The problem here is when a gas boom is on... no one cares about anything but money. Everyone thinks they are more important than the next guy or the lands... In our site orientation it was purposefully relayed that BLM was strict and people should go to the BLM office prior to camping, offroading or hiking. These guys obviously didn't bother.
Wyoming BLM in our area has constant trouble with out of state contractors and "visitors". They think they can litter like they do in their home states and its okay for some reason. Oil and gas companies are fined constantly because of trash and the destruction of BLM lands around their project facilities.
I, 100% support the BLM with what these guys got and IMO it should have been more harsh.
J
That sounds a lot different than the dynamics here. For the most part everyone in my neighborhood (Eastern Sierra) is here to enjoy the environment in some sense. Skiing, snowboarding, backpacking, fishing, whatever. Most of the land is NFS or NPS, there are designated wilderness areas everywhere (where you can't take a vehicle at all), and there are big watershed areas that supply major chunks of drinking and agricultural water for the rest of the state.
The worst environmental stuff around here is people not picking up all their trash and the occasional pieces of s*** who dump old furniture in the desert.
Down in the southern end of the sierras where it's closer to major metropolitan areas I've seen much worse: some guy took a s*** behind a rock and just threw his disgusting cakes toilet paper on the ground. People hiking in with lawn chairs to fish, then just abandoning them and the sun cracks the plastic and makes a huge mess. I've hiked out with all kinds of junk strapped to my pack from one area in particular.
I know California gets a lot of hate from the rest of the country for being seen as overly environmental but with places like Yosemite within a couple of hours from Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Reno the understanding is that if we're not really strict about things the whole mountain range will look like their filthy cities. Trash bags stuck to fences, car parts on the side of the road, cigarette butts, etc.
Maybe a distinction is that where you're at there's so much open wilderness and remoteness that folks don't treat it as special? Combined with economic interest that look at it as their livelihood, coupled with a general "environmentalists are out of touch" ?
