Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

----- Original Message -----

From: D'Arcy Demianoff-Thompson

If ever there should be a time to wake up and take a stand in defense of our National Park System now is the time. 

 

 

I'm sorry that I have been confusing.  There is no legislation pending

that would forbid the National Park Service from restricting hunting,

fishing, or guns on trails in the National Park System.

 

The debate I saw was over something called the Metacomet, Monadnock,

Mattabesett Trail that extends northward through the center of Connecticut

from Guilford, through the center of Massachusetts up to Royalston,

and potentially extended on into New Hampshire up to Jaffrey.

The House was voting to amend the National Trails System Act to add the

MMM Trail to the National Trails system as a "scenic" trail.  This bill,

HR 1528,  did pass, and this corridor (not all of which actually contains

a trail, yet) is now known as the New England National Scenic Trail.

 

For the text of the law (its the last one listed that passed), see:

 

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.1528:

 

For the Trail's home web site, see:

 

www.mmmtrail.org

 

And for a map, see:

 

http://www.mmmtrail.org/DocsForLinks/MMMBaseMap_small.pdf

 

This was a Democratically sponsored bill.  The Republican Rep.

from the Ogden Utah area, Rob Bishop, was trying to get two

amendments added to the bill, both of which would have applied

only to this trail:

 

  One would prevent the National Park Service (which has authority

  over the trail, sort-of) from ever saying "We don't care that local

  and state laws let you carry a gun and hunt on this trail, we won't

  allow hunting or firearms to be carried because that is National

  Park Service rules."  This amendment was accepted.

 

  One would have prevented any part of the trail from

  being acquired by eminent domain.  The National Scenic

  Trail Act permits right-of-ways to be acquired by

  eminent domain.  HR 1528 already said that the

  Federal government could not use eminent domain

  to acquire any part of the MMM trail.  What Rob

  Bishop wanted was to add language that would have

  prevented local and state governments from acquiring

  part of the MMM right-of-way by eminent domain, and

  then just transferring title to the Federal government.

  That amendment did not pass.

 

It is an interesting bill to read (it is very short :-) because it

contains some of the standard sneaky tricks that have caused

so much trouble for horsemen and trail riders:

 

   A private organization (the Appalachian Mountain Club) has

   gotten itself explicitly written into the bill as having shared

   control over the trail.  Although the bill does say that

   other organizations can be brought in, being named as

    in charge  gives the AMC great power over decisions.

    I've felt this when attending land management plan

    meetings over *public land* and discovered that

    somehow a private environmental organization is sitting

    across the table from me, chairing the meeting, writing

    the land management plan, and pretty much doing anything

    it pleases.  And when I protest that there's no reason

    that a private organization should have control of public

    land--they show me the law that gives them that power!

    It effectively delegates government power to a private

    organization with an agenda that is not subject to

    public influence.

 

    The law contains an "infinite spreading" provision.

    That is, not only is the trail to be managed according to

    a specifically named plan, but the law gives the government

    the right to *extend* the provisions of that plan to *any*

    adjacent trails that might feed into the actual trail if it wants

    to.  So, as a horseman you may think "My trail is OK because I

    never ride on that footpath anyway,"  what happens is

    because your trail feeds into the protected trail, it gets

    co-opted as an "official" part of the trail system and

    suddenly--no horses!

 

I haven't been able to get the Draft Management plan downloaded

in a way that I can read (Acrobat says it is a damaged file), so

I don't know what the plan says about horses.  The CT Horse

Council was involved in the planning process, but in several

places on web sites the statement is made that this will be

primarily a footpath with perhaps, maybe, if we like you and

you don't piss us off, we might let you ride on some segments

of it.  I wouldn't have much hope in Massachusetts.  The

Appalachian Mountain Club (which is a different organization

from the Appalachian Trail Conservancy) has been historically

very anti-horse.

 

This bill passed the House.  The corresponding Senate bill,

S 923 is still in committee.

 

Linda Marins