Writing Workshops Are Worthwhile!
By Kurt Schneider
Pirate4x4.com Land Use Officer

When a National Forest completes step four of route designation, the Draft Environmental Impact Study, the public is given a minimum of 45 days to respond in writing to the document and maps.  The only chance to save routes that have been removed to the maps is to argue for them in these comments and show why the route should be put back into the route inventory.  If this is not done, the route is closed forever.  This makes the writing of comments by as many individuals as possible critical in keeping public lands open to the public.

Unfortunately, submitting comments to the Forest Service is not as easy as it sounds.  While the Forest Service must read every comment, they separate them into significant and non-significant comments.  If the response is not worded correctly, or outside the scope of the DEIS, your comment may be just filed into the “non-significant” file.  To make matters worse, it takes a lot of time and effort to go through the massive maps and the DEIS document in order to completely understand it.  The DEIS is also written in “legalese” which makes it fairly hard for the average person to understand.

In order to ensure people are submitting substantive comments that would be considered significant to the DEIS for Eldorado National Forest, many members of the Pirtate4x4.com forums have either held or attended writing workshops.  The advantage of these is that many people who attend have a vast knowledge of the project and what it takes to write a comment that will be effective.  Several people have also printed out poster-sized maps of the Alternative maps which make it easier to identify routes that have been closed or re-designated to restrict OHV use.

Now that the Forest Service in El Dorado has extended the deadline for public comments from September 4th to October 22nd, there is more time to hold writing workshops.  Please keep check the Land-use forum on Pirate4x4.com for future Route Designation Writing Workshops.

If you or your club is interested in hosting a writing workshop, please contact Kurt Schneider at kurt@kurtuleas.com
           

Randy from the FOTR addresses the crowd at the “Tiki Bar” writing workshop.  Having such knowledgeable people at these workshops helps the average individual in writing effective comments.

Having the Alternative maps in poster size makes it easier to identify routes that have been eliminated.

Not only are writing workshops helpful in ensuring people write effective comments, they are a great excuse to throw a BBQ!

For more information, please visit the land-use forum:

http://www.pirate4x4.com/landuse