Superintendent of Joshua Tree National Park David Smith was a guest on the Z107.7 Up Close Show early in April. During the show, Smith discussed many topics relating to the park, including what is in store for the future. Reporter Cassidy Taylor explains…
“So, we’ve been working on this for about five years.”
Superintendent David Smith said some of the improvements coming to the park include expanding the capacity of the Joshua Tree entrance by 300% by creating four entrance stations and moving the entrance about half a mile into the park, thus freeing up the road a bit for residents who live close by. Smith said that they hope to break ground on the project by October of 2021, but there could be some small delays pushing the project back by a few weeks. And for the Cottonwood entrance, Smith said the park has been saving up to create a new visitor’s center and ditch the double wide trailer.
“There’s a bill that was passed last year [and] became law. It’s called the Great America Outdoors Act, and it takes a lot of the oil revenue money that we have that we get from offshore oil drilling, and it puts in a pot. And ever since that pot was created, we’ve really not dipped into it at all. We’ve used it a little bit for land acquisition. But last Congress, the Congress and the President signed off on this bill that would transfer a lot of money to the Park Service to deal with deferred maintenance. And so we’ve got at Joshua Tree, about $60 million in deferred maintenance across the park.”
The improvements hopefully won’t stop there as Smith also wants to improve the campground at Black Rock in Yucca Valley so that it can better serve the generations to come.
To catch up on everything happening with the national park, listen to the latest episode of the Z107.7 Up Close Show by clicking the link:
https://www.z1077fm.com/music-and-shows/podcasts/
