BLM Scoping

["Robert N. Deruy" <bobxian@domain.elided>]

Fellow Land Users,

I had the opportunity to go to the BLM Scoping meeting in St. George
yesterday. Generally speaking, a poor turnout by both sides.

The BLM maps are, to put it politely, lousy. It will take a lot of work to
correct their errors (what do you call an intentional error?). I talked
with a BLM official who offroads in his own Scrambler. He's not hardcore,
but he's done Gold Bar Rim. He had a difficult time believing that there
was any need to close existing trails! His suggestion was to document the
trail, GPS it if possible, get numbers of people using a trail, and why
this portion does not have "wilderness characteristics".

His take included the comment that existing roads were not to be closed in
WSAs! He also suggested getting close to the district manager and
suggesting Adopt-a-Trails. BLM has very little money compared to the FS and
NPS. One of the reasons they are soooo happy to close roads is that they
cannot afford to police them.

I definitely got two impressions: 1) this is not cast in concrete, and some
managers are looking for reasons not to create WSAs (in many ways they will
create more works than the roads), 2) numbers of people using a trail is
important to removing wilderness characteristics.

Did anyone else notice that large parts of Escalante, larger than the plans
we all "voted" on, are being suggested for WSA?

Don't miss the deadline on this. Write several letters, detailed ones and
general ones. Yeah for Hansen and H.R. 1500.

Bob D.