The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is going to be conducting maintenance and improvements to the Price Canyon Recreation Area as of June 16. Castle Country Radio was able to speak over the telephone with Engineer, Charles Sharp to get all the details.

There may be some folks wondering why start this project now, it was originally slated to start in the Fall of last year and work was going to continue this Spring. “So there’s a couple of reasons on that, one, you mentioned was the winter, which pushed our schedule back a little bit with all the snow this year. A second big reason for us was funding, this has been a project that’s been in the works for a while, we’re not the top dogs in the government, I guess. A few years ago, however, we did get additional funding and we were able to put this project into the pipeline stream and get it going,” said Sharp. Although the summer time is not ideal to close the area it is the only time that officials can get the work done.

Not only will the road be repaired in some areas they will also replace the guard rails since there was damage done to them during the Bear Fire. “The original contract had extending some of the guardrails. However, with the fire a couple of years ago we found that many of the guardrail posts were burnt and so we’re going to go ahead and replace all of the original guardrails, in addition to adding the extensions,” said Sharp. They will also do some work on cleaning up vegetation in that area as well.

Officials are planning to get all the maintenance and improvement work done this summer so that the area can re-open by Fall hunting season. “Although we would like to open things sooner, if we can get ahead of schedule, right now, too early to tell with them just starting. But yea, if we can open it sooner that’ll be great and yea, we know, BLM supports multi-use and hunters are part of that group and anytime we can get it open for people to enjoy the outdoors is a win for us,” said Sharp. The BLM apologizes for any inconvenience the closure may cause.

Any questions or concerns please call the BLM Price Field Office at (435) 636-3600.