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Keep Black Rock Desert and High Rock Canyon Wild and Primitive! Send
comments to the BLM!
See our sample
letter
Today, the Black Rock Desert-High Rock
Canyon area of northern Nevada is primitive
and remote. It remains much as it was
when settlers moved through it a century
and a half ago -- its landforms varied
and beautiful, its wildlife diverse and
vigorous.
Congress created The Black Rock Desert
and High Rock Canyon Emigrant Trails National
Conservation Area (NCA) in 2000. The Sierra
Club has worked for decades to obtain
increased protection for the outstanding
historic, wilderness, and other values
on this amazing stretch of northwest Nevada.
Now we need your help
to make sure that they stay that way.
Background: A Window
on the Emigrant Experience
Canyons, playas, and mountains are all
part of the remote 1.2-million-acre Black
Rock Desert and High Rock Canyon region
north of Reno. The famous Applegate-Lassen
Emigrant Trail, which runs through the
heart of the region, was the route to
the California Gold Rush and other waves
of western migration. The trail and its
scenery remain much the same as they were
150 years ago during the peak of use.
The area also contains a wealth of prehistoric
remains, including those of sabertooth
tigers and giant woolly mammoths. Today's
inhabitants include pronghorn, wild horses,
raptors, sage grouse, bighorn sheep, cougars,
and many others. The region provides some
of the largest breeding areas for sagebrush-dependent
desert songbirds. Its warm springs offer
critical habitat for threatened and endangered
plants and pupfish.
The Black Rock Desert and High Rock Canyon
Emigrant Trails National Conservation
Area was designated as part of the National
Landscape Conservation System within the
BLM. The agency has reached an important
phase in planning for the NCA's management.
In March 2003, the BLM released a draft
Resource Management Plan and Environmental
Impact Statement (RMP/EIS) for the NCA
and 10 associated wilderness areas.
None of the alternatives in present form
fully honors the intent of the legislation
by which Congress set the area aside.
A new alternative needs to develop to
fully comply with the intent and legislation
that created the NCA. A wild place filled
with history and the spirit of adventure
must not be turned into something resembling
a manicured tourist attraction.
The management plan's final shape will
depend, in part, on what the BLM hears
from the public in written
comments in the coming weeks.
Send
in comments today!
Please
take a few minutes and ask the BLM to
retain the elements of its draft management
plan that help protect the NCA's ecology,
wildlife, solitude, and species -- but
also to make crucial changes to ensure
the area remains a tribute to the past.
If you have time to write your own comments
(and we hope you will) you can draw from
the sample letter below. Your words are
the best and most influential words. The
more specific, substantive and detailed
your comments are, and the more they focus
on particular sections or ideas in the
Draft EIS/RMP, the more effective they
will be.
You can find on the complete drafts of
all the BLM's proposed alternatives by
clicking
here.
You can mail, email, or fax your comments
to the BLM at these addresses:
Mail:
Dave Cooper, NCA Manager
ATTN: NCA Plan
BLM Winnemucca Field Office
5100 E. Winnemucca Blvd.
Winnemucca, NV 89445
Fax: (775) 623-1503
Email: brhrcomments@bah.com
SAMPLE
LETTER- Please make changes!
Dear Mr. Cooper:
Thank you for the opportunity to comment
on the draft Resource Management Plan/Environmental
Impact Statement (RMP/EIS) for the Black
Rock-High Rock Emigrant Trail National
Conservation Area. I urge you to develop
a final management plan that follows the
legislation that created the NCA as a
place that is, and should remain, wild,
primitive and undeveloped. The plan's
emphasis should be on protection of this
wonderful place's historical, scientific,
and natural values.
I don't feel any of your alternatives
fully protect and manage the NCA in accordance
with the legislation. I do not support
the No Action Alternative and Alternative
C. I generally support the concepts in
Alternative A with the addition of adaptive
management language that is well defined.
A key to the management of the NCA
has to be preserving the emigrant trail
experience. Criteria should be established
for evaluating trail remnants, inventorying,
and viewshed management to retain the
settler experience. Many of the proposed
alternative threaten that through road
upgrades, increased signage, and development
of facilities.
I do not support two types of zones
in designated Wilderness Areas. All Wilderness
Areas have the highest protection afforded
to them through the Wilderness Act and
those protections should not be compromised
through a less protective zoning. These
areas should be clearly marked on maps
and signed where incursion could occur
on the ground.
The transportation plan should
be developed with full public participation.
It should take into account ways to retain
the primitive nature of the NCA, not increase
vandalism, wilderness incursions, and
other illegal activities.
I support efforts to restore
the spring systems and provide water for
wildlife. The removal of unnecessary structures
should be implemented for complete site
restoration.
The NCA should be managed to
protect and enhance native wildlife.
The NCA should not be managed
as a Special Recreation Management Area.
The management objective should be conservation,
protection, and enhancement of the emigrant
trail and surrounding areas. Recreation
is a value mentioned in the legislation,
but it is not the primary value.
The RMP should not propose new
signs, roads, road upgrades, on-site interpretation,
visitor services, and developed campgrounds
within the NCA. These services would be
better suited and contribute to the economies
in surrounding communities.
Please consider providing maps,
informational brochures, self-guided tours,
and cautionary information at kiosks at
each of the major entry points to the
NCA. This is not proposed in any of the
Alternatives, and would obviate the need
for signs and interpretation within the
NCA.
I support limited OHV designated
areas. With enforcement and monitoring,
OHV use can still be maintained in areas
while protecting the trails as sensitive
cultural and biological sites.
To protect the water resources
in the NCA, I support adding the steams
to the Wild and Scenic River System.
Since controlling fire is very
important in the NCA, I support Alternative
B including considering resource objectives
in fire fighting activities. The use of
heavy equipment should be limited to areas
away from the trail and cultural sites.
I urge you to make sure the final plan
keeps the wild, open, remote character
of the NCA.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment.
Sincerely,
(Your name and address)
Photos courtesy
of Henry Egghart
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