Preserving Tule Springs Wash

Supporters hope for national monument status

Top, Helen Mortenson, president of the Las Vegas Ice Age Park Foundation, holds a mammoth?s tooth as she talks about the archeological site near the Las Vegas Wash at Floyd Lamb Park at Tule Springs on Dec. 19, 2008. Left, Mortenson studies the various layers in the trenches at the wash on Dec. 19, 2008.View file photos Top, Helen Mortenson, president of the Las Vegas Ice Age Park Foundation, holds a mammoth?s tooth as she talks about the archeological site near the Las Vegas Wash at Floyd Lamb Park at Tule Springs on Dec. 19, 2008. Left, Mortenson studies the various layers in the trenches at the wash on Dec. 19, 2008.View file photos Advertisement

Ever wonder what it might be like to look off in the distance and see the spiraling peaks of a designated national monument practically in your backyard?

Protectors of Tule Springs founder Jill DeStefano has, and with the help of local politicians and the Nevada division of the National Parks Conservation Association, she hopes to make that vision a reality.

The Tule Springs Wash, located just minutes from the densely populated suburbs of North Las Vegas, is part of the Upper Las Vegas Wash, nearly 130,000 acres of land owned by the Bureau of Land Management.

The site is not open to the public, but is said to be rich with the mammoth fossils and rare plant life. This discovery was made during a well-documented dig made by National Geographic in 1962, when there was a subsequent push to have the land protected by law, which ultimately fell by the wayside.

That was until residential development, traffic and illegal dumping threatened to contaminate the site.

According to DeStefano, as the cities of Las Vegas and North Las Vegas began lobbying for the Bureau of Land Management to sell the land for future development, conservation groups began to speak out, requesting that 13,000 acres be preserved and protected.

Protectors have collected more than 10,000 signatures toward the cause.

After conducting a number of studies and holding several public meetings on the topic, the BLM has yet to make a decision.

"It can be very frustrating," DeStefano said. "We still don't know where we are headed."

Perhaps that's why DeStefano was a bit skeptical when she received a phone call from Lynn Davis, field office manager for National Parks Conservation Association late last year, purporting that the site might meet the standards for a national monument.

"It was what I was hoping would eventually happen," DeStefano said. "But there has been a lot of red tape so far. So I wasn't holding my breath to hear from her again."

Davis did contact DeStefano again earlier this year, excited to report that a paleontologist from the San Bernardino County Museum had been dispatched to the site at the direction from someone at the Secretary of the Interior's office, and his findings were incredible.

"The report he issued basically says that Tule Springs serves as a rich historical and palentological site for many reasons," Davis said. "And that it should receive some sort of federal protection immediately."

Since then, Davis and DeStefano have been sharing the report with local politicians from North Las Vegas and Las Vegas in hopes that the subsequent buzz might be enough to get the report before Congress.

"There are two ways that a national monument is created," Davis said. "It is either voted upon and designated by Congress or by the president. The first distinction is a longer, harder road, but we are hopeful."

North Las Vegas Mayor Shari Buck has already met with the pair concerning the report and the site and said she thinks it would make an ideal national monument, but that red tape could serve as the project's most likely conflict.

"That is going to be our biggest hill to climb," she said. "Deciding who will control that land."

But no matter who ends up controlling the area, Buck said she would want to make sure that the city was compensated for land lost.

"If there were prime developed land taken out of future market then we would want to be compensated for that," she said.

Davis said that the national monument designation would serve, not only to preserve Tule Springs, but also as a revenue generator for Nevada.

"There are a total of 380 national monuments or parks in our country," she said. "One is the Great Basin in Nevada. We lose tourist dollars to the Grand Canyon and other parks on a regular basis."

It is unclear what will become of proposed plans for the controversial Sheep Mountain Parkway, a project that would provide a 22-mile long link between Southern Nevada's major freeways, should Tule Springs be named a national monument, but Councilman Richard Cherchio said that solutions would need to be found before the project moved forward.

"I think the chances of the site being named a monument get better every day," he said. "As for ideas about what will happen to the Sheep Mountain Parkway project, anything that we come up with right now is only a hypothetical anyway. It is probably best to wait and see where all this goes."

Davis said that a national monument in the cities' backyard would serve to further entice tourists to come to Southern Nevada, and thereby, boost the economy.

"It would be a win-win situation," she said. "But, we fully realize we are at the beginning of this campaign. And we need the public's help."

Davis said that the quickest way to get the information found in the report before Nevada and national legislatures is for voters to apply pressure in the form of letters, e-mails and phone calls.

"Write or call your state representatives," she said. "Harry Reid and John Ensign's office will make a note of what is being said amongst constituents. That is how this will be heard. It has to be the will of the people. Tell them you want Tule Springs to become a national monument, and be unrelenting."

Contact North Las Vegas and Downtown View reporter Amanda Llewellyn at allewellyn@viewnews.com or 380-4535.