August 20, 2011

This year has been the strangest spring and summer that I have ever experienced at Eagle Valley Reservoir. In reality we had no spring and summer was late coming.  One morning in early July I left my home in Panaca, NV to come to our office at the Reservoir and I happen to glance at our weather station and was amazed to see that the temperature was 43 degrees at 5:30AM.  I drove to the office which is a thirty five minute drive and the temperature at the Reservoir was 35 degrees when I got there.  35 degrees in July is not the norm.  In August the temp went up in the nineties.  Vegas went to its' normal 110 degrees.  Who knows what Sept thru Dec has in store for us.  At any rate we will be here renting out boats and selling firewood.  Speaking of firewood, I am sorely disappointed that Nevada Division of State Parks is still selling firewood in the park up here.  They are in direct unsupervised competition with us and they don't have to pay any sales tax.  Nor do they have to buy permits for the wood.  This is totally unfair and unethical.  I am aware that they took a big hit in the budget but with the way that state agencies run their operations I feel that this monetary hit was, for the most part, deserved.  What I mean by this is that they have too many people for the job that they have to do.  I am talking about people to keep up with their paperwork and regulations.  Nevada Division of State Parks still keep the Horsethief Gulch Campground in tip top shape.  They are to be comended for this.  When it comes to the water in the reservoir both the Nevada Division of State Parks and the Nevada Department of Wildlife both get an "F" for failure.  I really don't know who is in charge of the water and I am not sure that they do.  The aireators or bubblers if you will, which put oxygen in the water are not running after thousands were spent on them.  "F" in maintaining them.  The weeds in the harbor and the boat slips are ridiculous.  They could be cleaned out of  the boat slips very easily, but apparently the park supervisor is either too lazy or not smart enough to figure out how to do it.  Myself, as well as the public pay a five dollar launch fee and expect to use the slips in the new boat dock which was put in with the supervision of State Parks.  What a shame, a new boat dock and the slips are, for the most part , filled with weeds. 

     Previous Park Supervisors have obtained the help of the prisioners from our nearby prison and have cleaned out the  harbor and the slips.  What's up with the present park supervision?  Even with the weed problem and the bubblers not working the fishing at the reservoir has been good.  We outdoor people find a way.  Maybe a call or email to Nevada Division of State Parks would  aid them in their apparent problem.

                 Dennis and Cherry