 a.m. and 2 a.m. this weekend.
A significant number of cars, trucks and trailers were parked in and around the Buttercup station Friday morning, but there were few off-road vehicles visible on the dunes themselves, possibly because of the windy conditions.