(originated: 27 Feb, 04)

(revision date: 9 Mar o4)

(note: verify proof reading and run spell check..then link to home page) 

...finally to be free of atvs, snowmobiles, dirt bikes, jet skis and motorized hang gliders...

In the confidential words of one (recently retired) BLM manager...."we now see what you were trying to tell us 15 years ago...we should have never let this thing get started in the first place"

Personal motorized recreational vehicles...singularly the most destructive mechanisms ever built, unfortunately now in the hands of the least responsible crowd in america...all at the expense of our solitude..."they've already shredded our public lands and now the epidemic is out of control....the destruction is staggering...and the Yamamaha, Polaris and Kawasaki (Japanese manufacturers) commercials are firing a maniac's zeal empowerting the bottom of the barrel in American culture to "donut" and track the pristine reaches of our public lands legacy into weed-infested dust....at the expense of us all and our generations to come. What it will already cost us in tax dollars to repair this damage is staggering. The failure of our paid and elected officials to stop it is appauling. Like so many instances in the history of democracy...in the ultimate extent, we find that we, the responsible and visionary public have to roll up our sleeves, take the devil by the horns and wrestle this beast to the ground.

Unfortunatly, now, the battle ahead looks grim, pitting family member against family member and pulling the slats out from under the ORV retail industry (already now in dizzying decline) and the thousands of Coloradoans who've been duped into monthly payments for a "frog _ucker" they soon will not be able to use. We now face what California was wise enough to do 25 years ago...enact a statewide ban on all personal motorized recreational vehicles...following the instantaneous shredding of the entire pristine Anza-Borrego Desert Preserve (in just a five year period). Why do we have to wait for a repeat of a predictable epidemic to apply the proven vaccine that would have saved the public lands of Western Colorado from the sickeningly epidemic tracking, dumping, noise, wildlife impacts and alienation of responsible public lands users inflicted by the now Number One Slob Sport in America Today...ORV's...personal motorized recreational vehicles...atvs, dirt bikes, snowmobiles, jetskis and motorized hang gliders.

"There is no such thing as the responsible use of an irresponsible vehicle."

Join the rest of the vast majority (93%) of responsible Coloradoans today in doing what our legislators and public lands managers should have done (and were warned would be necessary) 15 years ago.....

Catergorically Ban All Personal Motorized Recreational Vehicles on every square inch of the Public Lands of Colorado

 "These are vehicles that only appeal to the lowest mentality denominator in our culture. It's obviously irresponsible to empower them with carte blanche rights to inflict their impacts on our public...and now increasingly private lands...with impunity...this is insanity. The real question is why this hasn't been stopped already and investigation is certainly needed into the "gifts, free vacations, bennies and campaign contributions" that the ORV industry has oiled our legislators, Denver politicians and public lands managers with in profusion. The norms of Japanese business dealings condone what our legal system and business ethics treat as corruption...free atvs to government employees, lavish expense paid vacations to politicians who'll drag their feet or turn their eyes...even strategically engineered sexual favors. Personal investigators are already looking over some backyard fences and into some expense and checking accounts. There is rapidly accumulating evidence indicating a broadscale public investigation (possibly convening Grand Jury investigations) into how and who the Japanese manufacturers of these "aluminum fiberglass weapons of mass destruction" coerced into handing the keys to the pristine lands of the American West over to the "goon markey" they could then convince that the misery of their existence could be remedied by attacking that vicious enemy and adversary...Mother Nature. We would accurately describe the aftermath now left on our doorstep in damaged lands and alienated recreational public as well as trespassed ranch and ag lands, vandalized and burned family cabins, killed and frightened wildlife, hikers run down on trails, pregnant cow elk bulldogged by national sports figures leaping from snowmobiles, the stench and obnoxious (insect) whine of the most polluting vehicles made in Yankee Boy Basin, the effective ostricization of the quiet, respectful and responsible recreational public from their rights to peace and quiet, the now epidemic invasive species impregnated deep into our national forests by off-road vehicle tires (now necessitating the drenching of our pristine public lands with helicopter herbacides), the drunken party piles of fastfood wrappers and beer cans that used to be found in roadway parking spots, now discovered deep into wilderness areas where these vehicles are banned, but found anyway due to incapable enforcement., skyrocketing court case loads against violators, a maze of new "sports" injuries (mostly back and leg damage...the most expensive to repair) being treated and paid disguising their sources at the further expense of our already spiraling health insurance premiums, the uncontrollable spread of their illegal operation on city streets and county roads...even federal highways, the complete absence of any licensing or taxing system to pay for their epidemica impacts and damages, their completely unthinkable operation by 6 and 7 year old children (driving vehicles that can outrun automobiles) with no training or adult supervision in sight, ....we would describe this aftermath, this wholesale attack on everything American and sane...including the land on which we stand...certainly we would accurately describe this plague killing many more annually than anthrax, burning and shredding much more square footage space than the twin towers of the World Trade Center annually, threatening more actual Americans with bodily harm than Osama Bin Ladin and Saddam Hussein combined ....as certified acts of terrorism to be dealth with exactly the same way as every other attack of Americans on American soil has been dealt with in history...quickly, decisively and convincingly."

It's ingenious how the Japanese manufacturing and marketing moguls (all still smarting and harboring cultural resentments against America still simmering from what we did to their country in WWII) have gotten the duller components of our culture to pay for and inflict the most devestating attack on American soil ever perpetrated by a foreign power. They are so skillful they have managed to enlist an army of Americans (albiet the bottom of the barrel) to attack and destroy America...to divide it down the middle. They have pocketed vast fortunes doing it and we're left with the smoldering, dusty mess. It was astutely pointed out by one (ironically) ATV user that the Japanese themselves hold their own land in such high environmental regard that they would jail in a moment anyone who drove one of their vehicles across it. They have no ethical compunction what so ever, however, about empowering and marketing the destruction of American soil just as long as the profits that produces pays for their escapades and vacations in Hawaii and Paris...even New York.

The Lobbying Tactics of the ORV manufacturers are insidious and ingenious. Multi-National Corporations have now honed their political coercion, bureaucratic policy errosion and public marketing skills to such an efficient skill that these programs often even operate at a profit themselves. A federal lands official at a recent hearing in Telluride pitting a horrified public against the ORV crowds long banned on San Miguel County roads now demanding carte blance approval to drive their thunder, squalling hords of Ouray based motorheads down the main streets of Telluride so they can sell more cheap Ouray motel rooms and meals...the official standing outside the hearing room remarked..."You know, I recognize all the people who showed up opposing this action (granting ORV access to the main street of Telluride) but I don't recognize any of the people who say they want and need it." "Oh, I do, was the reply, from a seasoned veteran who had for 15 years attended myriad hearings all over Western Colorado...they all have front range license plates...they're paid to stack hearings by the ORV marketing companies...any you'll see the same palid "Denver Tan" on everyone of them...none of whom have ever been on an ATV. What's remarkable is how little they are paid by Yamaha and Kawasaki to make the trip.

Entities like the BLM and Forest Service operate under very explicit constitutional and legislative empowerment acts...all of which demand that our public lands be managed to the maximum public good (not the destructive zeal of minority maniacs) and with utmost care to preserve their integrity and health. It is of increasingly widespread concensus that the coercion of land management officials, the dismantling of effective use policy and the resulting destruction of our public lands (now at epidemic scale and escallating daily) are in direct violation of these mandates. The obvious and most immediatly effective curtailment strategy now unfortunatly necessary to save our public lands is to investigate the coercion of land managers, assess the damages they have allowed by their failure to ban ORVs in their jurisdiction (as was a verifiable necessity 15 years ago), place contracts out for bid to access the costs of restoring those lands and prosecute the land managers responsible (or irresponsible) personally for the cost of those repairs and restorations. After a few high level public lands management careers met with abrupt termination, scrutiny of coercion and corruption are opened to the sunlight of public view, and the courts seize their assets, bank accounts and homes to pay for damages, we would, most likely watch the rest of the less ethical and sincere run for cover and a refreshing empowerment and higher level of ethical and enforcement standards quickly replace these that have so miserably failed.

The hue and cry of the motorhead crowd for years has been..."sit down at the table and talk to us. We're responsible and will help curb the damages of the irresponsible users." Exactly the words of Allen Staele (retired Ouray County Commissioner) at the Mountain Studies Institute 2002 conference at Purgatory where the concept was first presented of suing elected officials and public lands managers for deriliction of duty in protecting and cost of repairing the lands in their care now destroyed by the motorgoons (in accordance with their constitutional and legislative requirements).."well, quit complaining and sit down and talk with us, we can work this out." ...same Staele, same motorhead rhetoric...the same man who as Ouray County Commissioner promoted instigation of paid fee access to Yankee Boy Basin (now shredded and dusted by dirt bikes and reeking of their fumes) and helped fire the marketing of Ouray (forever dipping into the bottom of the barrel for tourism promotional scamms) as a "motorhead heaven"...to the end result that soaking in the hot section of the Ouray hotsprings pool can lower your IQ 10 points just by getting into the water with this sea of Utah and frontrange "Public Lands Terrorists"...most of whom are incapable of conversational levels surpassing how many six packs of Budweiser it takes to get over Imogene versus Black Bear Pass (folks...this was a real conversation).

For 15 years, that's about what all of us have done....sit and talk. Unfortunatly, we now realize that while we were spending our own valued business and family time trying to ameliorate the motorheads into responsibility, we were doing that only in the presence of the one half of one percent of the motorhead crowd willing even to put up the sham of public resoponsiblity. The other 99.5% of them were sitting down too, unfortunately, their butts were on dirtbikes tearing up the adobe badlands and meadows on the Mt. Sneffles trail. The talks wound on forever, the devastation escallated at geometric levels...with no knowledge or care about what was going on in the conferences 15 years of endless hearings have left us with a legacy of millions of acres of shredded land , abysmal sums of wasted time and a dizzying escallation of illegal ORV uses, now attracting the crystal meth and other teenage drug crowds (particularrly epidemic in the Grand Junction area where family cabins for a hundred years have been left open and now are ransacked by atv criminal... a long-term native who owns one sat in a coffee shop down town recently and described innebriated teenagers driving across his front yard, deep inside a 100 acre posted private lands tract and flipped him the bird as he sat starring dismayed as they drove across his front lawn.(This scale of disrespect and the deluge of law enforcement and private land owner anticdotes are becoming common conversation in Grand Junction...and all over this slope of the state. Even national Tv is starting to run news and documentary reporting on the criminal motorhead epidemic). It's only a matter of time until the region of its most destructive impact (which is righ here) will watch its attractive reputation as a natural and scenic wonderland plummet as it changes through the miracle of mindless corporate media and news into the inevitably sensationalist image of exacly what it is...a slaughterhouse of pristine public lands and rape site for the disenfranchised responsible American public and its children.

The time for discussion is over. The time for unilateral, sane, responsible action is right now. And the tools that are unfortunately needed (having seen the timeframe for effective, visionary and competent curtailment vanish) is hard-hitting, comprehensive, punative and strong actions....suing public lands officials and elected representives for malfeasance and damages, investigation and public (grand jury) investigation of corruption and collusion, a statewide strong and enforcable ban on the use of these "Machines of Mass Destruction" everywhere in the state. This battle promises to be bloody and hot. We might just as well greet that prospect with zeal and start the rolling of heads now. It will only get worst and more costly if we procrastinate (or worse yet, negotiate).

This is a time for The Highest Attainable Standard, not the Lowest Common Denominator

How anyone considers a german designed, japanese manufactured, middle eastern fueled vehicle that produces 18 times the maximum automobile approved noise level, 27 times the amount of air pollution, drivable by 6 year olds on our public streets and roadways (actual repeated personal incidents on file with Montrose City Polic and County Sheriff), excaping taxes and licensing, capable of accelerations and speeds surpassing cars, unenforcable because of where they go, what they do and who we can finance to watch them....how anyone in their right minds could condone, approve and even promote that as responsible use of our public lands is beyond the reasoned capacity of any legitimate citizen to understand...and is all the reason any of us need to remove those who do (condone it) from our systems of governance, policy and law.

There is no such thing as the Responsible operation of an Irresponsible Vehicle...absolutely none at all...ever.