"Communities
all over Colorado are finding that they are losing access to their
public lands because of special interests groups activities. Those
groups work quietly and craftily within the law to create roadless
areas and the average citizens who use the areas often don't even
know it until it's too late." Better-Community-News
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Colorado
 Thanks
to Better-Community-News for sharing this important
story:
Powderhouse Becomes Powder Keg
WESTERN
COLORADO - About 45 angry residents gathered to protest the closure
of Powderhouse Road in Pitkin Colorado. The sleepy town is a
launching place for all kinds of outdoor tourist activities as well
as a home to residents who grew up roaming the mountains on their
ATVs and snowmobiles.
David Justice,
who was at the event, said, "This road has been here longer than
the forest service has even existed...They tore it up with rippers
and heavy equipment. It's an outrage!"
District
Ranger, John Murphy said, "The road had been scheduled for
closure since 2010 due to the (5-year) travel management survey that
was done for the Gunnison National Forest. The plan wanted (sic.) to
create a very large, uninterrupted area for the wildlife."
When asked why
the wildlife needed a "large, uninterrupted area," and what
a "large, uninterrupted area" would accomplish for the
wildlife, Ranger Murphy stated that he didn't know the benefits of
such a closure (since he is not a wildlife specialist).
Murphy arrived
in Pitkin after the travel management plan had been made. He said
many groups participated in the travel plan survey. He listed the
environmentalist and other special interest groups that have worked
to take away motorized access to the public lands for decades, all of them are from out of
the local area. Their input was the basis of the
travel management plan that closed the roads.
Murphy said, "Very
little input was received from the locals who use the trails.
Most of them didn't even know the process was going on at the time.
Now they're furious that they can't use the trails they've always
been used."
Murphy said
his neighbor, who had participated in the travel management process
years prior, was irate at the process because they didn't listen to
what the local citizens wanted, only to the special interest groups.
Murphy
mentioned that he has received complaints that the use of the road
has been used in the past to fight fires that could threaten the
town. He also said that a citizen told him that the road had always
been a part of their evacuation plans in the event of fire and that
citizen was concerned that his escape route would be cut off.
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Standing Together
No
one of our counties, cities or states should have to stand up to this
on our own. This is precisely why many "jurisdictional
giants" have come together to form the ALC, to harness our
collective jurisdictional leverage to secure and defend local control
of land access, land use, and land ownership. Please join with
us and be part of the only solution big enough!
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Share your story with us. Help us educate the
nation.
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Please Become a Member of The American Lands
Council today and be a part of restoring the balance of power as it
was established in our nation's Constitution. It has been done
before. It will be done again.
Click
here to see a summary of the various
membership levels and the benefits associated with each.
Don't
ask
what all you can do. Just do all you can
do. And that will be enough.
Sincerely,
Ken Ivory
American Lands Council
American Lands Council
The links within the email are not activated, but you can click here --> to become a member of the American Lands Council: http://americanlandscouncil.org/join.html
