WP: Study Finds Western Parks Exploited, Neglected: BLM Faulted

[DeepModem Mom]

Study Finds Western Parks Exploited, Neglected
Preservation Group Faults Bureau of Land Management
By T.R. Reid
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 16, 2006; Page A15

DENVER, May 15 -- In the high desert country of southwestern Colorado, near the only spot on the map where four states meet, the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument offers a rich archaeological record of the first Americans, with caves and mesas full of remnants left by hunters and pueblo dwellers who lived there over thousands of years.

The Pueblo people left the Four Corners region around 1400, historians say, and the dusty country was largely untouched by humans for centuries. But today, the monument is busy again, both with large-scale oil and gas development and with an increasing flow of tourists.

To keep order amid all this activity, the responsible federal agency, the Bureau of Land Management, employs one ranger to patrol the entire national monument -- an expanse of mountains and lowlands covering 256 square miles, about four times the size of Washington, D.C.

That discrepancy between land area and staff size is common for many of the culturally and historically important sites across the western United States that are managed by the BLM, according to a study due to be issued Tuesday by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

"The enormous scope of the cultural resources to be found on the BLM public lands continues to dwarf the staff and funds allocated to manage them," says the report, titled "Cultural Resources on the Bureau of Land Management Public Lands." The study was written by a longtime Interior Department official, T. Destry Jarvis....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/15/AR2006051501519.html

[MindPilot]

1. If blm was taking care of the parks instead of posting on DU...

Sorry, I had to. :D

[DeepModem Mom]

2. Good one!

[wakeme2008]

3. Sorry I do not get it

:shrug: who is blm?

[warrens]

4. A regular poster and dem activist

Stands for bushlovesmoonies, I believe.

[xxqqqzme]

5. all part of that fabulous governmental plan

as set forth by grover norquist - chuckle nuts began in a flurry of executive orders that reversed policy. Now that the policy of neglect and ignore is firmly in place, legislation 2 enforce the policy is a done deal. This country is in far worse shape than we can even imagine.

[lindisfarne]

6. Money to expand staff needs to come from somewhere but *Co

refuses to tax the extremely wealthy at a fair rate. And what's the line about "increased fees" for miners? I thought according to law, they paid nothing for destroying the land?

"One possibility, it suggests, is increased user fees, both for drillers and miners extracting minerals and for hikers, bikers and tourists."

[Jane Austin]

7. DH visited the Pueblos in SW Colorado two years ago.

We had been there about fifteen years ago, and it was just fascinating.

He reported back that the place was not nearly as nice as it had been when we had been there before.

His "guide" was full of mis-information and admitted that he had been a bus driver for the park until he got laid off because of budget cuts. The Park Rangers got laid off, too.

So now, instead of having knowledgeable Park Rangers leading informative tours, we now have a shuttle-bus driver just making it up as he goes.

It's disgraceful.

[Robb]

8. Oil and gas lease auction proceeds are through the roof...

...if they can't find enough money out of that, they're in a lot of trouble over at the BLM.