Bush admin pushes for mining, ATV's in national parks

[montana500]

No joke.



www.wilderness-sportsman.com

NY times:


"The 194 pages of revisions to the park service's basic policy document suggested by Paul Hoffman, a deputy assistant secretary of the department, could have opened up new opportunities for off-road use of snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles throughout the park system, including Yellowstone National Park, whose roads the Interior Department has kept open to snowmobiles.

Mr. Hoffman's proposals often involved seemingly minor word changes but their effect was nonetheless sweeping. Illegal uses, Mr. Hoffman proposed, must "irreversibly" harm park resources, instead of just harming them. Instead of obligating managers to eliminate impairments to park resources, he proposed that they should "adequately mitigate or eliminate" the problems.

The draft was part of an effort to re-evaluate the park service's core mission and illustrated the continuing tension between the need to preserve park resources and the desire to make them available to the broadest possible public.

The draft would also have added potential hurdles to the procedures for designating new parks. And in its discussion of park service system resources and educational programs, it would have eliminated virtually every reference to the theory of evolution."

[Horse with no Name]

1. I just hope there is something left after Bush is done

decimating our country.
Gawd can we please hurry and get him out of here?

[montana500]

3. one wonders

They have extremists running our parks and forests.

[donco6]

2. I'm not sure which I hate more.

ATVs or mining.

OK, mining is obviously worse, but that incessant ATV whining makes me crazy. And the damage they do to the trails is a crime.