Groups make progress on Castle Dome bypass road

Flynn: Offer to build alternate path still stands

Negotiations on finding a way to give off-road enthusiasts a way around the Castle Dome Mining Museum property and into the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge have made some progress, with hopes for a permanent bypass road in place by 2020.

Charles Flynn, who has been negotiating on behalf of the museum, said this week owner Allen Armstrong’s offer to build a six-mile alternate path through the desert still stands, and that path is one of three alternatives being considered by the federal government through an environmental assessment process.

Flynn said they are waiting for a timeline for the governmental hurdles that must be cleared and for building the road, for Armstrong’s planning purposes and as proof a stalled process is moving forward.

It’s supposed to be provided by the end of this month, Flynn said. “Getting that is the key step to moving forward with the whole process and ultimately getting a bypass.”

Armstrong first offered to build a bypass road about two years ago, in advance of opening the Hull Mine to visitors. The Yuma County Board of Supervisors approved a resolution last September supporting construction of his proposed route to the McPherson Pass area.

Elaine Johnson, project leader for the Southwest Arizona National Wildlife Refuge Complex, which includes Kofa, said Thursday her staff will be getting the timeline to Armstrong by the end of the month, but couldn’t say exactly when the new road might be done.

Several agencies will have to sign off on the assessment and the contract for getting the road done. “Every agency has different timelines, once you submit this report, then that agency has x number of days to get back to you,” she said. “So we’re in the process of trying to figure out what all those are.”

Despite the complexity of navigating federal bureaucracies, Johnson said she’s confident it can be done in a little more than a year from now. “I don’t see any reason why it couldn’t be completed by the 2019 visitor season,” she said.

The Castle Dome museum is a collection of reconstructed buildings on the site of an 1860s mining town, about 40 miles northeast of Yuma. It sits on an old mining claim now owned by Allen Armstrong.

It has been a popular Yuma destination for years,

and at the beginning of this year Armstrong opened the nearby Hull Mine for tours featuring a fluorescent mineral wall, which has drawn more traffic to the rugged area.

Part of Castle Dome Mine Road runs through Armstrong’s property, and he closed the section off last spring, citing vandalism of his property and being too busy with the Hull Mine tours to open and close gates across his section so people could drive through.

This angered many of the truck, jeep and OHV riders who had been coming through there to reach areas further into the Kofa for riding, hiking, hunting and other activities. Some groups said they were planning to hold demonstrations at the entrance to Armstrong’s properties at the beginning of the tourism season next fall if they didn’t have access by then.

Flynn and Armstrong both said they hope an interim path can be established for this winter to avoid such confrontations.

Johnson said her agency is looking at three options for a dirt road: Armstrong’s, which is about six miles long, and two others, about three miles and a mile-and-a-half long. She said she could not provide a cost estimate for any of the roads.

She did say actually building the road, which will have almost nothing in common with a typical city street, will probably be much easier than everything leading up to it, such as an environmental assessment and surveying the route ultimately chosen.

“Other than that it really shouldn’t be too complicated, because it’s not paved, it’s not 60 feet wide. It’s going to be your typical 12-foot wide dirt path across the desert,” she said.