The area north of Moab known as Dalton Wells will be known as the newly approved Utahraptor State Park in the near future. House Bill 257, sponsored by Rep. Steve Eliason (R-District 45), passed legislature in early March and is expected to be signed by Governor Spencer Cox soon. He is building both Utahraptor State Park and a new park in Morgan County called Lost Creek, at a combined cost of $ 36.5 million.
Local officials have been concerned about overuse of the vacant area in recent years. The new state park will protect the rich paleontological, cultural, natural and recreational resources in the area.
SUB: A valuable resource
“I’ve been working to find a way to protect this area for five years,” said Mary McGann, chairman of the Grand County Commission, the Senate Committee on Natural Resources, Agriculture, and Environment at her HB 257 hearing.
The area is valuable as the historic site of a Civilian Conservation Corps camp that was later used as a Japanese isolation center during World War II. It is also home to many miles of hiking trails, including the Sovereign Trail system set up by the local nonprofit Ride with Respect and the Fallen Peace Officer Trail.
As the name of the park suggests, it is a unique and valuable paleontological site. This is where the first Utahraptor fossils were found, and this animal is now the official state dinosaur. As Eliason reminded members of the Legislature, the Utahraptor is widely known as the skeleton on the cover of the popular Jurassic Park movie.
State paleontologist Jim Kirkland also spoke at the committee hearing on the fossil resources found in the Dalton Wells Quarry.
“This is an absolutely unique website. It’s one of the oldest Cretacious sites in all of North America – in fact, all of the oldest Cretaceous sites in North America are in Grand County, ”he said, adding that the Dalton Wells site is larger than the Dinosaur National Monument near Vernal , Utah.
“It’s really remarkable,” said Kirkland. “We now consider these Grand County raptors to be the oldest raptor skeletons in the world.” He expects researchers from all over the world to want to visit the website.
At the same time that officials realized these values, they found that more and more campers and recreational visitors were using the area and causing damage: some visitors illegally collected valuable fossils. Campers crushed the vegetation and created new roads to create new campsites. Trash and trash were strewn around the area, including toilet paper and human waste.
“Not only is it ugly, it’s unhealthy,” McGann told the committee.
Eliason unveiled the bill at last year’s annual general meeting, priced at $ 10 million. While lawmakers backed the idea of the new park, they weren’t ready to approve funding at this point. Since that time, Eliason said the parks and recreation department has had time to study the area and come up with a more accurate estimate of the cost of creating the infrastructure needed to accommodate the park. Approximately $ 29.5 million of the cost of the approved bill will be allocated to Utahraptor State Park. The remaining $ 7 million is earmarked for Lost Creek State Park, a reservoir in the north of the state.
Discussion with the legislature
Local support was an important point in Eliason’s arguments for his bill.
“We all don’t like it when national monuments are unilaterally imposed on us here in Utah,” Eliason told the Senate committee. “With that in mind, I have worked with the Grand County Council for the past two years and they have unanimously passed a resolution supporting efforts to create a state park.” The commission (then a council) unanimously approved a letter in support of the creation of the park in 2020. [See “Grand County Council Feb. 4,” Feb. 6 2020 edition. -ed.]
Lee Shenton, president of the Moab chapter of the Utah Friends of Paleontology nonprofit, told the committee that within 10 days, 59 locals had pledged financial support to set up the park.
Supporters including Grand County Rep. Carl Albrecht and Rep. Christine Watkins also pointed to the tremendous increase in outdoor recreation in recent years, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the closure or cancellation of many events, activities and has made goals necessary. More parking infrastructure will help accommodate these users and ease the pressure on existing destinations.
“This bill addresses the huge demand for recreation in these two areas,” said Jeff Rasmussen, director of the Utah Department of Parks and Recreation, of Lost Creek and Utahraptor parks. Outdoor recreation has risen in Moab as visitors flood the national parks in record numbers. [See “Arches closes gate almost every day this October,” Oct. 29, 2020 edition. -ed.]
Albrecht suggested that one day the State Park could offer an alternative access to Arches National Park to avoid long queues at the main entrance.
During a discussion of the bill in the House of Representatives, Rep. Keven Stratton (R District 48) even suggested that lawmakers consider maintaining a regular fund to protect public land and provide recreational opportunities.
“When we talk about our role as a state and are wise administrators of the gifts we have received as a state, we need to recognize that it sometimes comes with a cost and that it requires planning and effort, and foresight and vision,” Stratton said.
Development in the region
The Forestry, Fire and State Department is already working on a primitive campsite in the Dalton Wells area. [See “Dalton Wells campsite planning underway,” July 31, 2020 edition. -ed.]
The project is largely funded by a grant from the Office of Outdoor Recreation, which Eliason’s team helped when last year’s Utahraptor bill failed. Tony Mancuso, the local Sovereign Lands coordinator in charge of the campsite project, told Moab Sun News last year that the campsite will be built to state park standards and should be compatible with the new designation.
While the timeline for state park infrastructure development is not yet clear, Eliason told Moab Sun News that the money is already available and expects the Utah Parks and Recreation Department to begin “as soon as possible.” .
Development plans include locating and developing drinking water, possibly from sources on the property, powering the site, improving roads, creating educational trails, and building a visitor center.
The Department of Natural Resources, which oversees the Department of Parks and Recreation, already owns around 4,000 hectares in the region. Officials hope the DNR will be able to facilitate a land swap with the Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration to add an additional 2,300 acres to the park. A portion of the earmarked money can be used to buy the SITLA mornings.
The park happens to be on a stretch of the highway known as the Dinosaur Diamond Prehistoric Highway, connecting attractions like Dinosaur National Monument, the Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry, and non-paleontological destinations like Flaming Gorge, Natural Bridges, and Colorado National Monuments.
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