Skull Valley, Yavapai County, Arizona

Keep the crossing open

BNSF has asked the state to permanently close the Sterling Ranch Road rail crossing (the Sterling/Hark crossing) south of town. The decision is being negotiated right now, and the people negotiating it do not have your flood, school, or emergency-response information. Here is what is happening and the three things that count.

Open case · Docket RR-02635B-26-0306

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What is happening

BNSF filed to close the crossing on July 23, 2026With the Arizona Corporation Commission, the state agency with sole power to open or close rail crossings. BNSF's stated reason is safety: the crossing has signs only, no gates or lights, and a state plan ranks it among the top 75 rural crossings for risk.
Commission safety staff supported the closure before it was filedTwo state crossing inspectors wrote in favor of closing it, paired with gate upgrades elsewhere.
Six trains a day, 52 cars a day, no gatesFederal inventory, updated July 29, 2026: 6 freight trains per day (2023 count), up to 40 mph, one track, crossbucks and stop signs only. About 52 vehicles a day use it. The "alternate" crossing 1.3 miles south carries about 1,650 vehicles a day, half of them trucks, and the school bus twice a day.
Yavapai County is the only formal opponentThe county intervened on July 30. Its filing argues about property access for two parcels, a road easement, and who pays for maintenance. It does not mention the school, the floodplains, or emergency response.
A settlement could skip the public hearingBNSF, the county, and Commission staff met on September 21 to try to reach agreement. Their joint proposed schedule is due November 2. The staff attorney said on the record he hopes the judge will waive the hearing if they agree.

What closing means here

Old Skull Valley Road runs along the edge of the Skull Valley Wash floodplain. From the Sterling Ranch crossing, there are two ways out. North to town passes 608 meters of road inside a FEMA Zone A floodplain, then the school, then 352 meters of Zone AE through town. South to the other crossing passes 420 meters of Zone A, and that crossing itself sits inside the flood hazard area. The Sterling Ranch crossing is the only one of the two outside a flood zone.

Map of Old Skull Valley Road showing FEMA flood hazard areas along both detour routes, the Sterling Ranch crossing outside the floodplain, and the south crossing inside it

FEMA flood hazard areas (National Flood Hazard Layer) intersected with Census road centerlines. A flood zone means the land is in the 1-percent-annual-chance floodplain. It does not say how often the road itself goes under. Your dated photos do.

For the school

Trips from the south end that now hop across at Sterling Ranch would route up Old Skull Valley Road past Skull Valley School, or 1.3 miles south to a crossing shared with 1,650 vehicles a day.

For emergencies

The fire department sits at the north end of town. Reaching the south end would mean one road in, through two floodplains.

For monsoon season

When a wash runs on the remaining route, the detour is not longer. It is closed. One crossing means no backup.

For good

Closures are effectively permanent. Reopening a crossing means winning a brand-new application against the railroad.

What the wash did this summer

The county runs a gauge on Skull Valley Wash downstream at Kirkland. Twice this monsoon it went from dry to flood stage in about twenty minutes, then took two to three hours to drop. The National Weather Service logged both rises.

Two charts of Skull Valley Wash stage from the county gauge: July 18, 2026 rising to 2.47 feet at 1:40 p.m., and August 12, 2026 rising to 2.23 feet at 12:10 p.m., each in about twenty minutes
July 25, 2022Weather Service report of 1.25 inches of rain naming "South Old Skull Valley Road (wash)," 0.4 mile from the south crossing. Same afternoon, a county official reported regional flooding including Skull Valley.
August 14, 2022Major flooding at Kirkland, one mile south of the south crossing, by a trained spotter.
October 26, 2022A resident told the county's Iron Springs Road study that new railroad culverts had not fixed drainage and that flooding near the school recurs.
August 24, 2025Flash flood warning naming Skull Valley Wash, Skull Valley, Copper Basin and Kirkland.
July 18 and August 12, 2026Gauge rose 2.5 ft and 1.9 ft in twenty minutes. The August rise peaked at 12:10 on a weekday.

Twenty minutes is less time than it takes an ambulance to get here from Prescott. The gauge is 3.5 miles downstream and reads the wash, not the road, so it shows when water moves, not how deep it was at the crossings. Nobody has published road closure logs for either route. That is the record we are asking the county to produce.

A flood day, after the closure

Four neighbors, one afternoon. Picture a Wednesday in August. A cell parks over the Sierra Prieta at 1:20 p.m. Twenty minutes later the wash is running.

The rancher south of the wash

She's on Old Skull Valley Road, between the two washes. North is under water. Today she'd drive two minutes to the Sterling crossing and be on the highway. Without it, south is 1.3 miles to a crossing that sits in the flood zone, with its own wash on the far side. If either is running, she's home until the water drops. Two, three hours by this summer's gauge. Longer if a second cell comes through. No groceries, no pickup, no vet.

The kid at school

School sits right above the 608-meter wash. Parents from the south end can't reach it until the water drops, so the school has to hold kids. Today a south-end parent can go out the Sterling crossing, up the highway, and come into town from the dry side. That route disappears.

The grandmother who falls

911 goes to Prescott dispatch. The ambulance comes down Iron Springs Road, dry the whole way. Today it crosses at Sterling and is at her door. Without it, the ambulance reaches the wash from the north and stops, or drives on to the south crossing and gambles. Medics will not drive through running water. Chest pain, stroke, a broken hip: the hour that matters is the one the wash takes to drop.

The volunteer firefighter

He's at the Forge when the page comes. The station is at the north end. If the call is south of the wash, he's facing the same water the ambulance is. The crossing is how he gets around it.

And in June, it's fire

Flood season runs July to September. Fire season runs May to early July. A flood strands a few households for a few hours. A fire empties the valley in an hour, with everyone on Old Skull Valley Road heading for the highway while engines come the other way on the same two lanes. The Sterling crossing is what lets outbound traffic peel off and leave the road to the engines. Yavapai County's own 2023 Community Wildfire Protection Plan puts Skull Valley in Management Area 4 and names limited roads as a constraint on both evacuation and incoming firefighting resources. Roads close for smoke and fire operations before flames reach them. A dry road is not automatically an open one.

One more thing a train does: six a day, up to two miles long. If the north road is closed by fire and a train is sitting on the south crossing, the Sterling crossing is the only way out. Without it, there is none. That doesn't take a flood. It takes an ordinary Tuesday.

Who this touches

The south end of Old Skull Valley Road: the ranch, the households between the two washes, and anyone visiting them. Yes, it's only locals. That's the argument, not a weakness. BNSF's 52-cars-a-day number says nobody uses it. The real number is how many people have no other dry way out.

What BNSF's filing leaves out

We read the whole docket. BNSF's application contains no train counts, no vehicle counts, no flood data, no school traffic data, and no emergency-response analysis. It says two other routes exist and that one of them needs no crossing at all. Nobody has told the Commission what those routes look like in August.

That gap is the opening. The Commission decides on safety. Our job is to put the safety facts it does not have on the record, in writing, before the parties settle.

Do these three things

1 · Ten minutes · Counts legally

File a comment in the state docket

This is the only channel that becomes part of the official record. Commissioners cannot be lobbied privately in this case, so a comment here is how they hear you. Say who you are, where you live, and one specific thing you have seen. Specific beats long.

Open the comment form

Docket number to enter: RR-02635B-26-0306 · Company: BNSF Railway Company · Position: Against

I live in Skull Valley and oppose closing crossing DOT #025350N (Sterling Ranch Road).

What I have seen: [one specific thing. Example: On August 14 the wash on Old Skull Valley Road ran for six hours and I could not get home. / My child attends Skull Valley School and the pickup line already backs onto the road. / It took the fire department __ minutes to reach our side.]

The application contains no flood data, no school traffic data, and no emergency-response analysis for the alternate routes. Before this crossing is removed, please require BNSF to show how residents and responders keep usable access to named destinations, with enough time to evacuate, under fire, flood, and train-blockage scenarios. Hold a public hearing, and consider gates at this crossing instead of closure.
2 · Five minutes · Shapes the settlement

Tell the county what to ask for

Any deal needs a vote by the Board of Supervisors. The county's position today is about property lines and maintenance costs, which BNSF can satisfy without touching school, flood, or emergency access. Ask the board to add those three to its position before it votes on anything.

Email the Clerk of the Board at clerkoftheboard.web@yavapaiaz.gov (written comments are accepted up to 24 hours before a meeting). Copy your District supervisor.

Subject: BNSF Skull Valley crossing (ACC Docket RR-02635B-26-0306)

Supervisors,

I live in Skull Valley. Thank you for intervening against BNSF's application to close the Sterling Ranch Road crossing.

Before the county agrees to any settlement, please make sure its position includes three things the current filing does not: (1) school traffic on Old Skull Valley Road, (2) flood closures on both alternate routes, and (3) fire and medical response times to the south end of town. These are safety issues, which is the standard the Commission uses.

Please also ask for a public hearing rather than a waived one, and let residents know when this will come before the board.

[Name, address]
3 · When you have it · Nobody else can supply this

Send evidence

The record needs things only residents have: dated photos of washes running across Old Skull Valley Road or Iron Springs Road, how long they ran, minutes a train blocked the in-town crossing, what the school pickup line looks like at 3 p.m. Include the date and location. Drop prints at the Forge, or email them to the organizer address on the poster.

Where the case stands

Sources

Everything above comes from the public docket. Read it yourself: Docket RR-02635B-26-0306 · BNSF application, Jul 23 · County request to intervene, Jul 30 · Procedural conference transcript, Sep 16 · Commission closure procedures · FRA crossing inventory (025350N, 025351V) · Yavapai County Community Wildfire Protection Plan, 2023 (p. 46) · NWS storm report, Jul 25 2022 · NWS report, Jul 18 2026 · NWS report, Aug 12 2026 · Yavapai County ALERT gauges

This page is maintained by Skull Valley neighbors. It is not affiliated with Yavapai County, the Arizona Corporation Commission, or BNSF.