Find the whole grant at http://blackrockdesert.org/friends/ptfp-grant-2010

Executive Summary

The Friends of Black Rock High Rock (FBRHR) is proposing to build the first FM broadcast station of local origination for the communities of Gerlach & Empire and visitors to the adjacent Black Rock Desert in the remote northwest corner of Nevada. Our goal is to educate the thousands of annual visitors to the Black Rock Desert about its intrinsic historical and cultural values, to provide safety information, weather updates, and other information for the inhabitants of and visitors to this largely undeveloped region.

Qualifications

FBRHR is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit member organization that works with public lands agencies, user group organizations, local government, residents, and other stakeholders to promote safe, responsible uses of the Black Rock Desert and other contiguous areas. There is a special designation for the region, officially known as the Black Rock Desert - High Rock Canyon - Emigrant Trails National Conservation Area (Black Rock NCA), which is part of the National Landscape Conservation System established by Congress in 2000 as a new entity within the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). FBRHR has an agreement with the BLM to provide interpretation and visitor contact services, produce publications, recruit volunteers, produce events, and conduct other activities to help implement their resource management plan for the region. The Black Rock NCA encompasses a total of 1.2 million acres of public lands and wilderness areas, and is host to approximately 170,000 visitors annually (per BLM and Washoe County, NV), including hunters, photographers, amateur rocketry enthusiasts, land sailors, campers, rock hounds, and many others. The world land speed record was set on the Black Rock Desert "playa" (dry lake bed) in 1997, and the amateur rocketry altitude record was set in 2004. It is also home of the renowned Burning Man event, which itself attracts over 40,000 participants each year to build a temporary community dedicated to inclusiveness, expression, and civic responsibility. Our board of directors is itself comprised of people from these varied interests, from ranchers to business owners to Paiute tribal members.

While FBRHR does not itself have experience in providing broadcast services, members of the staff and board of directors have significant experience, and we have many volunteers among our membership who have a wealth of experience. The staff of FBRHR and several board members hold their amateur radio licenses, and FBRHR is in the process of installing an amateur radio repeater in a separate location to help provide emergency communications services to the region. We have formed a committee comprised of board members and volunteers that will be involved in the oversight of the radio station, including many people who are professionals in the industry. For more on the qualifications of the FM broadcast committee members, please see Exhibit I. FBRHR has active partnerships with several other user groups in the region including the Burning Man project, Nevada Outdoor School, Friends of Nevada Wilderness, Desert Research Institute, Oregon California Trails Association, Trails West, Nevada Bighorns Unlimited, and others. All of the meetings of the board and committees of FBRHR are open to the public, and minutes are posted to our website. Board members are elected by the general membership to staggered 3 year terms every year, and anyone who expresses an interest and has something to add may join a committee, although we do encourage them to join FBRHR.

We are planning to work with all of these groups of people to produce programming for the radio station. We will create programs that delve into the American history of the Emigrant experience, discuss hunting and current policies that effect wildlife, news of interest from Washoe County and Northern Nevada, and oral histories from local residents who have seen the many changes within the High Desert community. Programming at and around events will report on activities, inform of land closures, and provide weather and traffic information. In the evenings, we will likely go to a musical format, and we are looking into other automated systems to help provide consistent broadcasts. For more on our current program development strategy, please read Exhibit H.

Project Objectives

This project qualifies as Priority 1A because there is no other radio station providing service to the Black Rock Desert. Our broadcast engineering consultant has overseen the project and confirms that we will not be interfering with any telecommunications or other signals in the area. The best public radio signal in Gerlach is still well below 60dBu and is a translated signal from Sacramento's National Public Radio station-238 miles away in another state. The NPR station serving the nearest urban Nevada community, KUNR at the University of Reno, is 107 miles away and not at all viable to people in the Black Rock. There is a coverage map that demonstrates this in Exhibit D.

Everyone who lives in or visits the region will benefit from this station. It is important to understand that the visitors to the region outnumber the residents by a large margin, and the goal is to serve both year-round residents and this huge population of temporary residents. Gerlach, Nevada sits on the edge of the Black Rock Desert and serves as its gateway community with the only services for 80 miles in any direction. The Union Pacific Railroad runs through the town, and there is one restaurant, gas station, and hotel. The nearby company town of Empire is comprised of employees of the US Gypsum Company and contains a drywall manufacturing plant. According to the 2000 US Census, together the two towns contain approximately 500 people, with perhaps another 100 living on ranches in the surrounding countryside. The nearest bank or grocery store is 80 miles south in Fernley, with Reno another 20 miles away. To the north and east lies the community of Winnemucca-the most direct route is unpaved for 100 miles, but a large operating gold mine along the way may be within our broadcast range.

Since the area is so large and undeveloped, it is difficult to inform visitors about risks inherent to wilderness travel, and many visitors come into the region from back roads without passing through the community of Gerlach or without stopping to pick up information. There is concern among many users and residents that increasing visitation to the area will put undue stress on the fragile resources of the High Desert. The region is often mistakenly perceived as a wasteland that cannot be impacted by vehicles or people, but in fact there are fragile ecosystems that support a complex web of wildlife unique to the region. While most visitors are attracted to the resilient, un-vegetated dry lakebed, increasingly they are ranging further afield into areas that receive very little annual rainfall and are at risk of damage from the ignorant or irresponsible practices of the users. Also, since the undeveloped nature of the landscape is one of the conditions within the Black Rock that is highly valued, it is not appropriate or possible to construct signs and other classical forms of interpretation to warn of dangers such as hot springs or impassable alkali mud. The FM broadcast station will help to inform people about these hazards and to prevent irreparable damages, and it will do this in a way that reaches far into the region without disrupting its pristine visual beauty.

lamps
store fixtures
artwork for consignment
historic maps
relevant regional books

mixing console
microphones
computers
portable digital recording devices
headphones

Contact Friends: info@blackrockdesert.org