Radicals taking over off-road policies

The tradition of motorized recreation and travel at Factory Butte has been under attack for years by the radical environmentalists, ever since they first set their greedy gaze upon these public lands and lusted for them to be wilderness.

They launched three major initiatives to displace the people who have recreated here for generations, suffering failure after failure with one knockout punch being delivered by no lesser entity than the U.S. Supreme Court.

Their effort to kick us out in the RAC subcommittee was failing because the USA-ALL plan to maintain the status quo had gained massive support from the local population as well as elected officials. Sensing defeat, they employed the nuclear option of public land dominion, the Endangered Species Act, and found able allies in the Bureau of Land Management to do their foul work.

Cornell Christensen and his spinmeisters at the BLM tried to make this sow's ear look like a silk purse, telling us his implementation of the radical environmentalist's plan through the act is a "win-win" situation. Perhaps he can explain how the reduction of 200,000 acres to 2,300 and the closure of ALL recreation trails around Factory Butte is a "win" for our people. He warns that even the measly 2,300 acres he so generously bestowed will be soon forfeited if the rabble doesn't behave.

He makes the extraordinary statement that his edict does not "close" Factory Butte and that he has just applied some "common sense" rules for the benefit of the traditional users. Such nonsense can only spring from the mind of a bureaucrat detached from reality or blindly driven by a special interest agenda. How convenient for this cacti to emerge just in time to implement an exact duplicate of the radical environmentalists' failed RAC plan.

Let's keep in mind that Cornell had a whole galaxy of possible management options available short of total closure. Since no direct harm to the cacti from vehicle recreation has been shown, he could have simply done nothing. He could have fenced populations in the vicinity of recreational routes. Or he could have closed selected areas where the populations were dense. He did none of these because the cacti are irrelevant to the grand agenda, which is to prepare this area for future wilderness designation.

Despite his claims to the contrary, the process leading to the new "road rules" (meaning emergency closure) was shrouded in secrecy. USA-ALL got its first look at the plan 11 days before its publication. We were amazed that the super-secret cactus map showed none at all around Factory Butte itself, yet this area had to be closed as well. The fix was in on this deal from day one!