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The first few paragraphs say it all.
Our Opinion: Victims of environmentalists
Monday, January 10, 2005 3:00 PM PST
This newspaper has long advocated an intelligent mix of recreational access to such a beautiful natural resource as our desert lands with a measured eye to conservation and protecting the environment.
However, over the last few years, as more and more land has been closed, then opened, then closed, then opened and more and more lawsuits from environmental organizations such as the Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity have aggressively sought to close off as much land as possible, it gets more difficult for us to remain neutral.
For one reason, we understand the economic benefits to Imperial County of keeping open huge swaths of recreational land to off-roaders. We are a poor county, often near the top of the list when it comes to being the poorest. The dollars from off-roaders, whether in the millions or more realistically in the hundreds of thousands, give the Valley a fighting chance in providing the kinds of services and financial stability we'd wish on any other area.
Newly formed groups such as United Desert Gateway, a coalition of local chambers of commerce and other groups, understand this. They understand the need to take advantage of the dunes and the desert areas for the good of our economy, both in prosperous and lean times.
In a couple weeks, Glen Haas of Colorado State University, a leading authority on natural resources who chairs the university's department of natural resource recreation and tourism, will speak to Imperial County leaders about taking full advantage of our desert lands during the Imperial Valley Economic Development Summit on Jan. 27. Summit organizers have said Haas will speak on the untapped economic wellspring we have in our own back yard, that while off-roading and other desert recreation has brought the county economic benefits, we've yet to scratch the surface.
That's why it — the well-being of the county's economy, of which we are a part — angers us to hear of more desert closures; this time it's access to thousands and thousands of acres of washes in the desert near Milpitas Wash, all for the threatened desert tortoise. On Tuesday, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management closed off thousands of miles of washes that stretch through Imperial, Riverside and San Bernardino counties on the order of San Francisco federal District Court Judge Susan Illston. The judge closed the lands until a revised biological opinion on the tortoise is issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
This latest action is a result of a lawsuit by the Center for Biological Diversity and other environmental organizations challenging the Bush administration's management of the tortoise habitat.
What this all amounts to is continued legal loggerheads between environmentalists and off-roading groups, continued on-again, off-again closures of areas of Imperial County desert and the continued potential for the county to miss out on economic opportunities afforded by fair and reasonable access to desert lands. We say fair and reasonable because over the last few years we've yet to see the environmentalists act in a fair and reasonable manner. We wonder if creating such an antagonistic environment actually helps the wonderful plants and animals such as the desert tortoise the environmentalists pledge to protect or if it just makes everyone involved resentful.
We do find it ironic — maybe even sickening — that most of those involved in trying to shut down areas of our own back yard wouldn't know El Centro from El Capitan, Brawley from Boulder, or Glamis from Glasgow. It's the Valley residents who struggle economically, not the cushy biologists filing lawsuits from on high or issuing opinions from behind desks in San Francisco and Tucson.
We've asked it before in this very space, and we're asking again — how much is enough for these environmental groups?