- Location
- Grand Junction, CO
I've been doing some reading on SUWA's site and it's really pissing me off. I wanted to share with you all what 'recommendations' that SUWA has made to the BLM.
From their site-
"RECOMMENDATIONS-
A Mandate for Change
The following actions must be taken to protect proposed wilderness and natural resources on Utah BLM lands from ORV abuse, and preserve places where natural beauty and quiet can be found.
• BLM should close all wilderness study areas and areas proposed for designation in America's Redrock Wilderness Act to ORV use to maintain wilderness suitability.
• BLM policy should direct that all ORV routes are closed unless clearly signed on the ground as open.
• BLM should follow its own regulations and permit ORV use only on designated roads and trails, and only after the environmental impact of use on these trails is carefully evaluated. The BLM should provide clear maps illustrating those designations.
• BLM public lands should not be available for unrestricted cross-country ORV use."
Another interesting tid-bit I found from SUWA-
"Off-road vehicle advocates, like the industry-supported Blue Ribbon Coalition, claim that they deserve continued access to Utah public lands. Sounds reasonable. Yet they're not talking about access to a few places, they're talking about guaranteed access to just about every acre of public land that gravity will allow.26 And then some.
The March 1999 edition of Four Wheeler Magazine describes Lower Helldorado, an abandoned 1950s era uranium mining road near Moab which takes off from the Kane Springs road:
"This new extreme road, re-opened last year in the Moab, Utah, area, is tough-there's a mandatory winch-up-a-dry-waterfall obstacle in the middle of it. When added to the original Helldorado, it makes a full day of extreme challenges."One ORV advocate similarly wrote in a letter to BLM: "We are interested in developing what we call 'hard core' rock crawling routes, as well as high challenge obstacles to play on."
That's not so reasonable, especially given the facts of growing ORV use and increasing environmental degradation from that use. The environmental consequences of allowing ORV access to 94% of Utah BLM land are often severe and discourage other uses of the land. It is unreasonable for BLM to allow "extreme ORV events," of the sort which include winching a ton of metal and machinery up a waterfall or allowing ORVs to cross a fish-bearing stream 59 times in eight miles."
From their site-
"RECOMMENDATIONS-
A Mandate for Change
The following actions must be taken to protect proposed wilderness and natural resources on Utah BLM lands from ORV abuse, and preserve places where natural beauty and quiet can be found.
• BLM should close all wilderness study areas and areas proposed for designation in America's Redrock Wilderness Act to ORV use to maintain wilderness suitability.
• BLM policy should direct that all ORV routes are closed unless clearly signed on the ground as open.
• BLM should follow its own regulations and permit ORV use only on designated roads and trails, and only after the environmental impact of use on these trails is carefully evaluated. The BLM should provide clear maps illustrating those designations.
• BLM public lands should not be available for unrestricted cross-country ORV use."
Another interesting tid-bit I found from SUWA-
"Off-road vehicle advocates, like the industry-supported Blue Ribbon Coalition, claim that they deserve continued access to Utah public lands. Sounds reasonable. Yet they're not talking about access to a few places, they're talking about guaranteed access to just about every acre of public land that gravity will allow.26 And then some.
The March 1999 edition of Four Wheeler Magazine describes Lower Helldorado, an abandoned 1950s era uranium mining road near Moab which takes off from the Kane Springs road:
"This new extreme road, re-opened last year in the Moab, Utah, area, is tough-there's a mandatory winch-up-a-dry-waterfall obstacle in the middle of it. When added to the original Helldorado, it makes a full day of extreme challenges."One ORV advocate similarly wrote in a letter to BLM: "We are interested in developing what we call 'hard core' rock crawling routes, as well as high challenge obstacles to play on."
That's not so reasonable, especially given the facts of growing ORV use and increasing environmental degradation from that use. The environmental consequences of allowing ORV access to 94% of Utah BLM land are often severe and discourage other uses of the land. It is unreasonable for BLM to allow "extreme ORV events," of the sort which include winching a ton of metal and machinery up a waterfall or allowing ORVs to cross a fish-bearing stream 59 times in eight miles."
SUWA is full of crap. When I went and read their website awhile ago, I got really upset too.
