Residents petition BLM for more local control of Ash Springs swimming hole

Five months after Ash Springs was closed by federal officials, nearby residents are pushing for more local control of the popular swimming hole 100 miles north of Las Vegas.

A petition calling for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to hand over the site to Lincoln County has been signed by almost 300 people — roughly a quarter of the population of the nearby town of Alamo.

But Lincoln County Commissioner Ed Higbee insists residents are approaching the matter with courtesy and patience.

He said people understand “it’s going to be a process” to get the warm, springfed pool open again someday, but he is confident that the “will of the people” will make it happen.

“It’s going to be on us,” said Higbee, who grew up in the Pahranagat Valley and used to swim in the spring water as a child. “I think everybody understands that, with the situation up there, it’s going to be a while.”

The Bureau of Land Management closed the Ash Springs Recreation Site on July 6 after a ranger noticed that a brick wall supporting one side of the pool looked ready to collapse on a swimming child.

The BLM built the wall years ago to form a pool for soaking, but visitors undermined the structure by plugging its spillway with wood and cardboard, said Shirley Johnson, assistant field manager for the bureau’s Caliente field office.

Before any repair work can be done, biologists must determine how the con- struction activity might impact two federally protected fish — the Pahranagat roundtail chub and the White River springfish — that live in the water flowing from the spring system just off U.S. Highway 93.

“We want to see the site open, but we also want to see it safe and as productive as possible for the endangered species and the other species that live there,” Johnson said.