Posted on 02/14/2002 7:28:34 PM PST by kitchen
A little bit about North Sand Hills and the region. Kremmling is about 35 miles north of Silverthorne; Silverthorne being the first exit west of Eisenhower Tunnel on I70 and the beginning of access to the major ski areas of the Colorado Western Slope. Kremmling has non of that... rather a community based on logging, ranching, and mining; and the railroad yard that moves these products. The sawmill/waferboard plant closed down a few years ago and really crippled this town. It's now known as the best place to stop for gas and a restroom break between Denver and Steamboat Springs. North Sand Hills is one of the few places left for OHVs to run sand dunes and draws people from near and far. Services are few - a choice of Kremmling or Walden, 20 miles west and then half way to Wyoming. In Summer it's the trailers of 4-wheelers, dirtbikes, sand buggies and Jeeps; Winter brings the trailers filled with snowmobiles. Fall is big game season for muledeer, elk, and moose. (Any road closures will effect hunting access.) If the BLM has their way, a lot of people will take their recreation dollars elsewhere.
The BLM website is down until such time as the Bureau of Indian Affairs can prove that Indian Trust Fund Information on their legacy system is secure from hackers. This may be good news! With their website offline, how can BLM inform the public of their plans? Seems to me that a moratorium on implementing additional sweeping land regulations is in order!
Call your congress critter - (800) 648-3516 - and ask them to restrain the BLM. Pick one or two of the issues above, massage from your perspective, and let 'em have it. Call Senators Wayne Allard (R-CO) and Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-CO), and Congressman Scott McInnis (R-CO). Ask them to send their staff to these meetings to keep an eye on the BLM. Tell them you support multiple use of federal lands - not unreasonable restrictions on public access. Ask them to demand additional public hearings and hold those hearings in accessible locations and at times real working people can attend. Demand an additional comment period - better yet, demand a moratorium on new regulations until the BLM can prove they can comply with the intent of public notice requirements without their website!
Thanks for your help.
You are right, however, in ascribing complicity by the nature conservancy in creating this Great Sand Dunes fiasco. They were about to circle the current monument and consequently generated significant leverage. Allard, I feel, recognized that this was a done deal and jumped in with hopes of picking up a few green votes. The political reality in Colorado is that sufficient green-leaning blue-zone immigrants have tilted the playing field to the left enough that a state-wide politician needs some enviro-points, even those considered otherwise conservative.
As an aside, one of these ranches controlled by the nature conservancy likely has the most expansive and complicated - but perfectly designed and efficient - corral systems in the world. Members of the family claim that it was capable of easily handling 10,000 cattle per day! Under the careful stewardship of the nature conservancy, it is now rotting and rusting away. Another candidate for inclusion in Buffalo Commons or destined for large predator introduction.
Lock 'em up!
Thanks editor-surveyor
Well, we all have to come to realize that this is the King's land, and what right do we serfs have to that land? None, of course, we're mere peasants.
Just keep tightening the noose, all you JBT's.
Acuerda puerca, le llegue su noche buena...as a friend of mine is fond of saying about JBT's.
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