Got this from another forum.




The BLM is planning to close 3,000 miles of ORV trails in MOAB ! Yes you read that correctly....3,000 miles. All closures will be in the area South of I-70. Or basically all the trails we love and enjoy, or that you hope to enjoy in the future...
This story can be read on KSL.com, it posted on 8/29/07

Please pass this on, USA-ALL will be fighting this effort. If your not a member please check out what they do for us, and join!

This is no joke, if we do nothing the Enviro-nuts will take Moab from us...
Thank you for your time. Wolf--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Redrock management: Environmentalists, OHV fans and energy firms likely on collision course
By Patty Henetz
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 08/29/2007 06:29:02 AM MDT


The southern Utah redrock country around Moab is getting a new land management plan, the first in 22 years - a timespan that has seen escalating polarization among wilderness advocates, off-road vehicle enthusiasts and energy development companies.
The Bureau of Land Management last week released its draft resource management plan for 1.8 million acres of federal lands in Grand County and northern San Juan County. At its heart are questions of how to manage all federal land uses to minimize conflict in a region world-renowned for its beauty.
Good luck.
Already, the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance is vowing legal action based on what will happen to wilderness-quality lands and cultural resources such as ancient rock art. And while off-road vehicle enthusiasts haven't yet waved the lawsuit flag publicly, they do claim the draft plan proposes to close too much land to motorized travel.
But BLM officials say that while they have laid out a "preferred alternative," the public needs to understand that the document is just a draft.
"This document is not making decisions," said Shelley Smith, acting field manager for the BLM in Moab. "In the final [plan], we can pick from any alternative.
Four years in the making, the resource management plan draft analysis includes such topics as recreation, motorized travel, mineral development, land
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with wilderness characteristics, wilderness study areas, fire management, wildlife, livestock grazing and special land qualities. It also proposes that 10 segments of the Green, Dolores and Colorado rivers be given wild and scenic designation and outlines the preferred land use for oil and gas leasing.
The plan was last updated in 1985 - before the boom in OHV use, before federal directives to speed oil and gas development, before designation of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, which though in a different region helped stimulate tourism to Utah's southern desert.
That it has taken so long for the revisions will contribute to the public's reaction - shock, even - said Steve Jackson, acting director of the Utah Shared Access Alliance, which promotes off-highway motorized travel on public land.
"We certainly recognize the need to update the management plan," he said
But the preferred alternative would mean "we're going to lose anywhere from 3,000 to 4,000 [miles] of existing routes," Jackson said.
The preferred alternative also would close about 1.5 million acres to unrestricted cross-country travel. Though there would be trails and roads open on the same number of acres, off-roading won't be as satisfying, Jackson said.
On the other side of that issue are conservation groups such as SUWA, whose representatives are appalled at the amount of access the preferred alternative would provide to off-highway vehicles.
Liz Thomas, SUWA's attorney in the Moab area, said her organization analyzed geographic information system modeling and mapping compiled by Grand County and found that 98 percent of BLM land in the Moab field office area below Interstate 70 is less than a mile from a road or trail open to motorized travel. The same analysis showed that 91 percent of the land lay within one-half mile of an OHV trail or a road.
Maps of OHV trails in the Labyrinth Canyon area "look like a spaghetti bowl," Thomas said. Trails are in Hunter Canyon, Ten Mile Canyon, on the ridge above Arches National Park, down stream beds and in river bottoms - "places that are pretty spectacular," she said.
Thomas also pointed out that while the BLM during the Clinton administration identified 266,000 acres outside of wilderness or wilderness study areas as having wilderness qualities, the preferred alternative proposed to manage just 47,000 acres as wilderness-quality. That's an 82 percent cut in the agency's own inventory, she said.
Smith pointed out that the resource plan draft includes an alternative that would keep all 266,000 acres, and reiterated that the preferred alternative wouldn't necessarily be the final choice. As for OHV cross-country access, "it is simply not acceptable to have unlimited, indiscriminate cross-country travel," she said.
The public plays a major part in BLM decision-making, Smith said. Information has been available during the scoping period, in mailings, on CDs and the Internet, where the agency has posted all its background documents, including mineral reports, wilderness characteristic inventories, range and road maps and trail analyses. "We invite people to dig into that data and see for themselves," Smith said.


What's the plan?

The Bureau of Land Management has released its Moab draft resource management plan and environmental impact statement. The plan is available on the Web at www.blm.gov/ut/st/en/prog/planning.1.html.
The Moab Field Office has planned four public meetings in Utah: Moab, Monticello, and Salt Lake City; and in Grand Junction, Colo. The meetings will be held from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the following locations:
* Sept. 25: Grand Center, 182 N. 500 West, Moab
* Sept. 26: Monticello High School, 164 S. 200 West, Monticello
* Sept. 27: Two Rivers Convention Center, 159 Main St., Grand Junction, Colo.
* Oct. 3: Salt Lake City Main Library, 210 E. 400 South, Salt Lake City





PLEASE PASS THIS ON !!!!

 

Yeah I saw it on TRS, sux hopefully something happens

 

Go figure, this state is so *** backwards with their governing its a wonder it still survives.

 

welcome to my world. the world of no trails in Minnesota.

 

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
they cant, that place is known world wide, this is bullsh*t

i was planning on going next spring
i HATE those f*cking tree hugging hippies!!!



i just hope i get to go atleast once..

 

Looks like i'm gunna have to copy larry yet again, and put that sticker of calvin peeing on the word "treehuggers" on my truck.

That makes me mad, I live 6 hours from Moab, and I have never been there and they're trying to close it? What the hell?

 

i say we start planning a trip for it next spring incase its still open then..

let me know when you get that sticker made, i want one.. im going to put below it "this truck gets 12 miles per gallon"

 

This is a quote from your posting.

"Maps of OHV trails in the Labyrinth Canyon area "look like a spaghetti bowl," Thomas said. Trails are in Hunter Canyon, Ten Mile Canyon, on the ridge above Arches National Park, down stream beds and in river bottoms - "places that are pretty spectacular," she said."





I know that people here in Arizona go off the trails making their own. Parts of the desert are a trash dump and then guess what happens, it gets closed. A few a$$holes ruin it for the rest of us and it's not the tree huggers doing it. The problem is a small percentage of off road people think it all belongs to them. Anyone here that decides to make their own trail or leaves trash is the problem and they are to blame. When I go out I bring a garbage bag and take trash out and never make my own trail.

 

i would be willing to spend a weekend just hauling **** outa there.. w/e

i hate that small group of people and the tree huggers who want to close it down for the rest of the people that actually care about the land

 

Here is the TRS link, just for anybody wanting any other info

http://www.therangerstation.com/foru...highlight=moab

 

Agreed, and I know a few others who would do that too.

 

While most of the time, you can usually catch someone doing some "off trail off roading", you still get the uppity "I'm better than you" off road enthusiast who will make a big stink about someones pictures too. Like when I posted the couple threads on this forum about going up the near by mountain, I also posted the same thread on a local offroad forum. The first phucking comment out of one of the users was "Looks like you did some off trail off roading". I went off on him pretty much. Just because a picture makes it look like there is no trail doesn't mean anything. There are a few shots I took that make it look like no trail is there because of thick brush on either side of the trail and the picture was taken from a distance, or the shot itself was off camber from the truck and therefore hiding the trail too. Needless to say I don't associate with the local's because they are a bunch of uptight yuppie dicks, which kinda go's hand in hand with the local Religious demographic.

/Off topic

 

in ORE (off-road enthusiast) magazine on page 4 there is a write up on this, if wheelers (not ALL, but those few) would clean up there act, and act like grown adults on the trails etc... im sure this wouldnt be a problem. the law-enforcment is really get heavy handed out there pullin rigs over, what i find is pidly ****... but thats imo.. its gunna be interesting to see what happens with this especially with a wheelin spot with 40+ years of wheeling.. yes ill admit.. there's been a few times where i have ventured off the trail to explore a little more, but any trash that i've ever had ended up in the back of the truck or in the back of the jeep, me and a few other friends i have that go wheelin are pretty strick on our selves about the trash, and if we see someone throwin trash on the trail.. better believe we say sumthin bout it