Driving and parking at Lake Nighthorse is about to get a whole lot smoother.
The $5.2 million joint infrastructure project between the city of Durango, the Federal Highway Administration, and the Bureau of Reclamation began in April and will pave the lake’s overflow parking and roughly 1 mile of the access road.
It is expected to be finished by September if things continue going as smoothly as they have been, said Owen Tallmadge, natural resource manager for the city of Durango’s Parks and Recreation Department.
When finished, both the access road to the lake’s boat ramp parking lot and the gravel overflow parking lot will be fully paved, as initially planned when the city took on responsibility for managing the recreational workings of the lake in 2018.
“It’s (Lake Nighthorse Recreation Area) one of the most heavily used amenities that we have as a city service program, and this is just going to overly benefit the users,” Tom Sluis, city spokesman said.
The agencies are splitting the cost and Durango is responsible for about $1.2 million.
The lake is a part of the Animas-La Plata Project meant to grant the Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute tribes access to long promised water rights. Durango is a stakeholder in the project and manages the recreation area under the city’s parks and recreation department, which is why it is responsible for funding part of infrastructure updates, although the area is technically owned by the Bureau of Reclamation.
In 2019, the city was awarded a Federal Lands Access Program grant through the Federal Highway Administration to improve public access to public lands.
The scope of the grant includes: improvements to existing access road subgrade and adjacent drainage; installation of aggregate base; deficient guardrail replacements; asphalt paving and striping on approximately 0.8 miles of the road; and paving of the gravel overflow parking lot.
The access road, which extends from the entry off County Road 210 to the boat ramp parking lot, was initially a gravel road that was chip sealed before the city opened the lake for recreation in 2018, Tallmadge said.
The chip seal was meant to be a temporary solution until money for a paved road was obtained.
“It was a very, very cost-effective way to get the road paved and get people in and out safely until we could come up with the funding and design for fully paved roads,” he said.
The chip seal had outlived its useful live, he said. In the past few years, runoff and snowmelt had made it so vehicles driving through would leave huge ruts in the road and delay the lake’s opening by several weeks, he said.
The gravel overflow parking lot was also nearing the end of its “usefulness,” and the cost of maintenance would have continued to rise if it remained gravel.
Storms can cause a lot of surface erosion and pick up sediment, dirt, rocks and oil and rubber particles from vehicles, and dump them though the drainage system right into the lake, Tallmadge said.
Although it never created a public health hazard, it was not ideal. He said the paved parking lot will prevent that from occurring and guide pollutants and sediment from the parking lot into a storm drain instead of directly into the lake. .
Sluis said that while the city is on the hook for part of the cost this time, Durango’s fiduciary responsibility is variable depending on the project. The road and parking lot fall under the recreational portion of the lake, but water infrastructure, and any improvements or updates there would likely rest fully on the federal government.
Reader Comments