Dive center open at Blue Hole?

[mweaver40]

It's great the place is open. A warming room makes a huge difference in comfort and enjoyment. Seems like maybe it could just be a matter of educating the dive shops who use the place. An available mop and a few reminders on the wall to clean up after yourself or lose the privilege may do wonders. I have cleaned pool decks, restrooms and classrooms many times as an assistant and would expect most other shops require the same of their staff. All it would take is one responsible shop to clean up near the end of the day and really it isn't that hard. Trash on the floor is pretty hard to excuse.

[ddavies]

At the rate I am going it will be closed before I even get there to see it. Hope to come down in March. Is there anyone still going there on the third Saturday of the month? Can you still get fills from Stella?

[RonFrank]

Third weekend is typical. Stella is doing fills on weekends, and by request on week nights. I am interested in going. Start a new thread.

[DandyDon]

It's really sad that some people won't treat a place with respect. I remember finding the old restroom totally trashed out at times.

Seems like maybe it could just be a matter of educating the dive shops who use the place.

Like the shops who arrive early enough in the summer to block off the entire front of the hole by spreading out their tarps, students and gear...?

An available mop and a few reminders on the wall to clean up after yourself or lose the privilege may do wonders. I have cleaned pool decks, restrooms and classrooms many times as an assistant and would expect most other shops require the same of their staff. All it would take is one responsible shop to clean up near the end of the day and really it isn't that hard. Trash on the floor is pretty hard to excuse.

The mop would get stolen, or at best end up too filthy for most to want to use it.

As badly as the restrooms were trashed, they had to know that they had to include a clean-up employee when they planned the building. Filling the position with a responsible person who will work all day Saturday & Sunday will be a challenge but doable if they pay enough. Many times we have arrived late on Saturday or on Sunday with paperwork and money ready but no one to pay, so they can increase fee collections with such an employee, but most of the costs will be passed on to divers one way or the other.

Failing that, they can leave it locked and available only to special use groups.

[GrumpyOldGuy]

I was there 2 weeks ago, it was locked. I talked with a few locals, there has been discussion on/off how to collect fees, divers only and/or swimmers but no action. Its a small community, not much money to invest and lots of politics. Stella, who is a logical person to employee to manage the site appears to be in the dark as much as the rest.

Using 20/20 hind site, they could have developed an awesome dive center using the discharge water from the hole to create a 20' deep training pond (rock bottom and cement sides) to expand the draw for classes and divers. This would have reduced the crowding and benefited the town with increased use of restaurants / hotels from the additional divers. Instead they have an albatross of an empty convention center with a warming room for divers that the can't afford to staff. Tucumcari has a similar under utilized convention center down the road, small towns in eastern NM are simply not big enough to support a convention center.

[RonFrank]

Ummmm, BS.

I have watched this mess from the beginning. The city of Santa Rosa has been provided millions. Some went directly to the Army Corps of Engineers for cleanup of the BH, and they have completed their part. Millions (I believe 3M or more) were allocated to build the center, the parking lot, and for infrastructure to get the place going (dive shop, staffing, food, etc). A good chuck of the money provided to the city was stolen. How that occurred I have no idea but one word comes to mind.... corruption. This was money under the cities control, how does it walk away in such a small place? Mind Boggling!

I am amazed they completed as much as they did. In any event, they are out of money and no where near done. The money given to Santa Rosa by the State was suppose to be enough to complete the project. They were suppose to pave the parking area, put up lights, provide carts for dive gear, wall off the old parking area, landscape the entire area, put in a dive center, put in a concession area, hire full time management staff, the list of incomplete action is daunting. It's not like they are close to completion, but they are out of money.

In reality I kinda like the way things are, but here is one tiny example of their ability to do even the smallest $$$ task, collect money. The city says it's very difficult to collect money on the weekends... really? I mean how hard is it to have an entrance fee, or a collection system, or a list of paid dive shops, or to just have Stella collect assuming she would do it again? All you need is to have one individual whom runs around on Sat and Sun for a few hours collecting money, and tracking who is using the BH. If necessary put someone at the entrance to collect, the place is walled off.

This is an old story of mismanagement and corruption, that has been going on for as long as I am aware. Santa Rosa is a model of small town corruption, laziness, and politics.

[GrumpyOldGuy]

^ not really sure what you are calling BS on.

No argument from me, they wasted a lot of money and have little to show for it. I don't know how much of the problem was corruption vs. incompetence. I just pointed out even if they finish the building, the limiting factor is the size of the blue hole itself. The more divers you stuff in it, the worse the vis gets. Doesn't really matter if the parking lot it paved, lit up and they have a food stand and a full service dive shop, it still a zoo and at capacity on the summer weekends. I still don't see the convention center itself as a big draw other than maybe hosting the local HS prom.

They do have a valuable resource in a steady flow of clean water in the middle of the desert and they could have used this expand the dive area by creating a training pool of to the side with the outflow from the hole. It used to drive the fish hatchery, why not a training pool. You could then support more divers, bringing in more money to the dive center, and more importantly more money into the town via restaurants and hotels and create jobs for the town folks.

[DandyDon]

^ not really sure what you are calling BS on.

No argument from me, they wasted a lot of money and have little to show for it. I don't know how much of the problem was corruption vs. incompetence. I just pointed out even if they finish the building, the limiting factor is the size of the blue hole itself. The more divers you stuff in it, the worse the vis gets. Doesn't really matter if the parking lot it paved, lit up and they have a food stand and a full service dive shop, it still a zoo and at capacity on the summer weekends. I still don't see the convention center itself as a big draw other than maybe hosting the local HS prom.

"If you build it, they will come" if a misquote from the movie Field of Dreams, but even then it was a dream - an all too often abused approach for major budgets. I think they planned on expanding their baseball tournaments (with another similarity to the movie) and I guess those do bring in a lot of business at times - but I bet that market is limited. Maybe it will help keep them from losing what they got there, but I suspect that divers are a more regular source of income. I'm biased in my thinking of course, maybe wrong, and they may have reasonable studies with more info.

My home town is about the same size, but without the tourist business - barely one little motel and a few cafes that come and go, but we have put some money into various improvements over the decades, attracted more baseball ourselves, and recently used some nice grant money to rebuild downtown sidewalks. The curbs and walkways are nice, and while they won't attract business or return the hamlet to its local importance of 50 years ago, they may help keep my town from dying. You have to keep things up, but I don't see a future for most of those main street buildings. Small towns struggling to survive with local amateurs in leadership is a centuries old dilemma. I like to roam around ghost towns with my camera at times, but am often too late to shoot much.

I think you and Ron are right though, even tho I have not toured the new buidling. They got a lot of state money but little to show for it. I hope they come up with some better approaches.

They do have a valuable resource in a steady flow of clean water in the middle of the desert and they could have used this expand the dive area by creating a training pool of to the side with the outflow from the hole. It used to drive the fish hatchery, why not a training pool. You could then support more divers, bringing in more money to the dive center, and more importantly more money into the town via restaurants and hotels and create jobs for the town folks.

Sounds nice. I don't know how well the immediate geology would have supported it? I know that water used to seep into the old building, and I've read that there are caverns under the parking lot. As murky as the hole gets, I wonder how much of that silt would end up trying to fill the training pool - and who would clean it? Balmorhea has a few full time park rangers but not much traffic other than divers, yet they still have to clean the pool yearly. I suspect one at Santa Rosa would need more cleaning.