Friday, May 19, 2006 | 7:22 a.m.
The National Park Service is gearing up for the annual Memorial Day weekend migration to Lake Mead National Recreation Area, an influx of more than 200,000 people over three days to the 1.5 million-acre park.
The Park Service will add staff, bringing in rangers from Death Valley National Park and adding seasonal staff to pump up the ranks of rangers to at least 50, while calling on help from regional agencies, police and emergency personnel if needed, officials say.
A trio of tragedies last weekend provides sharp punctuation to the calls of the Park Service to stay safe on the land and in and out of the water. A 16-year-old and 39-year-old drowned in separate incidents, two of the six deaths recorded in the recreation area this year.
In another accident, an 18-year-old woman was critically injured in a collision between a personal watercraft and a boat.
The Park Service says there were 25 deaths at Lake Mead last year - including 10 from boating accidents or drowning. Many of those involved alcohol, officials say. And nearly all could have been avoided.
"We want people to come out, recreate and have a wonderful time with their families," says National Park Service Ranger Margaret Goodro, "but we want them to do it safely."
Both water and land have dangers. Last year, at least three people died in motor-vehicle mishaps at the lake. Another died in a rock-climbing fall. There were two homicides, several suicides, a handful of deaths from natural causes and one person who died from exposure to the desert sun.
Alcohol was not involved in the drowning of the 16-year-old or the incident with the personal watercraft, although the latter appeared to involve horseplay with the watercraft and boat, Park Service spokeswoman Roxanne Dey says. Deaths this year in the recreation area include two homicides, a suicide and one from a car crash.
The rangers and first responders from other agencies are taxed, professionally and personally, by the incidents, Goodro says. In one year, a ranger might deal with four to 10 fatalities, she said.
"We do everything - boating, search and rescue, traffic control, wildlands management. These folks wear seven or eight different hats. It does take a toll. If definitely takes a special person who can handle all of that."
Deaths and accidents are still relatively rare. Lake Mead had more than 8 million visitors last year. The Park Service and other agencies make a special push for safety for Memorial Day weekend, Lake Mead's busiest.
Tom Burnside, general manager of Cottonwood Cover, one of nine marinas, says Memorial Day weekend is always the busiest. Despite high fuel prices, people still are flocking to the lake. The 220 slips on Lake Mohave, below Hoover Dam, are full, houseboat rentals are going well and the recreation-vehicle spaces and hotel are about full, he says.
"It's absolutely the biggest weekend of our year," he says, adding that the higher gas prices haven't seemed to affect marina business so far.
Rangers suspect that those coming to the lake are modifying their behavior because of the high cost of gasoline.
"There seems to be a lot more people on the beach and in the coves swimming, and fewer boats," Dey says.
Besides the six Nevada and three Arizona marinas, boaters also flock to ramps where they can launch their boats. On the Nevada side, Hemenway Harbor, the first access point past the Boulder City entrance to the lake, is a popular spot for launching smaller vessels, Dey says. Callville Bay has a launch ramp suitable for larger vessels, and is convenient for Las Vegas and Henderson visitors through Lake Las Vegas. One of the busiest ramps, he says, is next to Lake Mead Marina.
Other boat ramps are available at Overton Beach, Echo Bay, Cottonwood Cove, Willow Beach and, in Arizona, Temple Bar and Katherine's Landing at Lake Mohave Resort.
Rangers are responsible for 1.5 million acres of the recreation area, which stretches from the western boundary of the Grand Canyon National Park to Overton, then south to Laughlin. The waterways include Lake Mead and Lake Mohave.
When Lake Mead is full, there are about 700 miles of coastline. Drought has shrunk the coastline to about 550 miles, Dey said. Lake Mohave adds another 250 miles of coastline. The rangers' jobs would be impossible without the aide of the cities near the recreation area and the two states along the Colorado River, Dey said.
Among those assisting are Arizona Game and Fish Department, Nevada Wildlife Department, Metropolitan Police Department, and fire and emergency services from Overton, Logandale, Searchlight, Bullhead City, Henderson, Boulder City and Las Vegas, Dey said.
The rangers issued 2,596 tickets on both land and water last year, Dey said. Of those, 115 were boating offenses. The primary enforcers of the law on the water are not federal rangers, but state agencies.
Edwin Lyngar, boating education coordinator for the Nevada Wildlife Department, says his agency issued 1,300 warnings and 960 tickets on lakes Mead and Mohave last year. More disturbing are the accidents, which average about 125 statewide every year, he said.
"We've had some horrific accidents. A 15-year-old girl was killed on Lake Mohave by a drunken operator on a personal watercraft."
Lyngar says the operator, a 34-year-old California man, had twice the legal limit for driving under the influence. He was charged with manslaughter in the September death.
He says some of the people the department finds operating boats and personal watercraft would never think of getting behind the wheel of a car while or after drinking. In many ways, though, operating a boat is more dangerous.
"You drive a car every day, but many of these people have never operated a boat. So they're not good boat operators anyway, and then you add alcohol, and that slight delay in reaction can prove fatal. We hate to see it. Some of the worst accidents over the last four years have been alcohol-involved - even if they aren't over the legal limit," Lyngar says.
"We see this all the time, even with people we arrest, people who would never dream of getting behind the wheel of a car. They equate the beach and boating with alcohol and beer. That's a mentality we'd like to see stopped."
archive
