If the snows this winter hit the Geyser Pass Road as hard as they did last year, Grand County will be ready to clean up after Mother Nature.
The Grand County Council voted 6-1 on Tuesday, Oct. 18, to approve a letter of agreement with San Juan County that clears the way for Grand County to plow a 4.5-mile stretch of the route. The council’s vote also authorizes a cost-sharing agreement with the Manti-La Sal National Forest; council chair Elizabeth Tubbs voted against the majority.
Under the terms of its agreement with San Juan County, Grand County will spend $15,360 to plow the route, but only after crews have tended to higher-priority roads in Grand County. The U.S. Forest Service has also agreed to chip in with more than $31,300 in non-cash contributions, as well as just under $11,800 in volunteer labor, according to a project summary from Grand County Road Supervisor Bill Jackson.
The road leads to a trailhead in northern San Juan County that is a popular weekend destination for some Grand County residents. However, maintenance of the road became a lower priority in San Juan County last winter, following storms that hit roads on the Navajo Nation especially hard.
Council members were previously deadlocked over the funding issue, voting 3-3 in February on a failed motion that would have set aside more than $14,000 in Grand County funds to plow the San Juan County road.
Grand County Council member Lynn Jackson, who voted against the Feb. 2 proposal, said he was concerned at the time that the council didn’t have enough information to vote on an interim agreement.
“It was just that the timing wasn’t good to rush into it at that point without some detail,” he said on Wednesday, Oct. 19.
In the meantime, representatives from the two counties and the Forest Service went back to the drawing board. By the time they were finished, Lynn Jackson said, they had resolved the concerns he had about potential funding sources and the Grand County Road Department’s ability to do the job with the equipment it has.
“Last night, they worked out all of the details,” he said. “People worked really hard to put it together.”
Grand County Council member Chris Baird noted that stakeholders have already made a substantial investment on a trail-grooming program to promote recreational activities on the southeastern flank of the La Sal Mountains.
“There’s a tremendous amount of work that’s gone into developing this area for recreation and for supporting local business,” he said. “I just think it would be a major shame to go to all of this trouble to come up with this agreement … and then turn it down.”
San Juan County commissioners previously vowed to take a more active role over certain roads that Grand County maintained for nearly two decades until 2007 – a move that Bill Jackson brought to the council’s attention in February.
“Don’t lose (sight of) the fact that in 2007, they said, ‘We want our roads back, and we’ll take care of our own roads’ – very strongly,” he said at the time.
From 2007 onward, San Juan County routinely plowed the route until major snowstorms in mid- to late-December 2015 walloped the area, and the county turned its attention elsewhere.
San Juan County Commissioner Bruce Adams told the Moab Sun News earlier this year that the road was not among his county’s top maintenance priorities, which include school bus and emergency service routes.
“There are children on the (Navajo Nation) that struggle to get to school,” he said.
Despite some lingering misgivings about the expenditure of Grand County funds on a San Juan County route, Bill Jackson said that he and his crew are up for the job.
“The council wanted that snow removed, right?” he said. “If this passes, it’s going to get done.”
Even so, he said he still has “a burr under (his) saddle” because of the costs that Grand County will now incur – concerns that Tubbs said she shares.
“I have a little bit of a problem … that we are willing to expend this without really much consideration – it’s just got to get done – for a relatively small group of people,” Tubbs said.
If the county spent the same amount of money on every 300 or 400 people in the county, it would be out about $500,000, she said.
Tubbs said she appreciates the months of work that went into the final agreement. But she said she still has concerns about “cross-jurisdictional stuff,” such as Grand County’s willingness to indemnify San Juan County from any claims that may result from any accidents that are a “direct result” of Grand County’s snowplowing activities.
“I don’t really have major heartache with it, except for the fact that we’re willing to put money into this kind of thing when there many, many other issues that have come before this council for not much more money, or the same amount of money,” she said.
Baird, however, said he believes the expenditure is worth it, because the route is the only access point that many local residents have to the mountains in the winter.
“I don’t know how many people are up there, but I think that there are certainly enough Grand County residents that make use of that area to justify the costs associated,” Baird said.
Manti-La Sal National Forest Moab District Ranger Mike Diem agreed that a contingent of Grand County residents will benefit from wintertime maintenance of the road.
“But I think the thing that council needs to understand (is) the users of this go much beyond just the citizens within Grand County,” he said.
According to Diem, recent trends suggest that increasing numbers of visitors from out of state, as well as the crowded Wasatch Front, are flocking to the Geyser Pass area each winter.
“I would argue that probably the Moab community and Grand County (are) going to probably benefit more, just from the business aspect in terms of the trade that they’re going to (do),” Diem said.
Over the weekends last winter, the Forest Service counted an average of 80 to 100 vehicles per day at the parking lot trailhead, and Diem expects that those trends will continue.
“It’s probably not going to get any less use,” Diem said.
Baird said that several businesses in Grand County depend directly on wintertime access to the trailhead.
“And I think if that area were not open, they would just cease to be able to do business altogether,” he said.
Lynn Jackson said that work to promote wintertime recreation in the Geyser Pass area ultimately dovetails with the Moab Area Travel Council’s efforts to extend Moab’s visitor season into the winter months.
“Part of that is going to be, ‘There’s snow up on the mountain,’” he told the Moab Sun News.
There’s a tremendous amount of work that’s gone into developing this area for recreation and for supporting local business … I just think it would be a major shame to go to all of this trouble to come up with this agreement … and then turn it down.
Council votes 6-1 to maintain San Juan County route this winter
