Free Republic

TOMBSTONE — The City of Tombstone is embroiled in another dynamic showdown. The “Town too Tough to Die” is now squaring off against the U.S. Forest Service in what could be the fight of its life, a battle over water rights. More than 500 shovels have arrived in Tombstone from all over the country and are being stored at Tombstone City Hall. This photo was taken about two weeks ago, and the shovels just keep coming in. (Photo courtesy of George Barnes) On Friday and Saturday, a group called the Shovel Brigade will gather in Tombstone and head to the...

There isn't much constructive activity the radical environmentalist bureaucracy won't prevent — not even guarding the border from drug cartels and economically unsustainable hordes of colonists: Federal land managers in Arizona, where about half of all illegal alien apprehensions took place in 2010, denied a U.S. Border Patrol station permission to build a road deemed necessary for "achieving or maintaining operational control" of an area along the southwest border. According to an April 15 report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), land managers, including officials from the Department of Interior and Department of Agriculture, denied permission to build the road...

Mountain bikers worry proposal could kill ‘epic ride’. Many of the area's skilled mountain bikers are concerned about a proposal that would ban them from some of their most-prized local trails, including a segment of the Colorado Trail. The proposal is part of a draft plan by the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service to guide management of 2.4 million acres of public lands in Southwest Colorado. The plan recommends classifying 55,000 acres as new wilderness, including 51,000 acres west of Hermosa Creek. Congress is ultimately responsible for establishing wilderness areas, which cannot be used by motorized vehicles...

Bumper stickers that read "No Moo in '92," and "Cattle Free by '93" signaled the open warfare between Western ranchers and environmental groups in the last decade. The war is still raging. Groups such as the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance, the Wilderness Society, the Sierra Club and others set out years ago to free the West of cattle, sheep and the ranchers responsible for them. A favorite tool used by these well-funded organizations is the Wilderness Act of 1964. This law was enacted originally to preserve 9 million acres of wilderness so "future generations could see what their forefathers had...

<p>The wildfires that blackened more than 1,200 square miles of Southern California this past week were not simply "acts of nature." For most of the 20th century, the Forest Service has failed to properly manage our national forests while treating fire as a virtual moral evil (the California fires are burning in or near four national forests). Unless these policies are reversed, fires that consume millions of acres and inflict billions of dollars in damage will become more and more common.</p>

Wilderness Bill ProposedLegislation: Sen. Boxer seeks to add 2.5 million acres to state's highly protected public land. Opposition is expected. By BETTINA BOXALL TIMES STAFF WRITER May 11 2002 Another 2.5 million acres of public land in California would receive federal wilderness protection under legislation proposed by U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer--potentially the third-largest such addition in the state since passage of the Wilderness Act nearly 40 years ago. The wilderness bill, which Democrat Boxer plans to introduce next week in the Senate, would ban logging, construction and motorized vehicles in 77 areas of the state, ranging from the North...