Jurassic park gets federal approval

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration gave a dinosaur-size endorsement this past week to legislation to create a new federal center to store and study Jurassic-era bones — and to build it adjoining a just-completed state museum in Vernal.

It told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee it strongly favors the proposed federal Uinta Research and Curatorial Center, which would connect to the recently completed Utah Field House of Natural History Museum.

"The (new state) Field House will provide visitors and residents access to the museum and programs on the natural history of the area, while the (federal) Uinta Center will provide the storage and research function of a world-class museum," said Associate National Park Service Director Janet Snyder Matthews.

She noted that 609,000 bones from Dinosaur National Monument are currently stored at 11 facilities at that park, including some garages. And its curatorial staff now works in crowded aisles of the old paleo lab at the Quarry Visitor Center. She said such facilities fail to meet most standards for storage and study of such artifacts.

"Of the 957 museum standards currently applicable to the park, the park barely meets 50 percent of them. This new facility would allow the park to meet nearly 98 percent of those standards," she said.

Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, is sponsoring the legislation. He told the committee it would save both the state and federal governments money.

"Because of the co-location, National Park Service staff, visiting scholars, interns and volunteers would have access to the state museum's space for exhibit, classroom, conferencing, education, rest rooms, public access, parking and other needs not included in the curatorial facility," Bennett said.

Karen Krieger, heritage resource coordinator of the Utah Division of Parks and Recreation, said the state benefits because it was able to eliminate "curatorial spaces, specimen storage areas, specimen study areas, processing areas and the paleontology lab — meant to be visible to the public — from our building plans."

Matthews said the administration wants only one change to the bill from the way it was introduced, to change the spelling of the center. "The partners have chosen to spell the name of the center in the same way the Uinta Mountains are spelled and not the county of Uintah."

Vernal and Uintah County would donate land for the new 22,500-square-foot facility.

Matthews said the Interior Department is planning funding for the new $8.8 million facility into budgets for fiscal 2007. Of note, she said it is also planning to rehabilitate the historic Quarry Visitor Center in the national monument at the same time.

Krieger said the state is anxious for the federal project to move forward because until it is built, "we are left using the old, inadequate storage spaces, now three blocks away from our current museum, for our curatorial activities."

Bennett said, "It is imperative that we care for these paleontological resources and ensure their availability to future generations."

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