Feds pick new bridge site

The Federal Highway Administration has overridden objections expressed by Indian groups and has selected Sugarloaf Mountain as a new route to build a bridge over the Colorado River near Hoover Dam.

Indian groups consider the mountain sacred, a place where many ancient ceremonies were once performed. And environmentalists fear the four-lane approach to the bridge will cut a concrete swath through wilderness.

But for federal officials, this choice -- among three options -- is simplest. They know that traffic congestion is horrible on the dam and that Sugarloaf is the shortest and easiest route between Arizona and Nevada.

"This route will have fewer impacts on the environment than the other two routes we considered," Terry Haussler of the Highway Administration said. We are committed to working with Indian groups to mitigate the impact this route might have on their historic sites."

The bridge and connecting route probably will not be completed until 2006 or 2007, Haussler said.

"We look to spend the next six months finishing up our environmental study of the area and then we'll spend another two years doing design work. Construction won't begin until after that."

The need for an alternate route to Hoover Dam is great, he said.

"During the holidays, we had traffic backed up for eight miles. That route has just become obsolete," he said.

At midday during the summer, it can take two, sometimes three, hours to cross the dam.

"That road was designed to handle 1930s-era traffic -- nothing like we are experiencing now," Haussler said. "Those hairpin curves approaching the dam are the worst. If two trucks meet on a curve, one has to backup to allow the other to pass."

In 1997, President Clinton designated $41 million toward the creation of a new bridge. The final price tag for the project probably will be close to $198 million.

The Federal Highway Administration examined three alternate four-lane routes to build a bridge between Arizona and Nevada. Two -- Promontory Point and Sugarloaf -- run parallel to the dam. The Promontory route is 1,000 feet upstream and SugarLoaf is 1,500 feet downstream. A third site considered for the bridge, Gold Strike Canyon, would have been built about a mile downstream.

Indian groups objected to all three routes but expressed specific concerns about Sugarloaf Mountain, site of a medicine ring where healing ceremonies were once performed. It is also a site where Indians have harvested smooth stones to be used in ceremonies.

Richard Arnold, executive director of the Las Vegas Indian Center, said he is disappointed with the federal government's decision.

"It will be very difficult to mitigate something like that. That mountain is very important to Indian groups," Arnold said. "People think of Indian religion as being part of the past, not the present."

The Sierra Club of Southern Nevada objected to all three alternate routes in part because they would disrupt wildlife habitat, including that belonging to bighorn sheep and desert tortoises.

The Sierra Club is advocating diverting some traffic 23 miles farther down the river through Laughlin. They support this because it would require a widening of the U.S. 95 corridor instead of building new roads near the dam.

But Haussler has said such a plan is a bad idea.

It would cost about $200 million to widen 55 miles of U.S. 95 in Clark County so that it could accommodate the additional truck traffic, he said.

"It would be an awful trucking route because there are many steep grades along it. Also it adds 23 miles onto the routes the trucks are taking now," he said.

Even if trucks were diverted to cross the river at Laughlin, many motorists would opt to cross at Hoover Dam and the current traffic bottleneck would continue, he added.

"I think the federal government already had its mind made up before it even did this study," Howard Booth, the local wilderness coordinator for the Sierra Club, said. "I think there was enormous pressure from both Phoenix and Las Vegas to pick the shortest possible route between the cities."

Booth added that the federal government will need to devise a way for bighorn sheep to either cross over or under the new highway.

Even after this new bridge is constructed, traffic will continue to flow on Hoover Dam. But advocates of building a new bridge say it would mainly be tourists who would choose to take the slower route with its breathtaking views.

The planned bypass would accommodate traffic traveling as fast as 60 mph.

When Hoover Dam was constructed, it was in a relatively obscure portion of the United States. Now, with the development of the Southwest, more than 11,000 cars a day drive across it.

One of the factors that was considered is how a bridge would alter the historic views from the dam.

"There is no doubt that this will alter the view from the dam," Haussler said. "That's something we considered when we contemplating the different possible routes."

Booth said the altered view is a concern of the Sierra Club.

"That area has absolutely spectacular views. Hikers in that area will be forced to look at a highway when they are out. That's just not right."

archive