A reluctant rebellion in the Utah desert
For ATVers at Recapture Canyon, realpolitik meets out-of-town zeal
May 13, 2014 by Jonathan Thompson
... San Juan County contains some of the most spectacular landscapes in the United States, maybe the world (as is evidenced by the huge number of foreign tourists who visit each year). It is bordered on the West by the Colorado River and Lake Powell; the San Juan River slices through its southern edge; countless canyons drop out of the Abajo mountains and snake their way through seas of slickrock. Much of the land has been inhabited by Native Americans for centuries. The county holds a higher concentration of Ancestral Puebloan dwellings than just about anywhere else, and is now home to the Utah Navajos, the White Mesa Utes (a branch of the Ute Mountain Utes) and the San Juan Paiutes. Native Americans make up about 50 percent of the county’s population of 15,000 ...
And things can still get ugly. In 2012, the grassroots group Great Old Broads for Wilderness received threats when they held an event in San Juan County. Earlier that year, the BLM physically blocked a roadway in the county with a dirt berm; the county alleged that the closure was on a county road, and was illegal. After locals “outed” the BLM official allegedly responsible for the closure, someone tore around the official’s yard on an ATV, and a fellow student harassed the officer’s kid at school. In a county meeting that March, as the officer explained that the agency had blocked a user-created trail, not a county road, he was met with general hostility, even from a local sheriff’s deputy. After the officer asked that personal attacks on him and his property cease, Lyman responded: “That (personal attacks) should not happen … but I do understand how you might take something like that (the road closure) personally.” He then invoked the 2009 raids on pothunters and the Recapture issue, which, of course, is at the root of the May 10 protest ...
The canyon was long open to motorized travel, but over time the historic trail up the canyon bottom had fallen into disrepair or been inundated by beaver ponds. So in 2005 some locals went in and constructed a new trail (or maintained an old one, depending on whom you ask). The work damaged archaeological sites and raised a furor among conservationists, and two of the trail builders were ultimately fined $35,000. In 2007, the stretch of the Recapture trail was closed to motorized travel. Adding salt to the wound, the local BLM field office in 2008 issued a new management plan closing to motorized access all land that was not explicitly designated as open, a reversal of the previous policy. Though that left thousands of miles of roads and trails open to motorized use, it chafed many locals. “That’s like going from you’re innocent until proven guilty, to you’re guilty until proven innocent,” says Lyman ...
Lyman went beyond the closure, but stopped when he came to the end of a county road that follows the path of a water pipeline, thus avoiding a smaller and more sensitive trail, where the potential for impact to archaeological resources was far greater. But Bundy and others tore down the path, paying no heed to the sagebrush that had grown into it since the closure. Lyman watched them go, saying he wished they hadn’t. Perhaps he was thinking about what Stefnee Turk, of the San Juan Alliance, said during the rally: “I want to ask that we be respectful and responsible… the consequences, negative and positive, will reflect on the people of this community,” not on those who could just load up their trucks and go back home ...
http://www.hcn.org/articles/is-san-juan-countys-phil-lyman-the-new-calvin-black
= new reply since forum marked as read
the 2009 Public Land Travel Plan was implemented all over the west and closed a whole bunch of illegally created roads and trails. These clod-heads think that they are the ultimate arbiters of Public Land Policy and use. Out here there has been so much damage to our fragile soil profile, fragile vegetation and untold fields of ancient artifacts and Native American sacred land that it should piss off all citizens and shame those who participate in these shenanigans.
It wasn't like there weren't numerous public hearings, comment periods and announcements. this had to be done because the ATV crowd things that all the land is theirs for their pleasure and screw everyone who isn't them.
Ti,e to stop stroking their egos and put them in their place with regard to who the US citizenry is and how the public lands trust actually works. these public lands were never in the possession nor were they ever administered by the states. These clowns need to get their heads out of their hind ends and suffer the consequences of their ignorance. If all that happened was that some illegal trails were closed (for good reason) they should thank their lucky stars they haven't been prosecuted and fined more than they have been.
And thanks for the historical account, it's pretty much what happened back then.
