The bureau now utilizes the National Park Service rangers for law enforcement, Fulp said. Those changes and a study done early in 2017 indicated that the bureau needed a stronger security presence rather than a law enforcement one, so it created a security response team. Now, there is just one traffic checkpoint before the dam and public access is essentially closed from dusk until dawn. Prior to the bridge opening, all the vehicles traveling to and from Arizona traveled over Hoover Dam, which meant the dam had to be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
One factor contributing to the decision was construction of the Mike O’Callahan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge, allowing traffic to bypass the dam. “We’re the only office within the Bureau of Reclamation to do law enforcement.” “Since 1931 we have had a local police department that turned into the Hoover Dam Police Department,” said Terry Fulp, Lower Colorado Region director of the Bureau of Reclamation. Miranda Alam Las Vegas Review-Journal have come to security at Hoover Dam, with National Park Service rangers taking over law enforcement duties from the now-defunct Bureau of Reclamation police department.
