A bill has been introduced in the Senate to designate many areas of the country, including huge chunks of the Moab region, as Federal Wilderness areas. It is bill s.799 - America's Red Rock Wilderness Act of 2009.

Here's the full bill: http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-s799/text

Scroll down to section 104 for the Moab region. They're taking it all!

If you enjoy offroad in Moab, get involved now!

One suggestion I think might help would be to get local governments such as towns and counties to quickly designate all popular trails as roads, instead of trails. If they are legal roads before this is enacted, at least they would have a harder time preventing access and closing them. Contact and explain to every town and county in the region that if this passes, their tourism trade will be over. It's that simple. Email, call, and write every outfitter, hotel, chamber of commerce, and similar in the region. Also, take the time to contact every Senator, Congressman, and the Whitehouse and tell them to not close these areas to 4x4 offroad access. Hurry, they've already quickly passed and signed into law other similar bills, so we don't have much time.

It's also been introduced in the House of Representatives as H.R. 1925

oh boy

Oh boy I'd say. Its a tough fight. Environmentalists have a good lobbyist system with cash and power we don't have (yet)!

oh!!

im gonna move this thread to a more applicable section

bump!!!!!!

This makes me SOOOOO mad! Seriously what the heck!?! We just did a Take Back Utah rally a little while ago... And thanks to our lovely state the news hardly said anything about it other then thousands showed up to protest government or state take over of utah and all the public lands they want to take! This is horrible if they shut down moab the economy will drop tremendously in utah and moab will no longer recieve that boom they get and expect from all the offroaders.

Wow, hope this one gets shot down.

Yea, this is scary and makes me crazy!

never been to utah but that sucks for you guys who enjoy off-roading out there. i am surprised Jersey didnt do this already .. we're usually the first a-holes to do stuff like this.

This is horrible if they shut down moab the economy will drop tremendously in utah and moab will no longer recieve that boom they get and expect from all the offroaders.

That was the theory behind the chances of Tellico remaining open here in the East. The city of Murphy, North Carolina and it's residing county estimates they lost over $10,000,000 in annual revenue from this closure. They used to hold the major jeep jamborees, dixie runs and several other major offroading events and gatherings which kept their hotels full almost year round. All over some bulls*** doctored up environmental tests supposedly proving that offroading was affecting the breeding populations of trout. Yes that's right, our public lands were stripped away to protect a f***ing fish! Not because it was endangered but because fisherman weren't catching their normal limits of trout and blaming it on the runoff from these trails. This battle is NOT over with by the way and it's looking very probable that the park will be opening back up as several organizations have filed lawsuits against the USFS.

You've got to WRITE your state and local representatives. The keyword is WRITE!!! An email is wasted time. They glance at it, click delete and it's forgotten in seconds. Writing a letter shows much more effort and they are more likely to READ the letter. My local club did this after Tellico closed. We got together at our meetings and everyone of us wrote a letter to our representatives. It definitely got their attention when it's done on a state and regional level.

We've got to fight people. There's nobody on our side in the government. Being environmentally aware is the "in thing" now and the politicians jump on the environmental bandwagon because they hold a very large number of the voting population. There's no group or person in power that's going to stand up for us.

Anybody want to see if they can take Obama wheeling? ;)

I'd show Obama wheeling, alright....

Oh I would gladly take him to see some of the most beautiful and stunning sights anyone has ever seen! And the only way to get there is "marked" offroad trails! Maybe take him to gorgeous mountains and streams! Or out the desert where he can see the valleys and fossils an dry lake beds, maybe some old ruins and mines! I just don't know if he would be coming back with me after lol! Just kidding.

Oh I would gladly take him to see some of the most beautiful and stunning sights anyone has ever seen! And the only way to get there is "marked" offroad trails! Maybe take him to gorgeous mountains and streams! Or out the desert where he can see the valleys and fossils an dry lake beds, maybe some old ruins and mines! I just don't know if he would be coming back with me after lol! Just kidding.

I'm sure some of us wouldn't mind :) haha "jk"

Yeah, I went to Dixie Run this year and it was awesome. Sparta Tn says there revenue from it was about 1 million+. Thats what Murphy lost, along with the other off roading events.

Yeah, I went to Dixie Run this year and it was awesome. Sparta Tn says there revenue from it was about 1 million+. Thats what Murphy lost, along with the other off roading events.

A mil+ from a single run? How many trucks showed up?

I think they said the number was between 350-450 rigs. They made a lot off hotel/motel and food/supplies and fuel. Now this is what I heard so don't quote me, the final numbers should be out soon.