BLM accepts Eco-Challenge
While
being videotaped from a helicopter, 50 teams of five competitors
each will race through the heart of southern Utah’s canyon country
this April. Although 85 percent to 90 percent of the 700 comments
received opposed the scheme, the Bureau of Land Management recently
gave its approval, with conditions, to the Eco-Challenge race, a
10-day, 370-mile romp across public lands. Organizers say it will
provide an environmentally correct, low-impact message. Critics
wonder how that’s possible, since the race will continue both day
and night, and will receive coverage by a national press not
subject to the same restrictions as participants. They charge that
the BLM never considered avoiding wilderness study areas, peregrine
falcon aeries or bighorn sheep habitat. The competitors will hike,
run, bike, climb, ride and paddle from Huntington, south of Price
in central Utah, to Bullfrog Marina on Lake Powell. The BLM has
required that the sponsor put up an $80,000 bond to cover clean-up
expenses and that the race course follow roads and wash-bottoms so
that, according to the BLM District Manager Kate Kitchell, impacts
“will be short-term and small-scale.” Opponents, including local
guides, outfitters and environmentalists, have appealed the BLM’s
decision; a decision is expected before April
25.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline BLM accepts eco-challenge.
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