Abandoned Infrastructure in Lake Mead National Recreation Area to be Demolished through GAOA Funding

NPS / Aimee Warner

Lake Mead National Recreation Area (NRA), with funding from Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA) will remove unnecessary, abandoned, and potentially hazardous buildings and infrastructure at Boulder Beach, Echo Bay, and Overton Beach. Removing these visual eyesores will improve visitor experience and restore the park’s scenic landscape. Boulder Beach, Echo Bay, and Overton Beach are three heavily used areas of the park that contain outdated and abandoned facilities that were closed decades ago. The boarded-up buildings are often vandalized and greatly disrupt the visual quality of developed areas. Maintaining these buildings for visitor safety creates an ongoing financial burden for Lake Mead NRA.

Project at a Glance: This $21.963 million project will remove unneeded, abandoned, and potentially hazardous infrastructure at Boulder Beach, Echo Bay, and Overton Beach to eliminate visual blight, improve the visitor experience, and remove rodent infestations. Additionally, this project will reduce hazardous materials as necessary at all project locations.

What are the Benefits: Once completed, project funds that are currently being used to maintain these unoccupied and vandalized buildings can be used to create new experiences and recreation opportunities for visitors to interact with the park’s natural landscape. This project removes unstable and hazardous items in a high-use area, removes a refuge for dangerous rodents and insects, reduces the park’s man-made footprint, restores native desert landscaping, expands public access of the park, and creates a safer recreational environment for visitors and staff.

Project Details

Anticipated Start Date*: Fall 2022
Anticipated Completion*: Summer 2023
Project Costs*: Approximately $21.963 million
Visitor Impact: There will be minimal visitor impacts during demolition.

*Estimates that are subject to change

Project Purpose and Goals

• Remove unstable, hazardous, and abandoned park assets from several high visitor-use areas

• Enable the park to redirect law enforcement and facility management resources to higher priority needs

• Eliminate refuge for disease harboring rodents that pose serious safety risks to park visitors and staff

• Reduce the park’s developed footprint and restore those areas with native desert landscaping

• Remove 72,000 square feet of abandoned hazardous and non-mission critical assets from the park’s Real Property Inventory

• Regrade disturbed sites to ensure natural stormwater runoff, minimize erosion, and restore the park’s scenic natural desert landscape

• Demolish the vacant Echo Bay Motel which is at risk of collapse

• Remove the general store, gas station, concessionaire’s offices, park housing, picnic sites, boat launch ramp and campground at Echo Beach

• Remove the concession facility, park ranger station, housing units, campground, restrooms, launch ramp, and all associated roads/parking areas at Overton Beach

• Demolish associated water tanks, a water treatment plant; a wastewater treatment plant, forced main and sewage lagoons; comfort stations and dump stations at Overton Beach

• Demolish multiple mobile restrooms, vault toilets, and repair the docks and launch ramp at Boulder Beach

• Remove facilities that impair the visual landscape of the park

• Eliminate $3.258 million of deferred maintenance and repairs

Current Status

Project is currently being solicited for construction and will likely be awarded fall of 2022.