Horse-for-hire firms at center of debate

Wednesday, Sept. 8, 1999 | 11:12 a.m.

Mention long-range management proposals for Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, and people eventually get around to bickering about horses.

Wild ones. Domestic ones. Ones available for hire -- especially those.

Residents who don't want the Bureau of Land Management to move wild horses and burros to an area south of State Route 160 frequently lash out at commercial trail-ride operators. Rental horses do a lot more damage than wild ones, they contend.

The commercial operators aren't perfect. All three businesses that guide tours in the conservation area have used unauthorized trails or fallen behind on paying fees in the past four years, Dave Wolf, the conservation area's manager, said.

"They've all had problems. Nobody's 100 percent," Wolf said during a break in an Aug. 23 public hearing about the proposed Red Rock management plan.

Wolf oversees the equestrian permits. An outdoor recreation planner for the federal agency's Las Vegas district oversees the other 33 annual permits for commercial businesses that cover hiking, mountain bike and sport utility vehicle tours and special events in Red Rock Canyon.

Wolf admitted last week that he has sometimes fallen behind on the paperwork needed to keep track of the businesses' fees and operations.

For instance, tour leaders for Cowboy Trail Rides have created or used trails that weren't in their permit, although they are now considered in compliance, Wolf said.

BLM records show Silver State Old West Tours was three years behind on annual fees until earlier this year, and Bonnie Springs Old Nevada's owners are embroiled in a five-year battle over property lines and land rental.

Bonnie Springs' trail-riding operation is in compliance, but the BLM says owner Al Levinson owes $48,000 in rent for land on which he has built his tourist train depot and a parking lot, agency records show.

Levinson said he doesn't understand why federal officials have decided he owes rent for land that has been developed in the same manner for 25 years.

"It was all legally surveyed, and it was all done right," Levinson said of the railroad that opened in 1974. "Then they come in and say it's their land. How could it now be surveyed different than it was back then?"

BLM officials offered to do a land exchange, in which Levinson would trade 2 acres of undeveloped land he owns east of Bonnie Springs for the BLM land on which he has built, Wolf said.

But Levinson said the BLM's in-house appraisal didn't use comparable land in figuring the lease amount. The parking lot sits in a wash, but is being valued at $60,000 an acre, he said.

He also said that for purposes of the land exchange, bureau officials told him to use one of the independent appraisers they recommended. But BLM officials retained the right to reject that appraisal if the figures didn't look right, Levinson said. So he has refused to have one completed.

"We have to have an appraisal or we can't move forward on the exchange," Wolf said.

Even if the land exchange happened tomorrow, Levinson still would need to pay the annual $12,000 rent for the interim period, Wolf said.

"The philosophy is that it's a commercial business that uses the public land, and it needs to reimburse the public," he said.

However, Wolf said, land management officials aren't pushing the issue. So the parties remain at an impasse.

"We could force them, but we do not want to," he said. "We'd like to work with them for a resolution."

Wolf pretty much adheres to that sentiment in dealing with all of the commercial equestrian operators who have permits in Red Rock. It's a small community, and he said he likes to find amiable solutions.

But pressure and increased scrutiny from the BLM's Resource Advisory Council -- a panel that offers insight and advice from people who use BLM land -- have forced Wolf to seek better compliance among commercial permit holders.

In a March 28 letter to Silver State Old West tours, which operates corrals just outside the northern border of Spring Mountain State Park, Wolf admitted to falling behind on fee collections and said the council's questions were among his reasons for cracking down.

"As you are aware, the issue of commercial uses in Red Rock has been the subject of several recent meetings and on the agenda of the Las Vegas Resource Advisory Council," Wolf wrote.

"In reviewing your file, I found that I have not been keeping it as up to date with the fees as I should have been," the letter states. "Your last fee payment was in March 1996 for calendar year 1996. I don't have a record of fees being paid in 1997 or 1998."

The fees due included 3 percent of the business' gross receipts for 1997, and $2 per rider for 1998 and this year, the letter says. Wolf also didn't collect the annual $155 fees for using the conservation area site.

Silver State Old West Tours is owned by Golden West Land & Cattle Corp. In a July 22 letter to the BLM, Charles Adkisson, Golden West's president, sent a $533.10 check for the 1997 fee, a check for $1,794 to cover last year's fee, and a $155 check for this year's site toll.

Next year Old West Tours will pay two $155 fees because it now runs horseback excursions out of the Oak Creek campground that was closed to campers last year, BLM records show.

Many have criticized the federal agency for allowing a privately owned horseback-riding operation to use the area after closing it to the public.

But BLM officials have said the number of campers using it had grown to an overwhelming level. Many people were parking and camping in unauthorized spots near Oak Creek when the campground was full.

At least now the use is controlled, and Old West Tours provides a guard who lives on the site in a trailer and keeps an eye on things, BLM officials have said.

Complaints about Oak Creek are among those on a long list of gripes lodged by competing owners of the horseback-riding operations and by residents who don't want recreational businesses operating within the conservation area. Wolf readily admits he fell behind on the paper trail and said he should have been able to keep track of who was paying their fees on time.

"I had been busy on other things, but it's a fairly easy thing to keep track of," he said.

Gene Arnesen, the agency's outdoor recreation planner, said there were fewer problems when Las Vegas and Red Rock Canyon were not such close neighbors. But as urban development creeps closer to the conservation area's boundaries, requests for permits increase.

The number of out-of-state rock climbing guides requesting one of the permits that allows commercial guides two five-day visits per year has exceeded the 10 annual permits available, Arnesen said. First-come, first-serve doesn't seem fair anymore, he said, and future permits likely will be awarded by lottery.

"We've gotten to the point where there's just too much interest," Arnesen said. "We used to have a buffer, but now there's less of a buffer, and we're so close to Las Vegas."

Commercial horseback-riding operations are charged $2 for each rider who takes a tour. According to fees collected for last year, Bonnie Springs' equestrian guides led 1,854 riders down the trails, while Old West Tours attracted 897 riders, BLM Spokesman Phil Guerrero said.

Cowboy Trail Rides catered to 5,427 riders from January last year through May this year, Guerrero said. Their figures are tabulated differently because they pay fees quarterly, while the other two pay annually.

There is no way to tally the number of private equestrians who ride in Red Rock each year, and it's impossible to figure out which ones are blazing new trails or riding in otherwise unauthorized areas, BLM officials said.

Jean Rivers-Council, assistant director of the BLM's statewide office in Reno, said Red Rock presents a unique challenge in that its recreational history long precedes its conservation status, and it serves a constantly growing population.

The BLM has eight national conservation areas in six Western states, and recreational access varies greatly among their combined 11.7 million acres, said Celia Boddington, spokeswoman for the BLM office in Washington, D.C.

Red Rock is the one closest to a major urban area -- an urban area that happens to be the nation's fastest growing.

"Certainly you have areas where conservation comes first. Some of them are more conservation-minded," Boddington said. "Part of it is proximity to an urban area. With the growth of Las Vegas, Red Rock has become a tremendous destination in its own right."

Red Rock is different from conservation areas in places such as California, where BLM officials don't even have fee gates for people who visit the Kings Range along the state's northern coast or the California Desert conservation area in the south.

California's BLM officials don't see the kind of controversy and enforcement problems that have arisen at Red Rock Canyon, said John Dearing, spokesman for the agency's office there.

But the agency issues only five commercial tour permits annually at the 60,000-acre Kings Range and 114 in the desert area that encompasses more than 1 million acres, Dearing said.

"In California the uses aren't so extreme that we've had to do that," Dearing said of permits.

But here in Las Vegas, where elbow room is at a premium, controversy is an increasing part of the natural landscape.

Wolf says he has tried to cultivate friendly working relationships with commercial trail-ride operators, but he isn't surprised there is friction.

"Their dander is up," Wolf said. "It's the competition."

But competition is good for Red Rock.

"There are not going to be exclusive rights in Red Rock to do only one type of activity," he said. "That's not good public service."

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