Death Valley provides Nye officials with year review

Although the catastrophic flood severely damaged Scotty’s Castle at Death Valley National Park last year, the park has seen record-breaking visitation that officials said occurred due to the superbloom.

Superintendent Mike Reynolds and Management Assistant Abby Wines at Death Valley National Park made a presentation to Nye County commissioners on Tuesday, where they talked about some of the highlights of the last year.

Wines provided a brief update on what’s been happening at Scotty’s Castle since the severe flash flooding ravaged the historic destination of the park in October 2015. She said “emergency phases” are done and there’s currently a temporary water line going to the castle.

“We got initial engineering reports for recommendations about how to do the repairs to the sewer system, which was completely destroyed. … And we are in the process of doing the cultural and environmental compliance which is the stage we are just launching into,” Wines said.

Wines said the bulk of the castle’s construction work is going to happen next year.

“We are looking at the end of 2019 or early 2020 as being when everything will be repaired and back open fully to the public,” Wines said.

“What’s exciting is that it’s going to cost $45 million and we pretty much have promises of most of the money we need,” Wines said. “About a third of it is coming from the Federal Highway Administration, about a third from different areas of the National Park Service and about a third from the park’s own revenue from our entrance fees.”

The upside of the flood was the superbloom that occurred at Death Valley last spring.

Officials reported a “record-breaking” visitation at Death Valley last year that was attributed to the superbloom. The last superbloom, a once-in-a-decade flowering, occurred in 2005.

“What’s different from 2005, even though the flowers were slightly better that year, was our visitation was off the charts. What we are attributing the difference in visitation to this year versus the last superbloom to is primarily social media,” Wines said.

Many of the visitors posted photos of yellow and purple flowers that carpeted the valley on social media, sparking interest from other travelers and media outlets.

At the peak of visitation, which was in March, the park had 60 percent more people than any other month in the entire park’s history.

“Our visitation for all of 2016 was almost 1.3 million (people), which is a record for us as well,” Wines said.

Although flowers can be found in Death Valley every year, Wines said she doesn’t expect a repeat of the last year’s superbloom.

Park officials also addressed the relationship between Inyo and Nye counties. Part of Death Valley, 108,000 acres of the largest national park in the lower 48 states, lies in Nye County.

Reynolds said Nye County officials have provided emergency services to Death Valley on several occasions during power outages last summer. He also said Nye County Sheriff Sharon Wehrly’s staff worked closely with Death Valley law enforcement staff.

“There have been some mutual DUI trainings and communication just about how to respond to incidents,” he said. “Similarly, with (emergency management services) and fire, our structural fire staffing was down to zero over the past two years and we just now have three firefighters and one engine, so we’ve had to call Pahrump and Beatty on multiple occasions for stuff happening in the park.”

“It’s sort of an awkward deal because most of the park and the tax benefits go to Inyo County. But they are too far away to reasonably respond, so Nye County, who does benefit from the visitors coming through Pahrump but not directly from inside the park (has been helpful).

“Any thoughts you guys have on how to tackle that would be great,” Reynolds said.

“We are appreciative that you guys have been there for us,” he added.