BLM CLOSURE ALERT: Update (UPDATE)

Within minutes of posting our last post about the defective BLMs closure maps - Offroading Home received a copy of the response from "Chuck" Patterson about a reader's request for extension. His response and it's inadequacy is below:

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BLM CLOSURE ALERT: Bear Lake TMP (Update)

Thanks to a vigilant reader who actually read a previous post and acted upon it - the BLM has released, on an individual basis, a Google Earth based map of the trails in the Bear Lake Travel Managment Plan under consideration for closure. A mere two weeks before final deadline for comment unless an extension is demanded and granted!

It's a victory, but a small one. I'm not sure how many of you recognized that the Pocatello BLM Field Office, under the direction of Dave Pacioretty [dpacioretty@blm.gov - (208)478-6340], has chosen to do their maps completely different than any other BLM field office has done in the past - and not in a good way! Charles (chuck) Patterson, the Recreation Planner [cpatterson@blm.gov (208)478-6362] is the person managing the TMP.

Instead of giving us a file of the routes they INTEND TO CLOSE under each of the "proposals," their maps try to obfuscate the issue and "spin" it into "these are the trails which will be left open" under two different scenarios. That means that in order to even make sense of what the BLM is trying to do it is UP TO YOU to look at one map and TRY AND GUESS WHAT'S MISSING!!

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BLM CLOSURE ALERT! Bear Lake Travel Managment Plan

For some months Offroading Home has been preparing a post comparing the various citizen unfriendly, if not intentionally deceptive, tactics the BLM uses against offroaders in general and senior riders in particular. It's not quite ready yet but an urgent matter requires this short post about yet another BLM "Travel Management Plan" which is underway. This time it's for the massively popular Bear Lake offroad riding area.   [A more in depth discussion of this TMP is available at: Offroading Home Forum.]

The "Travel Management Plan" – you remember, that is what has nearly universally become the BLMs euphemism for their Democrat-Harry-Reid-backed closure of all offroad trails in America. Legally they are required to do it with full disclosure and include citizen feedback; however, BLM offices have gotten "spin doctoring" and subterfuge to the level of an art form.

We will have more to say about it in the future; but for now, all offroaders, especially those in the area, need to know that:

1- The Pocatello Field office, under the direction of Dave Pacioretty [dpacioretty@blm.gov (208)478-6340] has set a comment deadline one month away – MARCH 24, 2011.

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