I went to the BLM meeting held at the Senior Center in Quartzsite, Arizona on 2008 January 17 at 4PM. The meeting was well attended. In fact, some were ordered into a back room and others were turned away.
In my opinion the meeting accomplished nothing. Questions were not allowed. We were told questions would be answered later, but it never happened. When it was announced all comments had to be in before February 22 many felt the time was far too short. The question was asked: "How long have you been planning this?" the speaker refused a clear answer. The "meeting" became chaos and someone shouted out: "When did you start the Maps you are going to hand out?" The answer was ten years ago. That was the only answer to any questions from the audience. When the "meeting" was over everyone was quickly sent out side to get a copy of "the map". And the "Meeting" was over. A few stragglers, might have been able to ask a question as the chairs were being put away.
I have had time to look at the maps, which are labeled: YUMA FIELD OFFICE RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PLAN, Map TMA-2: La Posa Travel Management Area. And what I see scares me. The routes are all labeled with "LP" followed by a number. The numbers go to over 2800, and it appears there are about that many.
I don't know how the BLM plans to mark these "Routes", but I am sure they will have to be able to drive their US Government Pick-Up trucks to check the markers, and routes. There will have to be brought in graders and Bull-Dozers to make the Routes accessible to the "officials". This will cause FAR MORE damage to the area than all the ATV's and Jeeps in the world would ever do.
I am 73 years old and was raised in the west by a family who loved to go tent camping. We made several trips to Yellowstone Park before and shortly after World War II. 40 years later I went back to Yellowstone. The camping area around Old Faithful was gone--replaced by a "Government Improvement" of a 4 lane road and a Clover Leaf and lots of black top. The trees were all gone. Old Faithful today is less natural than what one could see as a Shopping Maul fountain. I never want to go back to Yellowstone. Thanks to Government Improvement--not a few trashy campers.
I lived in Las Vegas from 1960 through 1963 and taught myself how to swim in Lake Mead. Then you could drive down any of the washes to the lake. The Government decided to improve it. They dug miles of ditches to prevent jeeps etc. from going down the washes. Now there are toll gates, graded ditches, keep out signs and lots of commercial businesses. Compared to what it was in the early 60's: It is a destroyed "National Recreation Area". Just south of Overton, about three miles from the lake there was a warm spring "Rodgers' Spring". In the early 60's it was about 300 feet in diameter and around ten feet deep. Lots of us went swimming there, yes many were skinny-dipping. Sometime in the 1970's the Government decided to improve it. They did much grading, put in a few tables, reduced the size to less than 100 feet across and filled it in so it was less then 3 feet deep. Today it is: "Closed".
Far and above the worst disaster to a natural resource is Government agencies making improvements. I could site similar disasters at: Yosemite, Roosevelt Lake west of Phoenix, Flaming Gorge in North East Utah, and many more.
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