Press release for DINO Quarry Visitor Center

[Dan Chure <danchure@easilink.com>]

Here is the official press release announcing the start of repairing the 
QVC at DINO.

Dan

Contact: Carla Beasley

Phone number: (435) 781-7700

Date: April 22, 2009

*Dinosaur National Monument to Benefit from the American Recovery and 
Reinvestment Act of 2009*

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced today a $13.1 million 
investment to demolish and replace condemned portions of the Quarry 
Visitor Center at Dinosaur National Monument.

The Quarry Visitor Center project is one of nearly 800 projects totaling 
$750 million that can be completed across the country with funding from 
the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). All the 
projects announced today are long-standing priorities of the National 
Park Service based upon its capital planning process.

Preliminary work for the Quarry Visitor Center has already begun. The 
National Park Service completed the environmental impact statement for 
the project in 2008 and finished design development this month. Work has 
begun on the construction drawings with the final documents anticipated 
by fall of this year. The National Park Service will award the 
construction contract in early 2010, and ground-breaking may be as early 
as next spring. Construction is anticipated to take between a year and a 
year and a half; the reopening the quarry exhibit and visitor center 
could be as early as summer 2011.

“Every aspect of the monument’s operations has been impacted by the 
closure of the Quarry Visitor Center,” stated Dinosaur National Monument 
superintendent Mary Risser. “This project will implement sustainable 
green technologies and improve the visitor experience at Dinosaur 
National Monument. We will once again be able to provide public access 
to Douglass Quarry and its world renowned Jurassic-era dinosaur fossils.”

Dinosaur National Monument will also receive an additional $628,000 in 
ARRA funding to complete several other high priority deferred 
maintenance projects. The waterline from the park boundary to the Quarry 
area and a waterline in the Headquarters area will be replaced. 
Frontcountry and backcountry trails will be repaired. The Gates of 
Lodore Boat Ramp will be rehabilitated. New energy efficient windows 
will be installed in the Headquarters building.

“We are grateful that this recovery effort will enable us to accomplish 
so many long standing projects, which will enhance our ability to serve 
the public,” continued Risser. “Since these projects will be contracted 
out, we anticipate that they will help put money into the local and 
regional economies.”

-NPS-