The Dinosaur National Monument fossil quarry, which draws hundreds of thousands of tourists each year to the park that straddles northwestern Colorado and Utah, was closed this week indefinitely.
The building that houses the quarry was deemed structurally unsafe, monument superintendent Mary Risser said Thursday.
“There’s the potential that part of the building could just collapse, which presents some very threatening safety hazards,” she said. “We just decided that it was time to shut the building until we could make whatever corrections could be made.”
A number of repairs have been made to the center since it was built on unstable and shifting soil in 1957. The quarry is in the visitor center on the Utah side about 20 miles east of the city of Vernal.
The quarry is the biggest draw to the monument, allowing visitors to see dinosaur bones still embedded in a cliff and paleontologists working on the site.
While park officials won’t estimate how long the quarry will remain closed, paleontologists familiar with its troubles fear that it could take years to reopen.
“The building basically has no foundation or footers to speak of, and the soil is just the worst stuff you could build on,” said Jim Kirkland, Utah’s state paleontologist.
The good news is that the monument, which is home to spectacular scenery and petroglyphs, is offering free admission for the remainder of the year.
Tourism and economic development officials are concerned that the closing of the quarry will hurt business.
“Over a million people a year come through this area and pretty much most of them come to see the dinosaurs,” said John Gardiner, owner of Dinaland Aviation, which offers air tours of monument canyons. “It was kind of a shock, because it seemed the doors just closed on the quarry suddenly.”
It’s been known for a while that the quarry building was unstable. A few years ago, the building’s library was shut down after the shifts caused beams to jut out the walls. And Risser estimated that parts of the building have raised or lowered about a foot.
Last year, it was estimated that repairs would cost up to $7.3 million, Risser said.
Park officials have been trying to secure money since 2001 to fix the building, but the budget has been bumped several times as federal funding has been cut for parks services nationwide, she said.
Complicating matters is that the building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001, which means the center can’t be torn down and replaced.
Bill Johnson, executive director of economic development for Uintah County and Vernal, said the closure should encourage federal officials to bring expedited funding.
“If people find out they can’t see the quarry, they may not come here,” Johnson said. “Hopefully we can figure out a way can still view those bones from a window outside.”
Staff writer Manny Gonzales can be reached at 303-820-1537 or mgonzales@denverpost.com.
