Great American Outdoors Act: Rebuilding Park Workplaces at Three Idaho Sites

NPS photo.

Money from the Great American Outdoors Act will rehabilitate operations buildings at three National Park Service sites in Idaho, correcting serious faults that hamper park work.

The project

• Cost: about $9.932 million, correcting $7.679 million of deferred maintenance and repairs.
• Schedule (estimates, subject to change): start in the fourth quarter of 2023, completion in the second quarter of 2025.
• Visitors: little disruption during construction.
• Status when announced: all three parts in the final phases of design.

Craters of the Moon

The park's historic Mission 66 maintenance building will be rehabilitated to remove the safety risks of failing infrastructure and cramped workspaces, and a new building nearby will house snow removal equipment and a summer vehicle wash bay. The work will make staff safer and more comfortable, make equipment last longer, cut running costs and help the park keep up with more visitors. It includes:

• repairing and insulating the building envelope, and restoring historic windows and doors;
• a code-compliant fire suppression system for the boneyard equipment and dry storage building;
• a new floor plan with an accessible restroom and better staff workspaces;
• energy-efficient lighting and a heat-pump heating and cooling system;
• fixing critical code and safety problems in accessibility, electrical work and structural fire safety.

Hagerman Fossil Beds

The combined maintenance shop and paleontology laboratory will get a fire suppression system, to protect staff, one-of-a-kind fossils and the building. Preparing fossils with air tools creates fire hazards from unstable organic compounds and fine dust. The work will connect and upgrade the smoke detection and fire alarm system; add a new, smaller water tank, water lines, and a pump house with a fire pump and controls; and install piping, sprinkler heads and fire truck connections, using a system that does almost no water damage when it goes off.

Minidoka

The park will get a safe, code-compliant maintenance and resource management facility, replacing workspaces that suffer from leaks, rodents, extremes of temperature and no room for equipment. It will have a carpentry shop, equipment repair bays, offices and staff workspaces, and will be strengthened to meet the seismic code, re-roofed and re-sided, insulated, fitted with fire suppression and woodworking dust control, given new windows, doors and equipment bay doors, new heating and cooling, lighting, telecommunications, wiring, water and wastewater lines, and made accessible. A new well will supply drinking water and end the hazard of the existing confined-space vault, and a new septic system will meet code. Less travel between Minidoka and Hagerman Fossil Beds will save 10% of Minidoka's annual operating budget. Better facilities should also help keep staff and let divisions share projects and equipment.

The original describes the Minidoka building two ways: as demolishing a non-historic structure and building a new facility, and as adapting and reusing an existing non-historic building.

NPS photo.

Sources

• National Park Service, "Operational Buildings at Three Idaho Parks to be Rehabilitated through GAOA Funding to Improve Employee Safety and Operations." https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/gaoa-three-idaho-parks.htm
• Corrected: "hazzard" to "hazard".