Happy Trails: BLM wants to re-open sites to vehicles, keep OHVs off Butterfield
The areas that are part of the environmental assessment are between Maricopa and Gila Bend.
Maricopa is surrounded by desert historic sites, but it is not always easy – or legal – to get to them in a vehicle.
Take, for instance, three recreation areas that have been closed to vehicles since 2008. They hearken back to a pre-Civil War era. All are on land belonging to the Bureau of Land Management.
What was supposed to be a two-year effort has stopped traffic there for eight years. Now the BLM wants to re-open some motorized access points near Maricopa. That plan is going through an Environmental Assessment process.
That brings up the National Landscape Conservation System. Its mission is “to conserve, protect and restore these nationally significant landscapes that are recognized for their outstanding cultural, ecological and scientific values.”
