Summit an attempt to restrict our uses

Tahoe Daily Tribune

July 30, 1997

Letter to the Editor

To the editor:

After reading about the now infamous presidential summit to "Save Lake Tahoe," I am afraid that most, if not all, of Clinton's rhetoric was nothing but recycled eco-speak and double-talk.

While pretending to listen to the needs of the general public who live in the Lake Tahoe Basin and are genuinely concerned about water clarity and catastrophic wildfires, the president's promise for environmental protection is politically motivated and unscientifically focused to close roads and further exclude families who use off-highway vehicles, sport utility vehicles, and snowmobiles from enjoying what few trails and Level 2 roads are currently open for use in the basin.

Remembering the motto of the so-called environmental movement several years ago which proudly stated: "The worst forest fire is preferable to the best timber harvest," I fear the promise to restore streams and care for dying forests is but a thinly veiled attempt to de-road this nation's public lands and carry out their "Burn Baby Burn" land mismanagement policy.

In truth, the summit this last weekend was simply an essential step to enact the "Wildlands Project," the national program endorsed by most environmental groups and the Clinton/Gore administration to "re-wild" 50 percent of America's land base and add vast tracts of wilderness devoid of humans and their activities.

Don Amador,
California State Representative,
Blue Ribbon Coalition,
Oakley, Calif.