By temporarily closing the gate to Apple Creek Bottom occasionally, Burleigh County and the North Dakota Game and Fish Department expect to create better access to the wildlife management area nestled beside the Missouri River south of Bismarck.

Confusion over which entity had jurisdiction over the road led to years of neglect for the first half-mile stretch of the dirt track that's prone to flooding during wet years. People driving into the WMA when the road was muddy dug ruts that became deeper and bigger as the years passed.

"It was a rutty mess," Bruce Renhowe, NDGFD wildlife resource management supervisor, said Wednesday as he sat in his pickup and watched a road grader blade the dirt road.

County commissioners and NDGFD recently reached a compromise that will allow NDGFD to temporarily close the road during wet weather to prevent the road from being torn up.

"They collectively convinced us this temporary closure actually creates more access," Burleigh County Commissioner Claus Lembke said Wednesday of his fellow commissioners.

Once the county grades and shapes the road to allow drainage, it will put down gravel. Then NDGFD will install a gate that can be closed and locked when wet conditions dictate.

"When it dries up, we will open the gate," Renhowe said.

Renhowe already has had black-and-yellow, 2-foot-square signs made up that say, "Road temporarily closed due to wet conditions." A sign will hang on the gate whenever it is closed.

"It will take some getting used to by the public," he said. "Hopefully, the public will see the sign and say, 'We'll come back when it dries out.'"

NDGFD is paying for the road work, and the bill is estimated at a "little over $4,000," Renhowe said. Although NDGFD is responsible for the road, the county will do the necessary blading or other work. The new road should be finished next week.

With the deeply rutted road limiting access only to four-wheel-drive vehicles, "there was after-dark activity," said Renhowe, and usually only NDGFD district game wardens, who drive four-wheel-drive vehicles, checked the area.

"If there wasn't a 4x4 on duty, the sheriff couldn't help with meth labs and underage drinking," said Lembke.

"Now we can count on the Burleigh County Sheriff's Department to assist us beyond the gate," Renhowe said.

The new all-weather road will open the area to more angler, hunter and camper traffic and "take it back from the riffraff," Renhowe said. The improved road also will allow better access for fighting grass fires.

A locked gate at the entrance is what led to the road's neglect in the first place.

Although the land belongs to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, NDGFD is licensed to manage several bottom tracts as WMAs, including Apple Creek Bottom, on both sides of the river.

In the wet years of the 1990s, NDGFD locked the gate to Apple Creek, treating it like other WMAs on lakes Sakakawea and Oahe that it manages, Renhowe said. But unlike other counties where NDGFD has WMAs on corps land, Burleigh County did not relinquish its authority over the road. When Burleigh County told NDGFD to take down the gate, the gate came down, which led to the road's years of neglect.

Although Apple Creek Bottom is closest to Bismarck, Kimball Bottom probably is used more, said Renhowe, who manages 32 WMAs in nine counties. "But it does get used," he added.

And the new arrangement is expected to open the area up even more.

"I think sporting people, fisher people and Game and Fish are benefitting, and by eliminating a public nuisance and a public hazard, it's a nice win-win situation," Lembke said.

(Reach reporter Richard Hinton at 250-8256 or richard.hinton@;bismarcktribune.com.)