Tip of the Iceberg

The other day I was reading an article in the High Country News about a planned pipeline through the Ruby Mountains for the delivery of natural gas. The quick synopsis of the article was that the normal “watch dog groups” and other eco-nut groups were not fighting this pipeline but supporting it. What? Really? Well the motive behind their silence is due to the fact that the company working the project offered to pay 22 million over ten years to these groups in the name of conservation. Well hell, if I was bribed I would keep my mouth shut too. 

Whether it’s channels like the Land and Water Conservation Fund created by congress which diverts federal excise taxes from offshore oil and gas development operations, money generated by the sale of “disposable” BLM land, an up and coming energy bill with new taxes, the prospects of a new climate change bill with its own new assemblage of taxes or just plain bribery by big business; all are working to create a pool of money in the name of conservation. With this new capital resource every overeager, fanatic preservationist is lining up to fund “their” project. The means may differ but the end result is the same.

I am more of an environmentalist than most honest people are comfortable with, however, I won’t be misled to believe that these groups and the agenda of special interest isn’t really about chasing dollars and power. I have seen with my own eyes the dollars blown on the tortoise and Moapa Dace to be fooled into thinking that the endangered species best interests are at heart. I was directly affected by “Clinton's Legacy” so I have a hard time believing that politicians are worried about public lands and conservation but stimulated by the hopes of writing their name in American History‏ for their own notoriety.

It’s in the name of conservation however it’s in the spirit of money, greed and power. There is more than meets the eye…

We need to find a way to cut through all the wearied rhetoric and political nonsense and work to provide valid solutions to the real problems that face our public lands. 

Appropriate Wilderness

Appropriate Wilderness -- Additional Wilderness Designations within Gold Butte

How is it that the managing agency of public lands that encompass Gold Butte finds, in a recommendation to congress that no lands are suitable for Wilderness yet our political representatives have given their support for creating vast amounts of new wilderness?

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is one of the federal agencies that are tasked with managing our public lands. Over time The BLM has worked to assess all lands managed by them to find areas that would be suitable for Wilderness by definition of the 1964 Wilderness Act. These would be areas recommended to congress that fit the definition of wilderness as outlined in public law 88-577 for the Wilderness designation. The Gold Butte region was part of this inventory.

As part of the CLARK COUNTY CONSERVATION OF PUBLIC LAND AND NATURAL RESOURCES ACT OF 2002 (PL 107-282) Congress created two wilderness areas totaling just shy of 30,000 acres.

The BLM’s research and documentation did not show that any other areas within the roughly 350,000 acres of the Gold Butte region were suitable for wilderness. This was due to lack of wilderness characteristics. Some of these characteristics include naturalness, solitude, primitive and unconfined recreation, special features, and manageability.

In a quote from the Virgin Mountain Instant Study Area on naturalness, “The area does not appear natural due to mining related activities, access roads, ways, trails and extensive range improvements…These intrusions tend to dominate the area.”

These reports can be found by clicking the following links:

Virgin Mountain Instant Study Area

Recommended suitable: 0 Acres

Million Hills Instant Study Area

Recommended suitable: 0 Acres

All Wilderness Study Areas in Nevada

This is not to say that these areas are not beautiful or even magnificent, however they do NOT fit the definition of Wilderness as outlined by Congress.

However special interest groups continue enthusiastically to chip away at the West and persistently Bend the facts to fit THEIR theories and not their theories to the fit facts

We were assured after PL 107-282 was passed in 2002 that this was it. Yet here we are looking at a new proposal with an additional 130,000 acres of public lands managed by the BLM plus 90,000 acres of Park Service lands that surround much of Gold Butte for additional Wilderness in Nevada.

I am actually more pro wilderness than most would actually believe, however I only support its designation when it is supported with the appropriate characteristics, genuine conservation and common sense NOT dollars and cents.

I am going to have to spend more time researching SNPLMA and the MSHCP and see how they are funded and who and what projects they spend "their" money on.

I am also interested to see how the back room dealing of the Meadow Valley Wash and Bitter Springs proposal pans out?

These designations should be protections FOR me not FROM me.

There has been much talk about ‘appropriate access’ yet no one is asking about appropriate wilderness.