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Bikers and hikers face off over trail access in Marin County



 
 
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  #1  
Old April 8th 07, 04:16 PM posted to alt.mountain-bike,rec.bicycles.soc,rec.backcountry,ca.environment,sci.environment
Mike Vandeman
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 4,798
Default Bikers and hikers face off over trail access in Marin County

From: A Vancouver, BC resident
Date: Sat, 07 Apr 2007 10:35:13 -0700
Subject: Bikers and hikers face off over trail access in Marin
County

If every parks and forest ranger just used the "on foot" (small
footprint) rule, there would be no argument about mountain biking.
Horses and hikers, etc. are on foot/hooves/paws/etc.

Mountain bikes have wheels; ditto OVR's and ATV's. All of these need a
special places away from foot trails! So like skiing, mountain biking
needs a specialized bike resort set aside where the sport can be
contained, controlled and regulated. Same with recreational
ATV's/OVR's.

But we all know mountain bikers feel mountain biking is a right, not a
privilege. And that is where most of the problems begin. How
narcissistic of them.

There is no legitimacy, nor merit to the sport of mountain biking if
it infringes on traditional "on foot" trails and wild places. Don't
let mountain bikers wipe their attitude all over you -- it only gets
worse every time you try to appease them. Like spoiled children with
candy, they only want more. Mountain biking has become an addiction,
not a sport anymore.

Up here in BC, their consummate riding and trail/structure building
has pretty much heavily modified the forest in many places.
Intimidation is their tactic.

Four seasons a year riding -- rain, shine, sleet and snow, day and
night. If that is not addiction, I do not know what it is? And this is
healthy?

Let's not get into injury rates, as mountain biking is one of the most
dangerous sports to introduce your kid to. And yet the media glorifies
it?

Slow down!

----- Original Message -----
From: Mike Vandeman
Sent: Friday, April 06, 2007 9:50 PM
Subject: Bikers and hikers face off over trail access in Marin County

http://www.marinij.com/marin/ci_5606179

Bikers and hikers face off over trail access
Rob Rogers
Article Launched: 04/05/2007 11:32:20 PM PDT

Mountain bikers hoping for greater access to the county's trails are
meeting stiff resistance from hikers and equestrians, who say the
majority of the county supports keeping bikes away from trails.

"A bike has no value, except for fitness, and that doesn't have to be
in our open space," said Jean Berensmeier, a Lagunitas resident and
former member of the county Trails Commission.

The two sides faced off Thursday at a meeting of the Parks and Open
Space Commission, where cyclists argued that in the county where
mountain biking was invented, officials ought to acknowledge the
growing popularity of the sport.

"The Northern California High School Mountain Biking League formed in
2001 with two teams," said Lisa Luzzi, a member of Access 4 Bikes, a
nonprofit group dedicated to providing trail access to Marin cyclists.
"Today, there are 25 teams, with nine in Marin County. Every public
high school in the county has a team, with 45 members at Drake alone.
As these riders get more experience, they're looking for more
technical challenges, and they're not finding them on Marin's legal
trails."

Yet hiking and equestrian advocates said cyclists could not be trusted
to use Marin's trails responsibly.

"Bikers don't belong on

footpaths," said Connie Berto, a director of the Marin Horse Council.
"For 25 years, bikers have been saying they'd get their act together
and be safe and responsible. And they haven't. They ignore safety
regulations and put themselves and others at risk. They want
'technical challenges' at the expense of safety."

Cyclist Kevin McClure pointed out that many mountain bikers are also
hikers, and that they share the same love of the outdoors and
commitment to the environment as other open space users.

"I moved to California not just for the people, but because I love the
outdoors," said McClure, a San Francisco resident. "This is the place
that every mountain biker knows about, where every mountain biker
dreams of coming. And then they discover that there's no place to
ride. And I'm not sure why."

McClure suggested that the two sides seek a compromise, such as
allowing mountain bikers to use the county's narrow, single-track
trails on alternate days or during off-peak hours.

"If hikers and mountain bikers can't find a solution that would allow
them to work together, because too much has happened in the past,
surely there must be some compromise," McClure said. "Maybe high
school students could go out there at 6 a.m. on Wednesday mornings to
ride before school. If only 20 percent of the people in the county
ride bikes, then perhaps we could use the trails 20 percent of the
time."

No deal, said Novato resident Rick Freitas, who argued that most of
Marin supports the idea of keeping cyclists off the trails.

Freitas, an aide to Supervisor Susan Adams, said he and other county
officials had completed an extensive study of the county's open space
policies in 2005. The study concluded that most Marin residents,
particularly those who use the county's open space trails, preferred
to keep existing regulations exactly as they were.

"Prior to that review, the old Trails Commission had been told that
our regulations were no longer relevant to today's demographic of open
space users," Freitas said. "What we found, though, was that the
majority of people we surveyed favored keeping open space the way it
was being run at the time, and to continue to put mountain bikers on
separate trails from horses and hikers."

Freitas agreed that cyclists, especially members of mountain biking
teams, deserved to have a place to practice. But those cycling trails
should be separate from those used by hikers and horseback riders, he
said.

"Is there a need for practice areas? Sure. But keep them exclusive,"
he said.

Tensions between mountain bikers and other users of open space trails
has grown in recent weeks since the revelation that county open space
employees placed barbed wire, stakes and boulders across an illegal
path near Fairfax in order to discourage cyclists.

County supervisors have suggested they would try to find ways to work
with both sides, while Open Space District General Manager Sharon
McNamee has pledged to meet with cycling advocacy groups to find a
solution to the dispute.

That d tente has been welcomed by cyclists. Hikers and equestrians,
however, have urged open space officials not to reconsider the
county's policies.

"Don't get into a 'we need to do this' mode," Freitas told open space
commissioners. "We've already done it."
===
I am working on creating wildlife habitat that is off-limits to
humans ("pure habitat"). Want to help? (I spent the previous 8
years fighting auto dependence and road construction.)

Please don't put a cell phone next to any part of your body that you are fond of!

http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande
Ads
  #2  
Old April 8th 07, 04:46 PM posted to alt.mountain-bike,rec.bicycles.soc,rec.backcountry,ca.environment,sci.environment
JP
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 300
Default Another VandeLie...Bikes cause damage and horses don't...Yeah, right....every hiker knows differently


"Mike Vandeman" wrote in message
...
From: A Vancouver, BC resident


Anonymous or imaginary????

Let's not get into injury rates, as mountain biking is one of the most
dangerous sports to introduce your kid to. And yet the media glorifies
it?


Uhhh, Christopher Reeves???


  #3  
Old April 8th 07, 05:11 PM posted to alt.mountain-bike,rec.bicycles.soc,rec.backcountry,ca.environment,sci.environment
Mike Vandeman
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 4,798
Default Another VandeLie...Bikes cause damage and horses don't...Yeah, right....every hiker knows differently

On Sun, 08 Apr 2007 15:46:02 GMT, "JP" wrote:


"Mike Vandeman" wrote in message
.. .
From: A Vancouver, BC resident


Anonymous or imaginary????

Let's not get into injury rates, as mountain biking is one of the most
dangerous sports to introduce your kid to. And yet the media glorifies
it?


Uhhh, Christopher Reeves???


" Another VandeLie...Bikes cause damage and horses don't...Yeah,
right....every hiker knows differently"

You are lying. I never said that. "Liar" is mountain bikers' middle
name.
===
I am working on creating wildlife habitat that is off-limits to
humans ("pure habitat"). Want to help? (I spent the previous 8
years fighting auto dependence and road construction.)

Please don't put a cell phone next to any part of your body that you are fond of!

http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande
  #4  
Old April 8th 07, 06:48 PM posted to alt.mountain-bike,rec.bicycles.soc,rec.backcountry,ca.environment,sci.environment
Ted[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2
Default Bikers and hikers face off over trail access in Marin County

On Apr 8, 8:16 am, Mike Vandeman wrote:
From: A Vancouver, BC resident
Date: Sat, 07 Apr 2007 10:35:13 -0700
Subject: Bikers and hikers face off over trail access in Marin
County

If every parks and forest ranger just used the "on foot" (small
footprint) rule, there would be no argument about mountain biking.
Horses and hikers, etc. are on foot/hooves/paws/etc.

Mountain bikes have wheels; ditto OVR's and ATV's. All of these need a
special places away from foot trails! So like skiing, mountain biking
needs a specialized bike resort set aside where the sport can be
contained, controlled and regulated. Same with recreational
ATV's/OVR's.

But we all know mountain bikers feel mountain biking is a right, not a
privilege. And that is where most of the problems begin. How
narcissistic of them.

There is no legitimacy, nor merit to the sport of mountain biking if
it infringes on traditional "on foot" trails and wild places. Don't
let mountain bikers wipe their attitude all over you -- it only gets
worse every time you try to appease them. Like spoiled children with
candy, they only want more. Mountain biking has become an addiction,
not a sport anymore.

Up here in BC, their consummate riding and trail/structure building
has pretty much heavily modified the forest in many places.
Intimidation is their tactic.

Four seasons a year riding -- rain, shine, sleet and snow, day and
night. If that is not addiction, I do not know what it is? And this is
healthy?

Let's not get into injury rates, as mountain biking is one of the most
dangerous sports to introduce your kid to. And yet the media glorifies
it?

Slow down!



----- Original Message -----
From: Mike Vandeman
Sent: Friday, April 06, 2007 9:50 PM
Subject: Bikers and hikers face off over trail access in Marin County

http://www.marinij.com/marin/ci_5606179

Bikers and hikers face off over trail access
Rob Rogers
Article Launched: 04/05/2007 11:32:20 PM PDT

Mountain bikers hoping for greater access to the county's trails are
meeting stiff resistance from hikers and equestrians, who say the
majority of the county supports keeping bikes away from trails.

"A bike has no value, except for fitness, and that doesn't have to be
in our open space," said Jean Berensmeier, a Lagunitas resident and
former member of the county Trails Commission.

The two sides faced off Thursday at a meeting of the Parks and Open
Space Commission, where cyclists argued that in the county where
mountain biking was invented, officials ought to acknowledge the
growing popularity of the sport.

"The Northern California High School Mountain Biking League formed in
2001 with two teams," said Lisa Luzzi, a member of Access 4 Bikes, a
nonprofit group dedicated to providing trail access to Marin cyclists.
"Today, there are 25 teams, with nine in Marin County. Every public
high school in the county has a team, with 45 members at Drake alone.
As these riders get more experience, they're looking for more
technical challenges, and they're not finding them on Marin's legal
trails."

Yet hiking and equestrian advocates said cyclists could not be trusted
to use Marin's trails responsibly.

"Bikers don't belong on

footpaths," said Connie Berto, a director of the Marin Horse Council.
"For 25 years, bikers have been saying they'd get their act together
and be safe and responsible. And they haven't. They ignore safety
regulations and put themselves and others at risk. They want
'technical challenges' at the expense of safety."

Cyclist Kevin McClure pointed out that many mountain bikers are also
hikers, and that they share the same love of the outdoors and
commitment to the environment as other open space users.

"I moved to California not just for the people, but because I love the
outdoors," said McClure, a San Francisco resident. "This is the place
that every mountain biker knows about, where every mountain biker
dreams of coming. And then they discover that there's no place to
ride. And I'm not sure why."

McClure suggested that the two sides seek a compromise, such as
allowing mountain bikers to use the county's narrow, single-track
trails on alternate days or during off-peak hours.

"If hikers and mountain bikers can't find a solution that would allow
them to work together, because too much has happened in the past,
surely there must be some compromise," McClure said. "Maybe high
school students could go out there at 6 a.m. on Wednesday mornings to
ride before school. If only 20 percent of the people in the county
ride bikes, then perhaps we could use the trails 20 percent of the
time."

No deal, said Novato resident Rick Freitas, who argued that most of
Marin supports the idea of keeping cyclists off the trails.

Freitas, an aide to Supervisor Susan Adams, said he and other county
officials had completed an extensive study of the county's open space
policies in 2005. The study concluded that most Marin residents,
particularly those who use the county's open space trails, preferred
to keep existing regulations exactly as they were.

"Prior to that review, the old Trails Commission had been told that
our regulations were no longer relevant to today's demographic of open
space users," Freitas said. "What we found, though, was that the
majority of people we surveyed favored keeping open space the way it
was being run at the time, and to continue to put mountain bikers on
separate trails from horses and hikers."

Freitas agreed that cyclists, especially members of mountain biking
teams, deserved to have a place to practice. But those cycling trails
should be separate from those used by hikers and horseback riders, he
said.

"Is there a need for practice areas? Sure. But keep them exclusive,"
he said.

Tensions between mountain bikers and other users of open space trails
has grown in recent weeks since the revelation that county open space
employees placed barbed wire, stakes and boulders across an illegal
path near Fairfax in order to discourage cyclists.

County supervisors have suggested they would try to find ways to work
with both sides, while Open Space District General Manager Sharon
McNamee has pledged to meet with cycling advocacy groups to find a
solution to the dispute.

That d tente has been welcomed by cyclists. Hikers and equestrians,
however, have urged open space officials not to reconsider the
county's policies.

"Don't get into a 'we need to do this' mode," Freitas told open space
commissioners. "We've already done it."
===
I am working on creating wildlife habitat that is off-limits to
humans ("pure habitat"). Want to help? (I spent the previous 8
years fighting auto dependence and road construction.)

Please don't put a cell phone next to any part of your body that you are fond of!

http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -


Get these outlaw mountain bikers to sing "The old piano wire blues"!

ted

  #5  
Old April 8th 07, 07:54 PM posted to alt.mountain-bike,rec.bicycles.soc,rec.backcountry,ca.environment,sci.environment
Bill Sornson
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 4,098
Default Bikers and hikers face off over trail access in Marin County

Ted ) wrote:

{8 KBs of Vandedrivel [tm] snipped}

Get these outlaw mountain bikers to sing "The old piano wire blues"!


Gee, "Ted", I'd call that making a terrorist threat. Expect a knock on your
door soon.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHHA


  #6  
Old April 8th 07, 08:04 PM posted to alt.mountain-bike,rec.bicycles.soc,rec.backcountry,ca.environment,sci.environment
Insignificant Flyspecks
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 14
Default Coal Interests Fight Polar Bear Action :: Unequivocal, Mike Vandeman, "warming of the climate system is unequivocal"

On Apr 8, 8:16 am, Mike Vandeman wrote:
From: A Vancouver, BC resident


Coal Interests Fight Polar Bear Action :: Unequivocal, Mike Vandeman,
"warming of the climate system is unequivocal"

http://www.statesman.com/blogs/conte...interests.html
Coal Interests Fight Polar Bear Action

An organization representing companies that mine coal and burn it to
make electricity has called on its members to fight the proposed
listing of the polar bear as an endangered or threatened species.

"This will essentially declare 'open season' for environmental lawyers
to sue to block viirtually any project that involves carbon dioxide
emissions," the Western Business Roundtable said in an e-mail.

To settle a lawsuit by environmental groups, the Department of
Interior announced last month that it would take a year to consider
whether global warming and melting Arctic ice justifies declaring the
bear "endangered" or "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act.

"This seems a little unfair, pitting all those big coal companies and
power companies against the poor polar bear," sniffed Frank O'Donnell,
president of Clean Air Watch.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/20...urce=whitelist

Inside the secretive plan to gut the Endangered Species Act

Proposed regulatory changes, obtained by Salon, would destroy the
"safety net for animals and plants on the brink of extinction," say
environmentalists.

March 27, 2007 | The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is maneuvering to
fundamentally weaken the Endangered Species Act, its strategy laid out
in an internal 117-page draft proposal obtained by Salon. The proposed
changes limit the number of species that can be protected and curtail
the acres of wildlife habitat to be preserved. It shifts authority to
enforce the act from the federal government to the states, and it
dilutes legal barriers that protect habitat from sprawl, logging or
mining.

"The proposed changes fundamentally gut the intent of the Endangered
Species Act," says Jan Hasselman, a Seattle attorney with
Earthjustice, an environmental law firm, who helped Salon interpret
the proposal. "This is a no-holds-barred end run around one of
America's most popular environmental protections. If these regulations
stand up, the act will no longer provide a safety net for animals and
plants on the brink of extinction."

In recent months, the Fish and Wildlife Service has gone to
extraordinary efforts to keep drafts of regulatory changes from the
public. All copies of the working document were given a number
corresponding to a person, so that leaked copies could be traced to
that individual. An e-mail sent in March from an assistant regional
director at the Fish and Wildlife Service to agency staff, asking for
comments on and corrections to the first draft, underscored the
concern with secrecy: "Please Keep close hold for now. Dale [Hall,
director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service] does not want this
stuff leaking out to stir up discontent based on speculation."

Many Fish and Wildlife Service employees believe the draft is not
based on "defensible science," says a federal employee who asked to
remain anonymous. Yet "there is genuine fear of retaliation for
communicating that to the media. People are afraid for their jobs."

Chris Tollefson, a spokesperson for the service, says that while it's
accurate to characterize the agency as trying to keep the draft under
wraps, the agency has every intention of communicating with the public
about the proposed changes; the draft just hasn't been ready. And, he
adds, it could still be changed as part of a forthcoming formal review
process.

Administration critics characterize the secrecy as a way to maintain
spin control, says Kieran Suckling, policy director of the Center for
Biological Diversity, a national environmental group. "This
administration will often release a 300-page-long document at a press
conference for a newspaper story that will go to press in two hours,
giving the media or public no opportunity to digest it and figure out
what's going on," Suckling says. "[Interior Secretary Dirk] Kempthorne
will give a feel-good quote about how the new regulations are good for
the environment, and they can win the public relations war."

In some ways, the proposed changes to the Endangered Species Act
should come as no surprise. President Bush has hardly been one of its
fans. Under his reign, the administration has granted 57 species
endangered status, the action in each case being prompted by a
lawsuit. That's fewer than in any other administration in history --
and far fewer than were listed during the administrations of Reagan
(253), Clinton (521) or Bush I (234). Furthermore, during this
administration, nearly half of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
employees who work with endangered species reported that they had been
directed by their superiors to ignore scientific evidence that would
result in recommendations for the protection of species, according to
a 2005 survey of more than 1,400 service biologists, ecologists and
botanists conducted by Public Employees for Environmental
Responsibility, a nonprofit organization.

"We are not allowed to be honest and forthright, we are expected to
rubber stamp everything," wrote a Fish and Wildlife Service biologist
as part of the survey. "I have 20 years of federal service in this and
this is the worst it has ever been."

The agency has long seen a need to improve the act, says Tollefson.
"This is a look at what's possible," he says. "Too much of our time as
an agency is spent responding to litigation rather than working on
recovering the species that are most in need. The current way the act
is run creates disincentives for people to get involved with
recovering species."

Kempthorne, boss of the Fish and Wildlife Service, has been an
outspoken critic of the act. When he was a U.S. senator from Idaho in
the late 1990s, he championed legislation that would have allowed
government agencies to exempt their actions from Endangered Species
Act regulations, and would have required federal agents to conduct
cost-benefit analyses when considering whether to list a species as
endangered. (The legislation failed.) Last June, in his early days as
interior secretary, Kempthorne told reporters, "I really believe that
we can make improvements to the act itself."

Kempthorne is keeping good on his promise. The proposed draft is
littered with language lifted directly from both Kempthorne's 1998
legislation as well as from a contentious bill by former Rep. Richard
Pombo, R-Calif. (which was also shot down by Congress). It's "a wish
list of regulations that the administration and its industry allies
have been talking about for years," says Suckling.

Written in terse, dry legal language, the proposed draft doesn't make
for easy reading. However, the changes, often seemingly subtle,
generally serve to strip the Fish and Wildlife Service of the power to
do its stated job: to protect wildlife. Some verge on the biologically
ridiculous, say critics, while others are a clear concession to
industry and conservative Western governors who have long complained
that the act degrades the economies of their states by preventing
natural-resource extraction.

One change would significantly limit the number of species eligible
for endangered status. Currently, if a species is likely to become
extinct in "the foreseeable future" -- a species-specific timeframe
that can stretch up to 300 years -- it's a candidate for act
protections. However, the new rules scale back that timeline to mean
either 20 years or 10 generations (the agency can choose which
timeline). For certain species with long life spans, such as killer
whales, grizzly bears or wolves, two decades isn't even one
generation. So even if they might be in danger of extinction, they
would not make the endangered species list because they'd be unlikely
to die out in two decades.

"It makes absolutely no sense biologically," wrote Hasselman in an e-
mail. "One of the Act's weaknesses is that species aren't protected
until they're already in trouble and this proposal puts that flaw on
steroids."

Perhaps the most significant proposed change gives state governors the
opportunity and funding to take over virtually every aspect of the act
from the federal government. This includes not only the right to
create species-recovery plans and the power to veto the reintroduction
of endangered species within state boundaries, but even the authority
to determine what plants and animals get protection. For plants and
animals in Western states, that's bad news: State politicians
throughout the region howled in opposition to the reintroduction of
the Mexican gray wolf into Arizona and the Northern Rockies wolf into
Yellowstone National Park.

"If states are involved, the act would only get minimally enforced,"
says Bob Hallock, a recently retired 34-year veteran of the Fish and
Wildlife Service who, as an endangered species specialist, worked with
state agencies in Idaho, Washington and Montana. "States are, if
anything, closer to special economic interests. They're more
manipulated. The states have not demonstrated the will or interest in
upholding the act. It's why we created a federal law in the first
place."

Additional tweaks in the law would have a major impact. For instance,
the proposal would narrow the definition of a species' geographic
range from the landscape it inhabited historically to the land it
currently occupies. Since the main reason most plants and animals head
toward extinction is due to limited habitat, the change would strongly
hamper the government's ability to protect chunks of land and allow
for a healthy recovery in the wild.

The proposal would also allow both ongoing and planned projects by
such federal agencies as the Army Corps of Engineers and the Forest
Service to go forward, even when scientific evidence indicates that
the projects may drive a species to extinction. Under the new
regulations, as long as the dam or logging isn't hastening the
previous rate of extinction, it's approved. "This makes recovery of
species impossible," says Suckling. (You can read the entire proposal,
a PDF file, here.)

Gutting the Endangered Species Act will only thicken the pall that has
hung over the Fish and Wildlife Service for the past six years,
Hallock says. "They [the Bush administration] don't want the
regulations to be effective. People in the agency are like a bunch of
whipped dogs," he says. "I think it's just unacceptable to go around
squashing other species; they're of incalculable benefit to us. The
optimism we had when this agency started has absolutely been dashed."


http://www.earthjustice.org/news/pre...otections.html
Bush Administration Rewrite of Endangered Species Act Regulations
Would Gut Protections

Hush-hush proposal "a no-holds-barred end run around one of America's
most popular laws"

Washington, DC -- A secret draft of regulations that fundamentally
rewrite the Endangered Species Act was leaked to two environmental
organizations, which provided them to the press last night An article
in Salon quotes Earthjustice attorney Jan Hasselman saying, "The
proposed changes fundamentally gut the intent of the Endangered
Species Act."

The changes are fiercely technical and complicated, but make future
listings extremely difficult, redefine key concepts to the detriment
of protected species, virtually hand over administration of the act to
hostile states, and severely restrict habitat protections.

Many of the changes -- lifted from unsuccessful legislative proposals
from then-Senator (now Interior Secretary) Dirk Kempthorne and the
recently defeated congressman Richard Pombo -- are reactions to
policies and practices established as a result of litigation filed by
environmental organizations including Earthjustice.

"After the failure of these legislative proposals in the last
Congress, the Bush administration has opted to gut the Endangered
Species Act through the only avenue left open: administrative
regulations," said Hasselman. "This end-run around the will of
Congress and the American people will not succeed."

A major change would make it more difficult for a species to gain
protection, by scaling back the "foreseeable future" timeframe in
which to consider whether a species is likely to become extinct.
Instead of looking far enough ahead to be able to reasonably determine
whether a species could be heading for extinction, the new regulations
would drastically shorten the timeframe to either 20 years or 10
generations at the agency's discretion. For species with long
generations like killer whales and grizzly bears, this truncated view
of the future isn't nearly enough time to accurately predict whether
they are at-risk now.

"These draft regulations represent a total rejection of the values
held by the vast majority Americans: that we have a responsibility to
protect imperiled species and the special places they call home," said
Kate Freund, Legislative Associate at Earthjustice.

According to several sources within the Fish and Wildlife Service
quoted by Salon, hostility to the law within the agency has never been
so intense. "I have 20 years of federal service in this and this is
the worst it has ever been," one unnamed source is quoted as saying.

In addition, the proposal would allow projects by the Forest Service
and other agencies to proceed even if scientific evidence suggests
that the projects might drive species to extinction so long as the
rate of decline doesn't accelerate owing to the project.

The Bush administration's antipathy to the law is shown by the numbers
of species it has protected, in each case as the result of litigation
-- 57. By comparison, 253 species were listed during the Reagan
administration, 521 under Clinton, and 234 under Bush I.

The administration reportedly had expected to reveal the new
regulations in a few weeks. The draft regulations must be published in
the Federal Register for public comment before they can become final,
which is likely to be at least a year off.

Contact:

Jan Hasselman, Earthjustice, (206) 343-7340, ext. 25

  #7  
Old April 9th 07, 03:03 PM posted to alt.mountain-bike,rec.bicycles.soc,rec.backcountry,ca.environment,sci.environment
Olebiker
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 166
Default Another VandeLie...Bikes cause damage and horses don't...Yeah, right....every hiker knows differently

On Apr 8, 11:46 am, "JP" wrote:
"Mike Vandeman" wrote in message

...

From: A Vancouver, BC resident


Anonymous or imaginary????


I believe this one is legit. See: http://www.myspace.com/mocrael It
would have seved Mike's purpose better to have linked to the source.

  #8  
Old April 9th 07, 03:37 PM posted to alt.mountain-bike,rec.bicycles.soc,rec.backcountry,ca.environment,sci.environment
The real Duty-Honor-Country
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 25
Default Bikers and hikers face off over trail access in Marin County

On Apr 8, 2:54 pm, "Bill Sornson" wrote:
Ted ) wrote:

{8 KBs of Vandedrivel [tm] snipped}

Get these outlaw mountain bikers to sing "The old piano wire blues"!


Gee, "Ted", I'd call that making a terrorist threat. Expect a knock on your
door soon.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHHA


If he's not home he'll be hiding in the Gila County Library.

  #9  
Old April 9th 07, 04:14 PM posted to alt.mountain-bike,rec.bicycles.soc,rec.backcountry,ca.environment,sci.environment
wizardB
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 139
Default Another VandeLie...Bikes cause damage and horses don't...Yeah,right....every hiker knows differently

Olebiker wrote:
On Apr 8, 11:46 am, "JP" wrote:
"Mike Vandeman" wrote in message

...

From: A Vancouver, BC resident

Anonymous or imaginary????


I believe this one is legit. See: http://www.myspace.com/mocrael It
would have seved Mike's purpose better to have linked to the source.

This is a page of more created garbage the (wetlands) that they talk
about are actually a sawmill tailing pond created in the early 1900s by
the fromme families logging company at that time they logged this whole
area including all the area's that this group of nuts say are
pristine.When I was a child (in the early late 50's early 60's)there was
still active logging in these areas.The tree's that grow there now are
mostly west coast weeds namely hemlock and cedar and the famed red leg
frog has never been seen in this area but was held up as a red herring
by a bunch of local anti-bikers who thought that fromme was their own
private play ground and didn't like anyone else using it.Fortunately
saner heads have prevailed in the last couple of years and the North
Shore Mountain Bike Association (NSMBA)and the North Vancouver District
have spent alot of time looking at this area as a multi use recreation
area and maintaining and building trails for all users.The only people
that seem to still carry on about this here are a few fringe nutbars
like Mike and his ilk!
  #10  
Old April 12th 07, 02:38 AM posted to alt.mountain-bike,rec.bicycles.soc,rec.backcountry,ca.environment,sci.environment
Mike Vandeman
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 4,798
Default Another VandeLie...Bikes cause damage and horses don't...Yeah, right....every hiker knows differently

On Mon, 09 Apr 2007 15:14:51 GMT, wizardB wrote:

Olebiker wrote:
On Apr 8, 11:46 am, "JP" wrote:
"Mike Vandeman" wrote in message

...

From: A Vancouver, BC resident
Anonymous or imaginary????


I believe this one is legit. See: http://www.myspace.com/mocrael It
would have seved Mike's purpose better to have linked to the source.

This is a page of more created garbage the (wetlands) that they talk
about are actually a sawmill tailing pond created in the early 1900s by
the fromme families logging company at that time they logged this whole
area including all the area's that this group of nuts say are
pristine.When I was a child (in the early late 50's early 60's)there was
still active logging in these areas.The tree's that grow there now are
mostly west coast weeds namely hemlock and cedar and the famed red leg
frog has never been seen in this area but was held up as a red herring
by a bunch of local anti-bikers who thought that fromme was their own
private play ground and didn't like anyone else using it.Fortunately
saner heads have prevailed in the last couple of years and the North
Shore Mountain Bike Association (NSMBA)and the North Vancouver District
have spent alot of time looking at this area as a multi use recreation
area and maintaining and building trails for all users.


BS. Only mountain bikers build trails there. Illegally.

The only people
that seem to still carry on about this here are a few fringe nutbars
like Mike and his ilk!

===
I am working on creating wildlife habitat that is off-limits to
humans ("pure habitat"). Want to help? (I spent the previous 8
years fighting auto dependence and road construction.)

Please don't put a cell phone next to any part of your body that you are fond of!

http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande
 




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