By Paul Hammel
LINCOLN — A reprieve appears to be coming for trailer owners faced with removing their summer cabins from alongside two southwest Nebraska reservoirs.
After a group of about 20 people traveled to Washington, D.C., earlier this month, Nebraska’s congressional delegation pledged to introduce legislation that would allow about 181 mobile homes to remain at Swanson and Red Willow Reservoirs.
Counties would assume management
The legislation would transfer management of the two concession areas that hold the trailers from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which owns the reservoirs, to Hitchcock County and Frontier County, where the two reservoirs are located.
The two county governments would negotiate leases with concessionaires at the two reservoirs, who, in turn, would manage leases with the trailer owners, allowing them to remain.
“Local, as opposed to federal control, is best, and community members have indicated they support transferring the land to the relevant county entities,” said Nathaniel Sizemore, a spokesman for U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer.
Fischer, along with U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts and U.S. Rep. Adrian Smith, met July 12 with about 20 southwest Nebraskans, who argued that removing the two trailer communities would hurt local businesses and end a tradition of allowing the mobile homes that stretched back 50 years.
A ‘win-win’
“It’s a win-win for sure, for us and the counties,” said Dawna Vap, whose family has operated the concession at Swanson Reservoir near Trenton, the Good Life Marina & Restaurant, for 13 years.
The concessionaires currently lease their sites from the Bureau of Reclamation and manage leases with 110 trailer sites at Swanson and 71 at Red Willow.
The Bureau, as part of an improvement plan, had announced that the trailers needed to be removed by November 2024 to make way for construction of new campgrounds, rental cabins, playgrounds, picnic areas and walking trails.
But local officials balked at the plan.
Hitchcock County Commissioner Paul Nichols, who was among those who traveled to Washington, said that during summer months, the two trailer areas are among the largest “communities” in the area, pumping dollars into the local economy.
This week, Nichols said he was encouraged by the response of Nebraska’s congressional delegation.
19 acres transferred at Swanson
At Swanson, he said, a transfer would involve Hitchcock County assuming management of about 19 acres of property.
Nichols said the county would receive a portion of the gross sales generated by the concessionaire — the portion that now goes to the Bureau. He said no county tax dollars would be expended.
The trailer owners and concessionaire would handle road maintenance, as in the past, Nichols said, adding that the county would need to adopt a process to award trailer lots if someone gave up a lease.
Frontier County would act in the same capacity with the concessionaire and the trailer area at Red Willow Reservoir.
The Nebraska Game and Parks Commission would continue to operate campgrounds at both reservoirs. Nichols said if the Bureau of Reclamation wanted to build new facilities, it still could.
“We have hundreds and hundreds of people who support us on this (land transfer),” he said.
Sizemore, the spokesman with Sen. Fischer, said that the entire Nebraska congressional delegation would work on the land transfer legislation. He did not have a timeline for when it would be introduced.