DCV and WEMO Plan

The WEMO Plan affects the access to the Deep Creek area, the roads and trails. There are aspects of the WEMO plan that have an impact on the Deep Creek area.

First of all, they are creating an ACEC for the area. Once they have an ACEC, the BLM personnel are more empowered to make decisions without including the public participation. They are creating the ACEC through the management plan. Therefore, when this passes, if the BLM want to close access to motorized vehicles at a certain point, they could do that and they may not even ask you first.

Then there are the public access issues. We could petition the BLM to improve Routes 3 and 4 to allow reasonable 2 wheel drive access. Now the location where the road is really bad is within the Forest Boundary, but the two agencies are supposed to work together to provide reasonable public access and the BLM could exert pressure on the Forest Service.

The other issue that you may want to consider is that the BLM are supposed to provide camping facilities. You may want to petition them for a couple of outhouses at the very least. The current plan says that the Bowen Ranch is providing camping facilities. There are no facilities at the Bowen Ranch to speak of.

What about law enforcement? Are the BLM providing adequate law enforcement? Maybe you may want them to provide more enforcement of OHV violations in the area and the looting of cultural sites. This gives the BLM more of a presence up there which could reduce some of the crime.

I think all of this will end up in one huge lawsuit. The County is already talking about suing and I think CORVA already is. Then we could prepare an amicus brief (friend of the court) to address our related issues.

Remember the Forest Service is about to come out with their plan. I heard it is a doozy! We need to really make sure that the Wild and Scenic Designation is not going to affect our continued use of the hotsprings.