Gold standard

IF U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley has her way, the days of rednecks using Gold Butte for weekend, whiskey-fueled re-enactments of Extreme Sports Challenge could be over.

On Sept. 26, Berkley introduced the Gold Butte Conservation Act, which would protect 362,177 acres of the natural gem south of Mesquite from the growing numbers of outdoors enthusiasts whose increased activity there has marred the landscape for years. If approved, Berkley's measure would designate Gold Butte as a National Conservation Area and would further designate nearly 130,000 of the acreage as a federal wilderness, prohibiting all vehicular traffic within that smaller parcel.

Today, federal officials label Gold Butte an "Area of Critical Environmental Concern," but you'd never know it, considering the piles of human waste apparently left over from campers gorging on all that wilderness. Then there are the rusting soda cans, the bullet holes shot into the side of ancient cliff drawings and the tire tracks scarring the once-pristine lands.

The bill is unlikely to pass before Congress adjourns, considering that lawmakers had not yet wrapped up a Wall Street bailout package by press time. But congressional sources say there's a good chance lawmakers will approve the bill once they return to Washington after the elections.

Previous attempts to bestow federal protection on Gold Butte have failed. When President George W. Bush signed the Clark County Conservation of Public Land and Natural Resources Act in November 2002, Gold Butte wasn't fully protected.

For Nancy Hall, president of the Friends of Gold Butte, passage can't come quickly enough. Hall says developments on two sides are squeezing the Mesquite and Gold Butte areas: Las Vegas to the southwest and St. George, Utah, to the northeast.

"I'm pretty sure the local communities did not have an understanding of impacts coming down the road with the growth," she says. "We're over 19,000 people now. Back in 2000, we had a couple of streetlights, now we have a Wal-Mart."

Hall says growth and human activity will continue to imperil Gold Butte unless lawmakers act to prevent, or at least curtail, it. Las Vegas isn't expected to slow its expansion anytime in the coming decades. On the other side of Gold Butte and Mesquite is St. George, Utah -- among the fastest growing areas in the nation. Inc. Magazine ranked the city as the fastest-growing area in the country in 2007 and has dubbed St. George "Boomtown USA." If city estimates are correct, more than 65,000 people now call St. George home. Surrounding Washington County's population is about 140,000 - and still growing.

Berkley's act would mean that authorities can treat Gold Butte like the cultural treasure trove it is. This assumes, of course, that there's any federal money left over from the current Wall Street bailout to keep the roving bands of four-wheelers out of Gold Butte's rocky mix of trails, caves, flowers and sacred cliff art. A lone ranger now patrols Gold Butte's craggy vastness. By comparison, the 197,000-acre Red Rock National Conservation Area has nine of its 12 staff positions currently filled.

To that end, the bill calls for the secretary of the Department of the Interior to work with state, local and tribal officials to set up a management plan for the land within three years of its passage. Although groups such as Partners in Conservation and town boards in nearby Bunkerville and Moapa have opposed restricting public access to certain areas of Gold Butte, Clark County officials seem pleased with Berkley's proposal.

"The Gold Butte NCA Proposal, if approved, would be of considerable benefit to Clark County and the [Multiple Species Habitat Conservation Plan] program," wrote Phil Rosenquist, assistant county manager, in a Sept. 17 letter to Berkley. The county species conservation plan is an outgrowth of the earlier Clark County Desert Conservation Plan, which focused on protecting the desert tortoise after its federal designation as a threatened species in 1989. The larger multiple species plan aims to balance the conservation of additional local plant and animal life with economically responsible land use.

While Hall says Berkley has been eager to work with locals to protect public lands, U.S. Rep. Jon Porter, whose congressional district includes Gold Butte, has not. Hall says Porter was more concerned with not leaving a few local advisory boards out of Gold Butte discussions than he was with preserving Southern Nevada's cultural heritage.

"He feels they have been cut out of the process, but we've been talking about this for years," says Hall.

Neither Porter nor his chief of staff, Phil Speight, returned a call from CityLife asking for comment. However, Porter has been quoted in other media outlets saying not all residents of eastern Clark County had their say on Gold Butte. On Friday, Porter called the handling of Berkley's bill "irresponsible."

What's irresponsible, says the Nevada Wilderness Coalition's John Wallin, is that it's taken so long to begin to codify protections for Gold Butte in the first place.

"We'll just wait and see, but we believe [passage of the bill] should happen this year ... we might as well get it done now so we can move forward," he says.