Outside of Vernal is an attraction that closely resembles Jurassic Park. Who knows, maybe it’s a place Michael Crichton went for inspiration for his best-selling book. For years, visitors have come face-to-face with scale models of dinosaurs in Vernal and could also see and touch fossils at Dinosaur National Monument.
A tram operator would carry passengers along the dusty desert of the Utah-Colorado border to reach the visitor center, where they could learn about creatures that once inhabited the region. Sadly, because of a lack of funding, the visitor center has been closed and access to the dinosaur bones has been unavailable for the past three years.
Portions of the visitor center were literally cracking and falling apart, making it unsafe for people to experience all that was once available. Now, with the aid of federal stimulus money, the Quarry Visitor Center will get a $13 million dollar face-lift to demolish and replace condemned sections of the building. Because it was originally built 50 years ago on bentonite shale clay, warping and shifting have caused the building to be in constant movement, making it wobbly and unsafe.
The National Park Service plans to fix the problem in a way that not only creates a safe environment to visit the facility, but that will also preserve the impressive 150-foot fossil wall where you can see dinosaur bones poking out from the rock surface. It is hoped that the repairs and remodeling will be completed by late spring 2011.
Landmarks of this size and scope should be preserved and maintained for visitors. Although Dinosaur National Monument won’t initially create large revenues, there will be a positive turn in entrance fee revenue, as well as an increase in the hotel and dining industries of eastern Utah and western Colorado that have likewise suffered. According to Mary Risser, Dinosaur National Monument’s superintendent, entrance fees decreased from $300,000 a year to $100,000 because the visitor center has been closed.
Indirectly, the reopening of the visitor center will again inspire the imaginations of young people who come to visit. Also, university students will benefit as they can return to a place that sponsors paleontology research and in-field digs. Dinosaur National Park is a restoration initiative that is long overdue.
Liz Carlston