It's expected to cost nearly $12 million to rebuild the road to Scotty's Castle in Death Valley National Park/NPS photo
While great progress has been made at Death Valley National Park in cleaning up after October's historic rain storms, much remains to be done in some areas of the park. Scotty's Castle repairs are getting under way, though some will have to wait until funding materializes, according to park officials.
Along with removing roughly 500,000 tons of debris from park roads, crews also removed items, such as power poles, that were washed into wilderness areas in the park. Still, there is much to do:
* Badwater Road (Jubilee Pass) - Funded and passed compliance, work should be scheduled to start very soon.
* Scotty's Castle Road (Bonnie Claire Road) - Needs survey and design work. Likely to begin construction in spring 2017. Estimated cost: $11.7 million.
* Scotty's Castle area repairs - Park pursuing funding for flood control berms, electrical, water, sewer and building repairs, etc." We have some funding, are optimistic about the rest," says park spokeswoman Abby Wines. "The process for environmental and historic compliance on all of these projects will take time, and some projects need time for design."
When will Scotty's Castle re-open? If all goes well with funding and implementing the projects, Scotty's Castle should be fully repaired and back open to the public by 2019, she said.
Park officials have re-estimated what it will cost to make all the repairs and restorations needed in the wake of the storms. While at one point the estimate was around $50 million, it has been scaled down to $28 million. For comparison's sake, the park's annual appropriated budget is just under $9 million, according to Death Valley officials.
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Comments
Ouch. So Scotty's Castle won't be re-opened until 3 years later? That's a bummer.
We were just wondering about the status of repairs to both roads. I was with a group of friends traveling to lunch at Stovepipe Wells from nearby Pahrump. Is the road to Badwater from Furnace Creek still open and it's just the south access that is closed? I hope funding will become available so those areas of the park can reopen.
Yes, just the section that goes over Jubilee Pass is closed, Joyce. From Furnace Creek you can drive all the way south to the Ashford Mill Ruins.
$12 million to pave a road? Park Service wasting tax dollars again.
Well, it's a little bit more than simply paving a road. They have to rebuild it. Still, that's a sizeable chunk of change. The following link is dated, going back to the 1990s, but at that time some road construction in the country could range as high as $15 million per mile in hilly West Virginia.
http://www-pam.usc.edu/volume2/v2i1a3s2.html
When was the last time you looked at the cost to maintain the road in front of your house?? $12 Mil to essentially replace a road in the middle of the desert is pretty cheap as well as necessary. Considering the other foolish things our government is spending money on, its a bargain and very well worth the effort.
Such a lovely place, but what a waste of money. There are now areas of the park in much more need of repairs (Sunset Camp, Stovepipe Camp, the list goes on). To spend all of the parks money on a location that gets little visitation, likely none in the summer, is such bad management.