Local Conservation

Ongoing weekly all summer and into October

January 12, 2007 — By Jesse Harlan Alderman, Associated Press
BOISE, Idaho -- Idaho's governor said Thursday he will support public hunts to kill all but 100 of the state's gray wolves after the federal government strips them of protection under the Endangered Species Act.

Power company steadies flow of Snake River
The Lewiston Morning Tribune
October 19, 2006

HELLS CANYON DAM -- Idaho Power officials have begun their annual fall chinook operations that feature steady flows of about 8,500 cubic feet per second from the dam.

RSFMP ACTION ALERT

Dear fellow lovers of our public wildlands:

The Forest Service has been implementing a policy initiative called Recreation Site Facility Master Planning (RSFMP) for several years.

In 2002, the Bush administration directed the Forest Service to plan and develop this policy in secret, with no public involvement or congressional review.

A short summary of how RSFMP works is shown below:

1) Each national forest is told their share of the total recreation budget appropriated by congress. This is a ridiculously low funding level, because the forests are not told that their level is only about 10% or 15% of what it should be.

2) Each national forest is given a new set of guidelines for their recreation sites. The forests then inventory their sites to determine how much it will cost to meet the guidelines each year.

3) Those recreation areas that the Forest Service feels it can not maintain to acceptable standards (given the artificially reduced funding) will be closed permanently to public use and these recreation sites will be obliterated … or turned over to concessionaires (a.k.a. private corporations).

RSFMP appears to be a needless and mindless hatchet job on public land developed recreation sites. However, Bush's agenda is clear:

If the American public wants to keep their campgrounds, they must allow them to be controlled by, and run by private corporations (who will charge a fee for use).

The Bush administration knows that a complete corporate takeover of all public land administered by the Forest Service and BLM with a single piece of legislation would be met with immense national public outrage, so his scheme is to do it a little at a time.

Bush's handlers know that developed campgrounds are not a high priority item for many environmental groups. Bush's handlers also know that by your sheer strength in numbers, you are quite effective at stopping many things you oppose … especially those connected to public lands.

Thus, by starting with the developed recreation site issue, Bush's handlers hope to keep the environmental group members on the sidelines.

The Bush administration needed to get their foot silently in the door to privatization of public land, and RSFMP is how they are doing it.

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WHAT YOU CAN DO

Please contact your Congressman and two Senators to raise hell about the RSFMP program! Call the Congressional Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask to be connected to the legislator you are calling. Leave a message with the staff person who answers. If you need to find your representative and senators follow the links below.

SPOKANE, Wash. - A judge has declared nearly 470 square miles of national forest land in northern Idaho off-limits to snowmobiles in an effort to save the last mountain caribou herd in the contiguous 48 states.