By WESLIE STRATTON
Moapa Valley Progress
Clark County Commissioner Tom Collins hosted a town hall meeting on Monday, Dec. 22. The meeting was an effort to provide community members the opportunity to voice opinions and concerns regarding the Bureau of Land Management Draft Resource Management Plan (RMP) currently under consideration.
The 2400-page Draft RMP identifies land uses for public land within Clark and Nye counties that are under the management of the BLM. The plan revision provides management direction on over 3.1 million acres which will be in place for the next 15-20 years. Issues addressed in the plan include recreation areas, Areas of Critical Environmental Concern, travel management, lands with wilderness characteristics and more.
“This is your opportunity to provide information,” Collins said to those at the meeting.
A BLM representative explained that the RMP revision is on step four of an eight or nine step process. This meeting was a chance for the public to give feedback on the plan, he said.
“Not that they hate it or that they love it,” he said, specifically asking for well informed and specific comments detailing problems with the plan document.
The RMP is still a year or two away from becoming a “final product,” he said.
The meeting then consisted entirely of public comments from those in attendance. Many stood only to express a strong dislike for the BLM in general and voiced statements about the need to eliminate any and all BLM control over much of the public land in the state.
Recurring themes emerged during the meeting. The most commonly heard comment referred to what was considered an insufficient public comment period on the RMP document.
The comment period officially began on Oct. 10, 2014 and has recently been extended from a January 7 close date to Feb. 6, 2015. But many were still not satisfied with the month extension saying that the BLM has had four to five years to produce a 2,000 plus page document. Many requested that a 12 month public comment period extension should be given. Some claimed that the voluminous length of the document was done by design to confuse and discourage the public from extensive study and in-depth understanding of the RMP.
Another theme was a strong opposition to any new additional Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC) designations. Many commenters described generations of family traditions involving time spent in the desert recreating. Many of these people expressed a desire for continued access to these traditional public land uses.
Among those opposing additional public land closures was U.S. Congressman-elect Crescent Hardy (R-Nev).
“I’m a fifth generation son of farmers and ranchers,” Hardy said. “My ancestors were real managers of the land.”
He said that ranchers who grazed cattle in open southern Nevada land developed watering systems that benefitted, not only the cattle, but the surrounding wildlife.
“All wildlife benefits from that water,” Hardy said. “That’s what real management is about.”
Hardy said that wildlife not originally native to Nevada followed the pioneers who opened the land.
“We are also stewards of the land and we do a pretty good job of it,” he said, adding that when cattle was free to graze, there were numerous tortoises that dwelt safely on the land.
“Are we really managing or trying to take over,” Hardy asked.
Others in attendance agreed with Hardy’s comments and requested the adoption of Alternative 1 which is defined as a “status quo option” or the continuation of the current management direction.
“The only endangered species we don’t see in the wild anymore is humans,” said one attendee of the meeting. “We are being evicted!”
While they were fewer in numbers, there were some at the meeting who spoke in favor of protecting lands with wilderness characteristics and designating additional ACEC.
“We’re not just managing for here and now, we’re managing for the future,” one attendee said. “If the BLM doesn’t step in to protect what is endangered now, species will die out and not be available for enjoyment in the future.”
Another major theme was that of OHV use in Clark County and southern Nevada. Clark County resident Charlie Tassome provided a map of the state with wilderness areas circled in red. They covered a significant portion of the map.
“I think that we have enough,” he said. “They’re killing the OHV industry.”
Tassome and many others made the point that OHV events, and the sport in general, provide huge amounts of revenue for the state. Events will dwindle with an increase in regulations that are being proposed in the various alternatives of the RMP, he said.
Logandale resident and Moapa Valley Water District trustee Lindsey Dalley spoke “as a citizen and as a member of the water board.”
“The proposed alternatives are a collection of negative alternatives,” he said.
Dalley expressed concerns regarding access to water district utilities via BLM managed land. He requested that the RMP address the preservation of St. Thomas Living Culture, drought conditions and flooding, and emergencies of the surrounding communities.
Since the meeting was designed for public comment only, the comments and questions asked received no response from BLM representatives in attendance. But notes were taken which would be considered in the finalization of the RMP, BLM representatives said.
The public has until Feb. 6, 2015 to review the RMP and make informative comments. Additional information is available on the project’s website at http://tinyurl.com/qzvaht7.
