| OCR Text |
Show Letters from our readers . . . Dear Sam, Tourism is a large part of the economy of Moab and persons with trailers and campers are a portion of the contributing factor that helps this economy. Every weekend in this part of Utah persons flock towards us to camp along the river and view some of the scenery that the travel bureau advertises. Others park in commercial campgrounds camp-grounds where they can have hookups for their rigs and others live in luxury in our motels. This is according to each person's right to pursue his way to happiness but what may be correct for one is not necessarily true for another. This country was founded for the right of all to live their own lives as long as they do not interfere with others. Every day a small portion of this right is being taken away by one bureaucracy or another anoth-er but the right to camp without restriction under a tree for shade and near running run-ning water is my main source of enjoyment. The octupus in our midst is again rearing its head, an octupus we invited here, namely the BLM (better known as the Big Land Monster). Mon-ster). This morning on Town Television a part of this huge animal stated to Les Erbes that they were closing what is known to us as Moose Park and to others as Big Bend; that part of the land which people have been using for a campground since this land was settled. However, they are still going to allow picnicking picnick-ing but no vehicles will be permitted and they are going to be kind enough to build a parking area so that we can walk to the river and any wishing to do so can park his camper, trailer, or what-have you in this area. They claim that the brush under the trees is being damaged and it will have to be replanted. Therefore in their wisdom they have decreed that we, the owners of the land, can no longer use it for camping. My contention is that this portion of the river will not be damaged by camping under the trees and that as trailers and campers are self-contained, it is not the camper doing the harm but others who care not for the beauty of the area. These are the people who write with spray cans on the rocks, throw cans, bottles and rubbish by the side of the road, use rifles to shoot the wildlife for sport and in general gen-eral do not care for anyone but themselves. As for the human waste, my answer is for them to build toilets to solve that problem, and provide pro-vide trash cans for disposal of other trash. Hundreds of people each year dream of a weekend spent along our river, and to deny them the pleasure of camping out in Big Bend is to my mind a bigger sin than the slight harm to the bushes. The Lions Park has been closed, now Big Bend, and sooner than you believe possible you are going to be forced to camp on what is called an improved area; asphalt, as-phalt, etc. and the pictures of a camp spot by a waterfall, lake or stream will be just that- nothing but a picture. W. D. McArthur Mr.& Mrs. T. W. Midlam Sr. Dear Editor, Recently there has been considerable news coverage of the Moab International Hang Gliding Meet to be held Fall 1978. This is of some concern to me (and many other experienced exper-ienced hang glider pilots), because I feel Moab may be unfamiliar with the safety aspects of hang gliding and the potential liabilities involved. in-volved. The Color Country of Moab is truly a beautiful spot for both the competitors and the spectators at the meet, but it is also one of the most dangerous places in the world to fly in adverse conditions. Cliffs are terribly unforgiving of even minor errors and the canyon winds can be extremely ex-tremely treacherous. In addition, addi-tion, the beautiful desert is a very delicate ecosystem and is easily upset or destroyed. I'm convinced the United States Hang Gliding Assn. (USHGA) officials can adequately ade-quately determine when the winds and conditions are proper and when it's safe to fly. Only qualified pilots will be allowed to fly the dangerous danger-ous cliffs and there have been no major injuries in any sanctioned national meet in their five year history. Therefore There-fore I won't be worried about the safety of the competitors (if the USHGA will sanction the meet.) I'm confident the Moab promotors and the National Park Service are aware of the ecological problems of having thousands of spectators in the desert and that they will take adequate precautions to protect pro-tect the area during the meet. Hopefully this won't be a problem either. What I do worry about is what happens after the meet: There will be no experienced USHGA officials to check the conditions and regulate the flying. There will be no long-term long-term controls on the environment. environ-ment. (I understand fliers could launch a few hundred yards from Dead Horse Point and not even be under National Nation-al Park jurisdiction.) Thero is no hang gliding organization in Moab to establish safety rules and certainly not a large enough population of fliers to enforce them if they were established. The meet will definitely bring many tourist fliers for years to come. (This will mnke the Travel Council and the Chamber of Commerce Com-merce happy.) There will bo all levels of fliers, many who haven't enough experience to determine deter-mine proper conditions in a place like the cliffs of Color Country. In addition, tho snc-tacle snc-tacle of hang gliders flying in this beautiful area will encourage en-courage many penplo to take up the sport. Good fliers make it look all too easy and as a professional hang gliding instructor in-structor I've seen a number of unsupervised novice fliers advance to difficult areas before be-fore they were ready. This can result in disaster even in more forgiving conditions than Moab's. In Salt Lake City we have an active local hang gliding organization with over 100 members. We have spent the past three years developing safety regulations and promoting pro-moting safe flying in Utah. We have a wonderful record! Yet, several times we have voted down the idea of having a national meet in our area even though there were aggressive promotors and ample financial backing. We felt we still had insufficient safety controls over our flying sites (after three years) and inadequate means to enforce our safety regulations (even with over 100 members.) Therefore I suggest everyone every-one in your area consider the potential problems that can occur long after the International Inter-national Meet is over. Discuss these with the promoters and try to work out adequate long-term long-term safety controls. Otherwise, Other-wise, even though the meet's proceeds go to a good cause, it may be too expensive in terms of lives lost in the long run! Michael Circuit USHGA Certified Instructor Salt Lake City. Utah Dear Sam, For a long time we have been concerned about the amount of land owned or controlled by the federal government, and do you know that they are now thinking about setting up zones of "no growth" around all federal land? We haven't studied how much land the states own, but the federal government owns 760,203,563 acres as of 1974. We figure this would be equal to twenty-six states including Texas, which everybody seems to think is a lot of land. It is 231,000.000 acres more than was in the Louisana Purchase! In other words, Texas, Louisiana and all of the other states east of the Mississippi Mis-sissippi River. Another comparison com-parison would be 15 European countries: Great Britain, Germany Ger-many before WW II, France, Spain, Italy and ten other adjoining countries. All we hear anymore is that we are "out of land" to live on, and within 10 to 15 years, we will have a food shortage. The prediction is that we will import $22 billion worth of agricultural products this year. We watched a television program where they said we might have to experiment with building huge platforms out on the ocean for people to live on! To us such programs are asinine as long as the government owns as much land as it does. What the long range purpose pur-pose is of the federal government govern-ment owning all of this land, we can only guess. It causes inflated prices of all the remaining land to such an extent that very few people can afford even enough land for a home, but yet every year they have to have another park, wilderness area or refuge!! re-fuge!! Of course, there goes more land off the tax rolls and up go taxes to pay someone to maintain it. In tho process there is no telling how many families are sent on their way to towns and cities that are already overcrowded. Did you know that it is being considered to make a wilderness area here in southeastern south-eastern Utah? Do you realize how many people that are in the agricultural business would be forced to give up their farms and ranches that have been operating for generations? gen-erations? We believe that 3Aths of the land owned by the federal government should be sold back to the people; get it back on the tax rolls and back into production. This would still leave 150,000.000 acres for parks, forests, armed services etc. In the event you consider this topic worthy of further study, I would welcome your comments and suggestions. Shirley WanV.eck Box 327 Green River, Utah 84525 ! 1 1 1 1 ni |
