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Last Updated 02/23/2010
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Record Courier Staff Reports, March 19 2008 Wilderness proposal alarming Editor: Wellington's Phil Tucker is correct in being alarmed about the proposed land bills being presented by Sens. Reid and Ensign that will tie up hundreds of thousands of acres of public lands in Lyon, Mineral and Esmeralda counties as congressionally designated "wilderness areas." Few, if any, of these lands meet the test of the criteria established by Congress in 1964 and most of them were rejected by both the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service as not being acceptable for wilderness area designation. For years now Nevada's congressional delegation, primarily Reid and Ensign, have been riding through the rural counties of Nevada (read: the least populated and least able to defend themselves) passing these federal land bills that purport to be beneficial to the respective counties when the true reason for the bills has either been to designate massive amounts of land as wilderness areas or to rob the counties of water for Las Vegas. Now Congressman Dean Heller has jumped on the bandwagon that goes through our smallest communities touting their plans they tell us will "help" us po' folk. It is insulting that these legislators think that Nevadans living in the rural sectors of the state are so stupid they can't see through this thinly veiled plan of theirs. Contrary to what they must believe, we do read the newspapers and we do have contact with our sister counties that have already endured these types of land grabs. Be wary, Nevada! The next county they come after may be yours. Check out www.wildnevada.org. (They already have portions of Washoe, Pershing and Churchill counties slated for future actions.)
Sue Silver Wilderness designation will reduce access Editor: This is an open letter to Sens. John Ensign, Harry Reid, Mike McGinness, Congressman Dean Heller, Assemblymen James Settelmeyer, Tom Grady and U.S. Forest Service personnel: We, The Smith Valley Park and Recreation Board Members and Friends of Dressler Park, are writing to express our concern with respect to the Lyon/Mineral county lands bill, as well as the Esmeralda County wilderness issue, that is being supported by lobbists for the Nevada Wilderness Project. Our concern is that if this bill should become law, vast amounts of public land in Lyon, Mineral and Esmeralda counties will be designated wilderness areas. A wilderness designation will almost terminate public recreational access to fishing, equestrian activities, camping, hunting, off-roading, wood cutting, bird watching and make livestock usage so difficult as to be, for all intents and purposes, impossible. We fear that our families and our children will not ever be able to enjoy the wonders of discovering the beautiful country that first drew us to the area. A large amount of our local population is a retirement community who will also have to say goodbye to enjoying our spectacular surrounding mountains because they are not physically capable to walk and or hike into the areas they are so accustomed to enjoying. The financial losses to individual businesses, ultimately, to Nevada counties,will be devastating. We understand that you may be in support of this legislation in the Senate. We hope that you realize that the Nevada Wilderness Project has made no effort to contact the community members that this proposal will affect or the park and recreation board on this issue. We are concerned with the fact that the Nevada Wilderness Project had no local community members on their board. In fact, it consists of members from outside of our community, three members from Las Vegas; one from Reno; one from Huntington Beach, Calif.; one from Durango, Colo.; and one from Incline village who has lived there less than four years. We, the board members and local residents, request your assistance in opposing this ill-advised legislation.
Jerry Rosse, |
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