BLM Public Hearing - Fairplay -- FYI

[nebraskadad]

http://www.theflume.com/news/first_five ... 70708.html

I subscribe to THEFLUME and thought i'd better pass it along to you all.

Posted: Friday, May 29, 2015 3:55 pm

Lynda James, Senior Correspondent | 0 comments

Residents of Park County had their first opportunity to participate in Bureau of Land Management revision of its 1996 Royal Gorge Field Office’s Resource Management Plan May 20 in Fairplay by attending an envisioning meeting.

The new plan will be called the Eastern Colorado Resource Management Plan.

The May 20 meeting was facilitated by Colorado Mesa University’s Natural Resource Center Professor Rick Moritz and Director Tim Casey.

The center is a think tank that focuses on human dimensions and their interactions with public lands, Moritz said.

RGFO Manager Keith Berger and BLM Front Range District Manager Tom Heinlein also attended.

Envisioning is a new step in BLM’s planning process that establishes a vision for and key management priorities to be addressed in the RMP.

The purpose of the seven meetings being held across the RGFO boundaries is to learn the local communities’ vision and values as they relate to public lands and BLM’s multi-use mandate.

After brainstorming answers to eight specific questions, participants ranked the answers as to their personal priorities through a clicker exercise.

The answers will be tabulated by meeting and posted at http://www.coloradomesa.edu/naturalresourcecenter.

The questions and brief summaries of answers at the Fairplay meeting are listed below.

In answering, some attendees focused on the South Park Oil and Gas Master Leasing Plan that will be included in the RMP.

What do you like about living in or visiting this area?

Answers covered rural quality of life with peace and quiet, natural and historic resources, lots of open space, low impact recreation, hunting, fishing, unobstructed views and beauty, species diversity, dark skies and pristine water and air.

How do BLM public lands and federal mineral estate management influence these characteristics?

Most answers focused on negative impacts of mineral extraction, wildlife habitat connectivity, quality of life, noise, water quantity and quality.

Other answers included increased tourism and a boost to the economy.

What is your vision of your community’s future in 20 years?

Answers focused on keeping the community, natural and historic resources, robust wildlife populations, way of life and quality of life as intact as it is today.

Others included better telecommunications infrastructure and governments acted responsibly to reduce negative impacts and implement protection strategies.

What is your long term vision for BLM goals in managing lands and minerals?

Answers included separation between recreation types and protecting non-motorized recreation; retaining lands as public and accessible; better enforcement of violations; adequate planning to minimize impacts; and designating appropriate areas as “areas with wilderness characteristics” and “areas with critical environmental concern.”

What are priorities to include in BLM management?

Answers included protection of natural, historical and archeological resources, migratory corridors, wildlife habitat, water supplies; low priority for resource extraction, manage for fuels reduction and fire resilience, strong partnership with other federal, state and local agencies, public accessibility, public education on protecting areas and completing a vigorous Environmental Impact Statement and Decision of Record for the RMP.

What are social, environmental and economic concerns to keep in mind during the RMP process?

Increased use and demand on public lands, Front Range population growth, limited medical and HAZMAT facilities in area, emergency response times, unique management of the field office’s different areas and ecosystems, climate change, transportation, complicated local geology, area ranching and clean drinking water.

What actions in the RMP planning process would positively affect your community?

Continue sharing and publishing information locally, through social media and webinars; expand each comment period to 90 days; link BLM to county website; build on data from other agencies and identify data gaps; facilitate stakeholder groups and release preliminary alternatives for comment and incorporate those comments into the draft EIS before it is released.

What actions in the planning process would negatively affect your community?

BLM ignore residents, critical wildlife habitat, unique ecosystems, water resources and cumulative impacts of actions.

Other answers included categorizing our fragile montane environment the same as other areas and environments; look just at economics over other values; not knowing what the state regulates ; and not interacting with all stakeholders and cooperating agencies.

Next steps

The second step of the planning process is the scoping phase that identifies specific issues and management strategies to address in the RMP.

This phase is scheduled for announcement in early June and completion in September.

A scoping meeting is scheduled for June 23 at the Fairplay Community Center, 5:30-7:30 p.m.

Drafting alternatives and the impact analysis strategy will begin in October and continue through June 2016. A 60-day public review period will follow.

The draft EIS will be developed and released for a 90-day public comment period in 2017.

The final EIS will be developed in 2017 and 2018 with a 30-day public comment period when finished.

The EIS record of decision and the final RMP is scheduled for approval in 2019.

To receive updates on the process, receive the newsletter or submit scoping comments by email, contact ecrmp.comments@blm.gov or call John Smeins at 719-269-8581.

Information on the RMP and maps are on the BLM’s website at http://www.blm.gov/co/st/en.html, click Royal Gorge on the Colorado map.
More about Royal Gorge

ARTICLE: Citizens angry over Army’s High Altitude Mountain Environment Training program

More about John Smeins

ARTICLE: BLM Resource Management Plan update begins

More about Fairplay Community Center

ARTICLE: BLM Resource Management Plan update begins
ARTICLE: Public meeting scheduled on draining Antero Reservoir
ARTICLE: New special event regulations expected by end of 2014
ARTICLE: Citizens Determined to Save McArthur protest at Fairplay Community Center

[russau]

well I guess its time for everyone to speak up and get involved or atleast support those that do fight for our rights.

[Hoser John]

Man alive the attack on mining is getting much worse. Souns like the usual Federal dog and pony show but wow at least you got clickers hi tech man -John

[russau]

This WILL be comeing to everyones state if it is allowed to pass! don't think for a minuet it wont! get involved or get out of the way for those that do get involved! and unless you know the true facts , don't comment until you do! false facts only muddy the water and hinders those that are helping!

[nebraskadad]

I sent this letter to the BLM person.

To John Smeins,

My name is Rex Mueller, I am a recreational prospector and periodically visit Colorado to prospect for gold and gems, and specifically Cache Creek, Fairplay City Beach,
and a couple friends claims on the Arkansas River, Tarry All Creek and other areas of the Central Colorado.

As we own land in the area and intend to build and live in the area, we subscribe to “THEFLUME” and noticed you have posted information and public hearings on BLM activities.

Please inform me of what is being discussed, if there is there is going to be attempts to close off mineral collection activity, I believe it is important to pass this information along to claim owners
and recreational prospectors in the area, not just hold unpublished or locally public public hearings.

I would like to be able to report to several people who have claims on the Arkansas, Beaver Creek, in Park County so they can attend public hearings or at a minimum respond to any potential rule setting.

Rex Mueller

[C-17A]

Rex, et al.,

I attended the BLM envisioning meeting in Salida. It was a totally biased process from start to finish because of how it was structured and run. Simply a "Tyranny of the Majority" event.....and the vast majority of people that showed up were eco-Nazis.

Way too few miners, prospectors, open lands/open access people...

Here's what I recently sent to staffers at Senator Cory Gardner's and Congressman Doug Lamborn's offices, below. I Also participated in the after action feedback survey, with many of my text box comments copied/pasted below as well...

BL: We miners & prospectors absolutely need to get off our butts, attend meetings, voice OUR positions/wants/needs/rights......write our Senators, Congressman, meet them in person.

Believe me, the eco-Nazis show up in droves......scream, yell, make THEIR voices and hate for us known, demand BLM stop all oil & gas development, stop all mining & prospecting.....and save the whales, save the sand fleas, save the planet.

Randy "C-17A"
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From: Randy Witham [mailto:randylwitham@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2015 7:36 AM
To: 'Rego, Jarred'; 'Chuck_Poplstein@gardner.senate.gov'
Cc: 'Anderson, Dale'; 'Thomas, James'; 'jennifer_loraine@gardner.senate.gov'; 'wilsonforhd60@gmail.com'
Subject: BLM ECRMP Envisioning Meeting Evaluation Feedback....
Importance: High

Dear Jarred, Chuck,

I attended the Tuesday evening, 26 May 2015, BLM "envisioning" planning meeting in Salida. BLM says they want to know what WE the public wants BLM to deliver to us in 2035.

Well, sadly, it was setup to favor the "majority" of people in the room from start to finish....which no surprise.....turned out to be extreme environmentalists and animal rights people and those folks only wanting picture perfect soundscapes & landscapes for every square inch of our public lands to be Wilderness........and nobody else doing ANYTHING they want to do.

The bias was off the charts. Jefferson's "Tyranny of the Majority" was in full effect based on the structure of the meeting and questions and voting methodology... Can you say a joke?

Example: The moderator would ask the audience about ....say.....what should be BLM's 2035 priorities. Then he'd write down each and every offered up "priority". No surprise at all he'd document say 20 from the environmentalists/animal rights crowd, 1 from (me) the mining rights crowd, 1 from the open access/past historic uses crowd, 1 from the pro energy/oil/gas crowd. THEN, we'd vote using our clickers & bubble sheets as to relative importance or unimportance of each. NO doubt everything they wanted would be overwhelmingly "important" and everything we wanted would overwhelmingly "unimportant", if one just went by the numbers. Plus the numbers alone would show 20 for the environmentalists and only 3 for anything/anyone else.

I volunteered to take the on-line post meeting survey, sent to me in the e-mail at the bottom.

Below are some of my concerns and feedback I gave the survey folks in the text boxes where I could expound on some of the survey questions. It should give you a sense of how BLM's envisioning/planning for 2035 could be better, should be giving equal weighting to all.

Again, just more reasons I fear BLM will just keep doing what they have been doing since 1992........moving to make it harder, more costly, more prohibitive for us in the gold prospecting/mining/gem collecting/rock hounding communities.....like up at Cache Creek.

V/R,

Randy

Randy L. Witham
Gold Adventures LLC
Buena Vista, CO 81211
1-719-395-2081

------------

Sadly, the format of asking the audience members to offer up an ENDLESS laundry list of X, Y or Z priorities, activities, etc., meant there was a built in bias FOR the majority and the format of "voting" as to the relative importance or unimportance for BLM to consider on these X, Y & Z priorities, activities, etc., again built in the bias even further.

Minority voices like mine were totally drowned out. Jefferson's "Tyranny of the Majority" was in full effect all night!

The nature lovers/extreme environmentalists were the majority, and people like me that wanted BLM to deliver open access, use enjoyment of our public lands to all user groups, use for activities disapproved of by them....like energy development, mining, hunting, shooting, gold prospecting, mining, 4-wheeling, etc., were totally voted down, pooh-pooed, totally made "unimportant" by them in the numbers of THEIR agenda items documented and their over voting.

BLM needs to look at each and every group as equal in voice, even if the horseback riding crowd only had 1 member there, or there was only 1 person advocating for gold prospecting/mining or only 1 person there calling for all past & historic uses of the land to continue.

-------------

BLM needs to hear from ALL user groups.....even if they are a minority vs. the extreme environmentalists, the animal rights crowd.

Public lands belong to ALL the public. NOT just the loud majority calling for nothing but restrictions and prohibitions on all uses THEY disagree with.

Not every single acre of public lands belong to them, for only them to dictate what few if any uses can be or should be allowed. In typical fashion some even called the responsible extraction of oil & gas, mining activities as "raping the land". Ha.

BLM needs to meet the needs of ALL user groups, applying a critical eye to areas that have valuable minerals for mining, timber for timbering, oil & gas for energy development, past uses kept open for 4-wheeling, hunting/shooting sports, on and on...

Every single inch of America's public lands CAN'T be turned into a Wilderness area or a national monument or an animal special use area.

---------------

I'd like to see BLM reach out to al least 1 person from each user group BLM had a duty to support and get more detail on their position(s) and what BLM can and should do for their group going forward toward 2035.

---------------

People should have been segregated into major user groups at the beginning..... Like say some of the following, where folks self-identify as primarily as:

Environmentalists
Animal rights
Hunters/shooters
Fisherman
Hikers
4-WD/AWDers
Horseback riding community
Seniors/access limited
energy, oil/gas
Gold prospecting/mining/gem collecting/rock hounding
rafting/kayaking/float fishermen
Open access to all/past & historic users
etc.

The point being BLM can ID people by groups, weight each group with an equal voice..........and THEN after the mass meeting have a 30 minute breakout meeting one on one with each group or representative to get the greater detail on their concerns, needs, vision for BLM in 2035.

As it was, the majority voice of the extreme environmentalists/animal rights crowd totally drown out everyone else as to the # of issues/concerns offered up AND the voting on them.