BLM/EPA Weighed in Scales and Found Wanting at Hollister Meeting

SRMC Member Points to CCMA Trails

Based on feedback from riders and club representatives who attended the OHMVR Commission meeting in Hollister yesterday, the BLM and EPA were weighed in the scales and found wanting. Very disappointing when riders showed up to view federal integrity and accountability and found none of those virtues on display.

HQ commends all those who showed up and continued to challenge the faulty science (even the BLM/EPA have said there were uncertainties from the beginning) used by the BLM as a poor excuse to effect the largest landscape level closure of its kind in U.S history.

HQ also commends the OHMVR Commission for voting (and showing accountability and integrity) to send a strong letter to Congress, elected officials, and government agencies. Among a number of questions, they will ask about the BLM/EPA’s continued determination to base the ongoing closure on flawed science and how that unexplainable stubbornness -- in the face of new science -- complies with the March 9, 2009
Presidential Memo on Scientific Integrity.

April 5, 2011 BRC Letter to OHMVR Commission
http://www.sharetrails.org/uploads/Hollister_CCMA_BRC_Comment_Letter_April.5.20110001.pdf

March 2009 Obama Memo on Scientific Integrity
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Memorandum-for-the-Heads-of-Executive-Departments-and-Agencies-3-9-09/

Hollister Newspaper Article (good article)
http://www.freelancenews.com/news/274345-clear-creek-study-asbestos-dangers-can-be-prevented

HQ believes it may be time for the OHV leadership in CA to consider a “vote of no confidence” for the BLM/EPA line officers that have failed to properly discharge their duties.

The BLM/EPA can save their credibility if they just come out and admit they made a poor decision. BLM could accept the new science and reopen CCMA to historic OHV use if they wanted to. The ball is in their court.