After nearly 10 years in the making, the Red Rock Ranger District, in collaboration with the Tonto National Forest, has reached the final stages of their management goal for the Fossil Creek area by releasing a draft Comprehensive River Management Plan and draft Environmental Impact Statement on Nov. 30. 

This release of five possible multi-variable alternatives for Fossil Creek’s management marked the beginning of a 90-day public comment period. Each option carries just as much weight as the others, since whatever plan selected will become RRRD’s official management strategy for the area for at least the next 15 to 20 years. These plans involve a combination of actions like the creation of new trails and parking areas, the addition of administration buildings and recreational facilities and the opening or continued closure of roads. Some of the plans even include leaving certain areas alone.

Marcos Roybal, head of the Fossil Creek project, said the area saw a dramatic surge in recreational traffic ever since Arizona Public Service decommissioned two power plants and entered into talks with the U.S. Forest Service in the late 1990s to relinquish control of the area. The creek, dammed for hydroelectric power since the early 1900s, was allowed to flow freely again in 2005. The added stream of visitors ever since has accelerated potential biological, geological and cultural harms in the absence of an official recreational area management plan.

“What we were seeing after the decommissioning process and the restoration of flow to fossil creek, is that people would come, and there weren’t really any designated parking areas,” Roybal said.

“People would park along the road, creating gridlock and made it hard for emergency responders. We basically had an unmanaged recreational environment where we had a lot of people going to the creek but not really any amenities to support them,” Roybal said.

Before the Forest Service implemented a reservation system to control the amount of visitors, trash was rampant, human waste was observable and undirected foot traffic exposed riverbed soils to erosion. The Forest Service’s CRMP aims to steer visitors toward areas that can handle usage, like rock-lined riverbed instead of precious soil, by building amenities there.

As to why the initiative is just now entering its final stages, Roybal stated that there are several complicating characteristics of Fossil Creek that pile onto an already meticulous National Environmental Policy Act approval process. Any action regarding Fossil Creek makes for a jurisdictional ballet, as the river not only splits the Coconino and Tonto National forests, but also delineates the Coconino, Yavapai and Gila county borders.

Then there are the five “remarkable values,” as recognized in its designation as one of only two Wild and Scenic Rivers [per the Wild and Scenic River Act] in state. The first value is its free flow; the second is its quirky geology [the water, which originates underground, is saturated with calcium carbonate and creates travertine when mixed with air over time. Travertine, which turns into rock and fossilizes things like plants and logs, gave the creek its name]; third is its rich biological diversity, which includes native fish species undisturbed thus far by invasive ones; the fourth is the cultural significance Fossil Creek has to the Yavapai and Western Apache nations; and last is Fossil Creek’s popular recreational value.

The USFS will have to carefully monitor how their final management plan affects each one of these features for decades to come.

Roybal, who took over the project two years ago, said he hopes that the public will be engaged in the process so as to create a plan suitable for the folks  who cherish Fossil Creek as their go-to getaway spot. He also said, however, that the public does tend to cling to one major misconception.

“A lot of people saw the impact of the heavy recreational use. They felt that there were way too many people in Fossil Creek in those days. Some of our alternatives consider substantially more people than what we’ve had in the past. And we hear a lot of, ‘how can you bring more people into Fossil Creek?’” Roybal said.

“The thing there is, with an official managed plan, I think we can provide more recreation without adverse impact. And that takes a lot of explaining.” Roybal stressed that, though there are five proposals on the table right now, the process is fluid, allowing for public input to shape potential hybrid plans that the Forest Service hadn’t considered.

The upcoming public comment meetings are as follows:

• Wednesday, Jan. 23, 5:30 to 7 p.m. at Pine Senior Center in Pine-Strawberry.
• Thursday, Jan 24, 5:30 to 7 p.m. at Coconino National Forest Headquarters in Flagstaff.
• Tuesday, Jan. 29, 5:30 to 7 p.m. at Camp Verde Community Library.

According to USFS projections, the final management plan for Fossil Creek will be decided by Winter 2019 into 2020. Full information on the draft CRMP and EIS can be found at https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/coconino/landmanagement/planning/?cid=fseprd525897