PETITION: BLM set up email account for input

When asked whether swimming could be banned at Ash Springs altogether, she said, “Everything’s on the table.”

But bureau officials understand how much the place means to local residents. “People have been recreating there for generations,” Johnson said. “I don’t want there to be the perception that the BLM is going to make this decision on its own. We want this to be a coordinated effort.”

Bureau officials have set up a special email account — ashsprings@blm.gov — to gather input on the issue.

They also held a public meeting in Alamo last week. The Dec. 5 meeting drew about 50 people, enough to fill the town’s courtroom, about eight miles south of Ash Springs.

Johnson called it the first step in a process to “find out what people want to do and then research what we can do.”

Higbee said residents seem to want the same thing in reverse. “We need to know what they will allow us to do,” he said.

There is nothing official or binding about the petition seeking to reopen the springs under county control. Though one resident has produced a financial analysis showing how the county could staff the place by charging a small fee for use, Higbee said such a land transfer is a long shot.

Ultimately, he said, it’s important for residents to stay involved — and realistic — as a future is plotted for the place some locals know as “Little Ash.”

“It’s never going to be the way it was when I was growing up, and we know that,” Higbee said. “It’s the headwaters of an endangered species up there. I don’t think it’s going to be open until we can come up with a plan to take care of it better.”