Local travel plan open for public comment

In recent years, federal land managing agencies have undertaken a process they refer to as Comprehensive Transportation and Travel Management Planning. Here in the West, that planning process includes efforts by the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, stewards of most publicly owned property. To date, the USFS has been busy with this planning process in northeastern Nevada, especially in the Ruby Mountains. Now the BLM is bringing it closer to home.

Comprehensive Transportation and Travel Management Planning, according to the BLM St. George, Utah, field office website, is a process that "addresses access needs for an array of public land uses; these are evaluated within BLM's legal mandates to protect sensitive natural and cultural resources and minimize impacts on public land values." Put simply, federal agencies are looking at roads in all their varieties and asking whether they should remain open to full public access, be closed to public use completely or have public use limited in some manner.

In an internal instruction memorandum (IM 2010-056) dated February 2010, the BLM assistant director of renewable resources and planning explained that the agency "is striving to establish a more orderly and comprehensive process to address travel and transportation planning and management, one that recognizes all access needs rather than just recreational uses. Travel and transportation planning must evaluate, consider and balance all public permitted and administrative access needs with resource effect, function and condition. ... Recreation and Visitor Services will specifically address recreational access and OHV management."

In other words, access to traditional hunting areas could be affected through this planning process, and off-highway travel definitely is under the microscope. Keep in mind that off-highway travel refers to any travel that is not on a paved road.

Here in Clark County, the BLM Las Vegas field office is about to begin the process of preparing a Recreation Area Management Plan along with a Comprehensive Transportation and Travel Management Plan for nearly 3.375 million acres of public land. As the process begins, each one of us -- either as an individual or a member of a user group -- will have the opportunity to provide comments on issues or planning criteria.

"The purpose of the public scoping process is to determine relevant issues that will influence the scope of the environmental analysis, including alternatives, and guide the planning process," Robert B. Ross Jr., a BLM Las Vegas field office manager, wrote in the Federal Register posting announcing commencement of the planning process.

Issues already identified by BLM personnel and others include the preservation of cultural and natural resources, management of recreational activities in such a way that they remain compatible with the needs of Native American tribes and the plans of other state, local and federal agencies. Also on the list is the question of how to accomplish these things while still permitting reasonable access to public lands by the recreating public.

The official 60-day comment period began Jan. 28 and will end March 29. Dates and locations of any scoping meetings will be posted on the BLM website (www.blm.gov/nv/st/en/fo/lvfo.html). Written comment can be submitted by mail or delivered to BLM, 4701 N. Torrey Pines Drive, Las Vegas, NV 89130, Attn: Marilyn Peterson; by e-mail to LVFO_RAMPS@blm.gov; or by fax at 702-515-5023.

Freelance writer Doug Nielsen is a conservation educator for the Nevada Department of Wildlife. His "In the Outdoors" column, published Thursday in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, is not affiliated with or endorsed by the NDOW. Any opinions he states in his column are his own. He can be reached at intheoutdoorslv@gmail.com.