you think you got problems?

So i dont know if any of you really care that much... but I thought I'd bring this to your attention: According to Steve Blankenship, the Elbe Hills Department of Natural Resources enforcement officer, our legislature has eliminated $600k from the DNR's general fund. This money represents all of the DNR buget. As you can imagine, without this money there will be no enforcement officers to coordinate with volunteers. IAC funds and grant monies will be lost and all areas overseen by DNR would close. This includes Walker Valley, Reiter Trails, Elbe etc. You must call your congressman today and let your position on this matter be known. The legislative session is scheduled to end Friday. Make the call now ..... 1-800-562-6000 more information here: http://www.snort4x4.com/forum/showt...d=7477#post7477 It's important to me and my friends... so i thought i'd pass this along. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DNR land represents the majority of the hiking, biking, Quad, Motorcycle, Snowmobile and (most importantly ) 4x4ing areas in our state. In recent history, we (the 4x4 community) have been working our little tails off to cooperate with both other offroad use groups and the DNR to correctly manage our public lands and ensure that they are not closed down for future generations. Projects have included trail building, closing off "bypass" and illegal trails, posting signs and information, education projects with the community and preventative maintenance of our public lands. We have managed to dodge several "Sierra Club" legislations such as the Open Sky Wilderness Act which would effectively take a major chunk of PUBLIC property and shut off access to all but the birdwatchers. Unfortunately, the silent majority has been jinxed again, with this latest. By removing the funding for the DNR, our route to proper management of the public lands will be cut off, effectively making all usage outlaw, and bringing us one step closer to the whole deal being classified as Wilderness and offlimits for our children to enjoy. Once classified thus, it's damn near impossible to open the land back up. I'd like to touch on one of my pet peeves in this little debate--- For clarification, MOST off-road users, be they 2 wheel, 4 wheel or whatever, are actually pretty GOOD about minimizing the impact on the land. The Tread Lightly(tm) program and others have really helped educate and address such issues. Unfortunately the majority of the problems (garbage dumping, wetland invasion, etc) that are being heralded by the Sierra Club & associates are really the work of a very small percentage of the land users. In my opinion, proper education and enforcement of the laws are the way to deal with these issues, not Wilderness Acts and etc. In any case, I called and left a bunch of questions for the legislators, they're supposed to get back to me. I'm curious why they'd cut such an important program when there's literally BILLIONS of wasted spending in our state. I'd appreciate it if anybody who cares about keeping public lands PUBLIC would get in contact with the legislators. Thanks, John

I called for ya if that matters any :thumbup

Thanks, every bit helps. I figure if we're all bike geeks, at least a few of you must be into dirt bikes too, or maybe your kids will be. FYI there's probably going to be a rally on May 5th in Olympia if anybody lives down that way. I'll get some details. -J