Closure of Kofa refuge road draws ire from off-roaders
The closure of a two-mile stretch of road within the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge earlier this month has drawn ire from off-road enthusiasts as the latest stage of a long-running concern over traffic through the Castle Dome Mine Museum draws blame to all sides.
Museum owner Allen Armstrong locked the gates across the gravel path known as Castle DomeMcPherson Road, which follows an easement on his property, after opening and closing them to allow people through in-between his new tours of the nearby Hull Mine proved untenable, he said.
“I would let them through, and then I would see them at the other gate and let them through, and then, I’d have a tour one morning and people would drive around my gates, or go in between the gates, or take the gates off the hinges, or they would start vandalizing gates and destroying property, and I said I can’t do this. I can’t have this,” Armstrong said.
So he padlocked the gates and reinforced them with boulders so no one could get through, including a U.S. Fish and Wildlife staffer who knew the combination on the locks previously used, said Elaine Johnson, project leader for the Southwest Arizona National Wildlife Refuge Complex, which includes Kofa.
The refuge was not notified before Armstrong closed the gates, hearing about it through complaints from the public. “It’s kind of hard to address issues when there’s not communication and coordination with us. I haven’t really had an opportunity to come and talk to them about options because they didn’t come to us and say, ‘this is what we’re seeing, this is what we’re really concerned about, can we talk about some options,’” Johnson said.
Last September Armstrong presented an offer to pay for a bypass road around his property, which is on mining claims dating from before the wildlife refuge was established. A volunteer had discovered a mineral wall within the Hull Mine which glows in vivid colors under ultraviolet light, leading him to believe it would be a bigger attraction than originally expected.
“Everything changed” after the florescent wall was found, he said.
The Yuma County Board of Supervisors endorsed the proposal, and the first step to getting it done would be
an environmental assessment by the refuge. Now it’s been six months, and Johnson said she’s hoping a draft will be done by early June. Then the report will got out for a 30-day public comment period, then the comments will be addressed in a final version, which will be sent to the regional headquarters in Albuquerque for approval.
Armstrong and others, including County Supervisor Darren Simmons, said the document should have been done by now. “Actually, they should have been working on it ever since they found out he could close it,” Simmons said. “I was talking to (Bureau of Land Management) and they said some of their surveyors have been requested by Fish and Wildlife, but I just don’t want them dragging their feet. I want this issue taken care of before next fall, before everybody comes back, before hunting season,” he said.
Johnson said she couldn’t afford to hire an outside consultant to do the report, so the four-member Kofa staff and a couple of other Fish and Wildlife employees are juggling it with other tasks. She doubts a new bypass road can be built before the next tourism season comes up later this year but added the agency is considering a temporary passage to get drivers around Castle Dome, but the plan hasn’t been presented to Armstrong and his representatives yet.
The off-roading community of ATV, jeep and 4-wheel-drive users affected by the closure appear to be laying much of the blame at Armstong’s feet, with many contending he doesn’t have the right to close a road they say has been used by the public for a century or longer.
Foothills resident Denver Wheeler has led a jeep tour of as many as 30 vehicles through Castle Dome on to McPherson Pass twice annually for about 10 years, he said, until the one scheduled for Thursday had to be called off.
“There’s been a road through there since the 1800s, and I don’t know how he went about closing it the way he did, but he did,” Wheeler said. “A lot of people go up through there, it’s a beautiful run, and it has the best flowers around. We go in and don’t do anything, don’t destruct any kind of property.”
Armstrong closed the road briefly once before, two years ago. Simmons and Johnson held a meeting with Armstrong, Wheeler and 35 other enthusiasts at Wheeler’s home a year ago, and Armstrong “promised everybody he wouldn’t close it, and he did,” Wheeler said.
He said off-roaders will be angry and vocal if the situation isn’t resolved by next October, when activity begins to pick up again in the mountains. “We’re going to have a bunch of people out there, and we will be protesting on it. And we will let his customers know what’s going on, and maybe that will stop some of his mother lode he thinks he’s going to get off that mine, by taking people down in it,” he said.
He’s frustrated that Fish and Wildlife hasn’t been able to resolve the situation over the past two years, but would welcome any temporary or permanent solution the agency could come up with. “I figure if they can do that, we wouldn’t have to mess with (Armstrong) anymore.”
Armstrong said he was at the meeting, but didn’t promise he would never close the road. “I said that in good faith I’m keeping the road open as we negotiate for a settlement. That was last year,” he said. “There’s a big difference between keeping a road open in good faith and promising you’d never close the road to jeepers, ever. That would be legal suicide for me to say that.”
He also disputes the claim that the road has been open continuously for 50 or 100 years.
Aside from the road controversy, he said initial popularity of the Hull Mine tours has been far above what he expected, but things have been coming together well enough for him to handle the extra load.
“Everything is working very well on this, but the community needs to know I’m not warring against offroaders,” he said. “I’m not taking anything away from you. I’m just protecting my property rights, and I’m doing the right thing. And there’s nobody in the universe who would manage this differently, with the road here.”