Visitors disappointed by closure at White Sands

White Sands National Monument is still closed indefinitely and may not be open again anytime soon due to a drone crash last week.

A QF-4 drone that crashed around 9 a.m. Friday has largely been removed but smaller debris and an unknown amount of jet fuel remain a safety hazard.

Becky Burghart, chief of interpretation at White Sands National Monument, said “There’s small pieces left. Most of the large pieces have come out. And yes, there are the liquids. The jet fuel left behind that we’re still working on the cleanup efforts.”

Military personnel and environmental experts from the National Park Service are working to remove the remaining debris and jet fuel and prevent damage to the park’s ecosystem. There’s no definite timeline for how long that will take.

So while the cleanup continues around Dunes Drive, the main avenue into the park, visitors continue to be turned away from the dunes, an estimated 900 per day. The park itself is losing more than $2,000 dollars a day in entrance fees and photography permits.

Donald Boyce came from Pennsylvania to visit his sister in Las Cruces, and had hoped to get a closer view of White Sands.

“It would have been nice to look out there to see the monument,” Boyce said. “It’s a long ways from home, and I don’t know the next time I’m going to be out this way.”

Some visitors came from as far away as Germany to experience the dunes for themselves.

“Yes, we start tomorrow morning from Santa Fe, and this was the only reason to come here, to see the White Sands. So we came only for the White Sands,” said Thomas Rammelt from Bremen, Germany.

But no one is being allowed into the park as cleanup continues on the crashed missile target drone. Visitors have been unhappy but park rangers say people understand the precaution.

Burghart said “They’re very understanding, they’re disappointed. Some folks have driven from the East Coast, from Canada. We get folks from all over the world. We are the most visited National Parks site in New Mexico. On average, about a half-million visitors come here every year.”