Public lands for Public Purposes: Community in the Outdoors

by Heather Feeney, Public Affairs Specialist

Southwest, Northeast + Places in-between

Near the intersection of West LeBaron Avenue and South Lindell Road in the Las Vegas Valley is a parcel of public land that Clark County (Nevada) envisions as a neighborhood park.

Enterprise, NV is an unincorporated community southwest of Las Vegas. Its population grew from 14,676 in 2000 to 108,481 in 2010. BLM-Las Vegas FO

More than 1,760 miles to the northeast, agencies and community groups are partnering to enliven Lake Huron’s maritime culture and history offshore of Alpena, Michigan, centered on Thunder Bay Island.

The survey plat for Township 31 North Range 8 East of the Michigan Meridian – Thunder Bay, Michigan – February 12, 1841. A lighthouse had been operating on an island at the north end of the bay since 1832. BLM General Land Office Records

The BLM has a key role in these projects and many others like them under the Recreation and Public Purposes (R&PP) Act, which first became law in June 1926 and which Congress updated in 1954.

The Act authorizes the Bureau to lease or sell certain public lands to states, local governments, or qualified non-profit groups for recreational use or other public-purpose projects.

Present, Past & Future

LeBaron Lindell Neighborhood Park is the latest of over 130 R&PP Act projects in Clark County, which continues to be one of the fastest growing areas in the U.S. The “public purposes” of the Act are projects that support community expansion and local economic development.

The BLM Las Vegas Field Office is processing the County’s application to lease and later take title to 10 acres of public land for the municipal park.

In northeastern Michigan the Thunder Bay Island Lighthouse Preservation Society is working to enliven the past while building community and access to the outdoors in the present. The non-profit group is restoring the lighthouse on the southern end of Thunder Bay Island as an integral element in the National Marine Sanctuary and Underwater Preserve and the Alpena Blueway, a water trail designated by the State of Michigan.

Thunder Bay Island Lighthouse Preservation Society members restore the roof on the fog signal building to return the site to historical condition. The Society leases the buildings seen in the aerial photo at-right from the U.S. Coast Guard, and the local government of nearby Alpena, Michigan has title to the surrounding land. TBILPS

The BLM conveyed title to the 43 acres surrounding the lighthouse to Alpena Township and the State in 2014. Preservation Society volunteers are stabilizing and restoring the lighthouse and other structures so visitors can safely tour the site. In the meantime, visitors to Alpena can view the lighthouse from the water while exploring the wrecks of ships that sank around Thunder Island before they could reach safe harbor.

Several shipwrecks off Thunder Bay Island are viewable from the surface. Bryan Dort/USFWS

June is Great Outdoors Month

In proclaiming this month ‘Great Outdoors Month,’ President Biden noted that the outdoors are central to our National identity and important for local communities. The R&PP Act supports access to the values of the outdoors at the local level, community by community.

Architectural drawing for the proposed LeBaron Lindell Neighborhood Park

Thunder Bay Island and sunken ships in the surrounding waters are points on a blueway water trail.

Places to find unity and forge common bonds

President Biden’s America the Beautiful initiative is a decade-long challenge to conserve 30 percent of the nation’s lands and waters by 2030, centered on locally led conservation efforts of all kinds and collaborating to ensure access to the outdoors now and for the future.

The Sloan Canyon National Conservation Area, southeast of Enterprise, NV BLM/Bob Wick

The Thunder Bay Island shoreline, Lake Huron BLM-Eastern States

**As the manager of programs like R&PP, the BLM supports cooperation at all levels to meet the challenge of ‘giving every person in America – present and future – the chance to experience the freedoms, joys, bounties and opportunities that the nation’s lands and waters provide.’ **

COMMUNITY | Thunder Bay Island Lighthouse Preservation Society : Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary (NOAA) : Alpena Blueway/Heritage Route 23 : Michigan Islands National Wildlife Refuge (USFWS)

BLM Links | R&PP Act webpage : Thunder Bay Island storymap : BLM-Las Vegas Field Office

Where this page came from

This page was imported from Bureau of Land Management. Published by the Bureau of Land Management and, as a work of the United States government, in the public domain; material credited to others is left out.

Nobody has written it yet — it is the source material at a new address, which is why search engines are asked to skip it and why no one earns from it. It is up for grabs: take it on, and it is yours to rewrite and to earn from.