US Forest Service riles local crowd at Lake Isabella
Steve Merlo, The Bakersfield Californian, Mar 27 2009 [here]
They came to lead the lambs to slaughter, but when the smoke cleared, the United States Forest Service found itself facing an angry pack of civilian wolves hellbent on tossing the governmental agency back into the woods. The 200-plus throng of concerned citizens first filled the Lake Isabella Senior Citizen hall last Monday evening, then overflowed into the foyers, each person wanting to make their point regarding government intrusion into their Kern River Valley livelihoods and recreational opportunities.
In a move that riled the normally laid-back local populace, the USFS has been proposing to shut off most vehicular access around Isabella Lake and the surrounding national forest mountains and substitute unpopular, mandated government plans to overtake these hunting, fishing, recreation and tourist attractions. The meeting, the supposed fifth in a series that went largely ignored until last Monday evening due to lack of proper USFS advertising, united the community to gather and repulse the direct threat against them.
There’s no doubt that Tina Terrel, USFS supervisor for the Sequoia National Forest, has a tough job. …Ms. Terrel’s maps and proposed changes were proven to be an outright and deliberate inaccuracy by several of the audience who happened to have their own legitimate map overlays directly contradicting the ones she and her staff displayed. … [more]
Note: see Stewards of the Sequoia [here] for more information on this and other public forest issues.