BLM Holds Scoping Meeting In Overton

About 40 people attended a Public Scoping Meeting held in Overton on Thursday, February 11, to provide public input on a revised Resource Management Plan (RMP) being done by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Las Vegas and Pahrump Field Offices. The plan will establish land use management policy on more than 4 million acres of public lands in Clark County and Southern Nye County. BLM Las Vegas Field Office Manager, Bob Ross was in attendance at Thursday’s meeting.

One of the major factors of change in recent years has included a greater demand for lands on which to build renewable energy generation facilities such as solar and wind plants, Ross said.

“It has become something of national importance to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and increase our use of green energy,” Ross said.

Ross explained that the new RMP would specify what areas are appropriate for renewable energy production and what areas should be avoided and excluded for such use. “The existing plan is silent on renewable energy development,” Ross said. Everything we do must be in conformity with existing plan documents. If the plan is silent, it can leave us as administrators scratching our heads.”

Ross emphasized the importance of the public making comments into the process. On the previous night, the Moapa Valley Town Advisory Board (MVTAB) had unanimously approved a draft letter to be sent as a public comment to the RMP process.

The letter, which had been drafted by Partners in Conservation Administrator, Elise McAllister, emphasized a desire on behalf of the community’s leadership to protect public lands without closing off the areas to the public. It stressed that residents of rural areas place tremendous value on their nearby public lands.

“Though its true that most of the mining and ranching uses are now gone, the rural residents still have a traditional connection to the land,” Elise McAllister told MVTAB members when she presented the draft letter.

The MVTAB letter also requested that any locally generated plan documents that have been recently completed, or that are currently in process, be incorporated and considered in the RMP process. These documents included the Moapa Valley Community Visioning Plan, the recently completed M.V. Trails Study and Open Space Plan, the Roads Designation Environmental Assessment Statement, the Logandale Trails Management Plan as well as the ongoing Valley of Fire State Park Master Plan.

At Thursday’s meeting, Ross also opened up the floor to comments from the public. Comments from attendees were centered on retaining access to public lands.

Logandale resident Jason St. John, who is involved in organized desert racing events, made a comment about the dwindling areas that were available for OHV use in the region.

“In the past we have been promised that existing traditional roads and trails would remain open,” St. John said. “But we have 40 years worth of records of racing events in the region. We can’t race on a majority of those courses anymore.”

Ross encouraged St. John to submit records of these routes as comments to the RMP process. “Part of what we are doing here is digging up as much existing stuff as we can find,” Ross said.

MVTAB member Guy Doty who was in attendance at Thursday’s meeting emphasized that the BLM should tune its ears to the voice of the common people in the area and not to large special interest groups. “The common public is not organized,” Doty said. “We are the people who actually live here and sho have enjoyed our public lands for generations. We are not a political action group, just the people.”

Doty emphasized that merely closing off areas punishes the majority of the people who are following the law and not causing trouble on the land. “The solution to this problem is not to close the public out of the land and punish everyone,” Doty said. “Rather it is law enforcement. We need to enforce the laws that are already there and keep a minority of the people from destroying our lands.”

The public comment period for the initial phase of the RMP process will continue until February 28.

Comments may be submitted by email to SNDO_RMP_Revision@blm.gov, by fax to 702-515–5023 or by mail to Bureau of Land Management; Attn: Carolyn Ronning; 4701 North Torrey Pines Drive; Las Vegas, Nevada 89130-2301.

Information about the RMP process is available at www.blm.gov in the Southern Nevada District Office section.