Suit Claims Feds Are Allowing Protected Desert to Be Trashed

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  • Inigoes

    Head'n for the hills
    MDS Supporter
    Dec 21, 2008
    49,367
    SoMD / West PA
    Suit Claims Feds Are Allowing Protected Desert to Be Trashed by target shooting

    Environmental groups are attempting to stop the government from opening up 90% of a federally protected desert monument to target shooting in a federal lawsuit filed Thursday in Arizona.

    The environmental groups state in the lawsuit that opening up the monument to target shooting will place much of the area at risk, as recognized by BLM employees.

    “BLM authorizes target shooting in roughly 90 percent of the Monument, including within the area’s iconic saguaro cactus forests, occupied wildlife habitat, and areas known to contain high densities of cultural and historic sites,” the complaint states. “These are areas that BLM’s own staff deemed unsuitable for target shooting. Damage to the Monument’s objects from target shooting is well documented and continues to this day.”

    The groups are asking the court to vacate the BLM’s decision and order it to take steps to repair damage done by target shooters.

    Thomas Hulen, executive director of the Friends of Sonoran Desert National Monument said in a statement last year that damage caused to the monument by target shooters is “heartbreaking.”

    “Furthermore, irresponsible target shooters leave literally tons of trash behind, which costs the public thousands of dollars to clean up,” he said.

    https://www.courthousenews.com/suit-claims-feds-are-allowing-protected-desert-to-be-trashed/

    Case 2:19-cv-05008-MHB in the US District Court for the District of Arizona.

    The lawsuit filing: https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/SonoranDesertMonument.pdf
     

    GunBum

    Active Member
    Feb 21, 2018
    751
    SW Missouri
    That’s a problem everywhere out west. When I lived in Utah, trigger trash was a big problem. By trigger trash I mean both the garbage left behind by the shooters and the shooters themselves. People just don’t take care of the property of the people of the United States. :mad54:

    LRSU sponsored cleanups on BLM land, but it was a small drop in the bucket. Trash can be picket up, but the damage to vegetation, and cultural sites is inexcusable. :sad20:
     

    marko

    Banned
    BANNED!!!
    Jan 28, 2009
    7,048
    Yeah I can see people throwing their empty beers and trash out there and not picking up the brass.
    I've been out there, it's a TON of land.
    But you have to leave the area CLEANER THAN YOU FOUND IT.
    A few people ruin it for the rest of us.
     

    PowPow

    Where's the beef?
    Nov 22, 2012
    4,712
    Howard County
    Yeah I can see people throwing their empty beers and trash out there and not picking up the brass.
    I've been out there, it's a TON of land.
    But you have to leave the area CLEANER THAN YOU FOUND IT.
    A few people ruin it for the rest of us.

    ^ This!
     

    davsco

    Ultimate Member
    Oct 21, 2010
    8,607
    Loudoun, VA
    bottom line, people are asses. no one gives a crap about anything that they don't own. even hikers and bikers leave crap everywhere, hard to understand how you can hike and bike thru picturesque parks and trails and leave trash all over.

    it's everywhere though. hit a public restroom and papertowels and tp all over the floor and sinks/counters. the two people that actually use ashtrays then dump them in a parking lot or while waiting at a traffic light. fast food cups and wrappers all along the roads. hell at the last gas station i hit, someone threw their trash in the bucket that had the windshield washer thingie. no one gives a crap.
     

    lazarus

    Ultimate Member
    Jun 23, 2015
    13,680
    Won’t solve it, but if BLM has some harsh penalties for littering and hired some extra officers to enforce it. Self funding isn’t a great way to do law enforcement, but maybe to handle littering it is?

    $500 fine and mandatory 16 hours community service...cleaning up federal lands of litter and trash. Double the penalty each time caught.

    For what’s damaged, there are some Native American sites and artifacts in the Sonora.
     

    adit

    ReMember
    MDS Supporter
    Feb 20, 2013
    19,514
    DE
    Won’t solve it, but if BLM has some harsh penalties for littering and hired some extra officers to enforce it. Self funding isn’t a great way to do law enforcement, but maybe to handle littering it is?

    $500 fine and mandatory 16 hours community service...cleaning up federal lands of litter and trash. Double the penalty each time caught.

    For what’s damaged, there are some Native American sites and artifacts in the Sonora.

    Would this apply to all the illegal aliens walking through???
     

    Blacksmith101

    Grumpy Old Man
    Jun 22, 2012
    22,165
    Sonoran Desert National Monument is south of Goodyear and Buckeye and east of Gila Bend, Arizona. Created by Presidential proclamation on January 17, 2001,[2] the 496,400 acres (200,886 ha)[1] monument is managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management as part of the National Landscape Conservation System.

    The environmentalists want to close 446,760 acres of public land to target shooters when the BLM says it is OK. Until 2015 you could target shoot on all 496,400 acres but because of environmentalist complaints the BLM reconsidered and restricted almost 50,000 acres now those environmentalists are still not happy because they want to close the entire area. Just like gun grabbers will never be happy until all guns are banned the environmentalists want all shooting banned.

    Map showing the Sonoran Desert National Monument and the closed areas.
    https://luke.isportsman.net/files/maps/SDNM_17x23_2016.pdf
     

    K31

    "Part of that Ultra MAGA Crowd"
    MDS Supporter
    Jan 15, 2006
    35,632
    AA county
    I am unclear what "objects" in the desert are being hurt. Are people shooting cacti?

    Some of those "cacti" are close to, or maybe over, 200 years old. I've got no doubt from what I've seen at ranges around here that some ahole wouldn't shoot them or whatever historic objects maybe about.
     

    nedsurf

    Ultimate Member
    Feb 8, 2013
    2,204
    Yup. Trashing BLM land by recreational shooting is a major problem and should be addressed in many different ways. I do suspect however that establishing an adequate shooting range using Pittman Robertson funding while closing the rest of the area to recreational shooting would also be met with opposition by the same group(s).
     

    delaware_export

    Ultimate Member
    Apr 10, 2018
    3,144
    Yeah, lots of trash out there and to quote tommy lee from MIB:

    The person is smart, people are stupid.

    And the occasional shooting happens, occasionally resulting in a death. Not often but often enough. Already around Vegas, the county is making more areas off limits to recreational shooting. .feds are too.

    The kind of slobs that ruin public land in the western states are the same kind of idiots that dump trash on private properties on the east coast as well. Someone dumped a whole demolished bathroom on the neighbors hunt lease in Georgia. Tub, sink, crapper, drywall and plastic tub insert, etc. it’s not just a public land thing.

    That said, if a group of people have standing to sue the feds about a mess like this, why not sue them for allowing illegals in?

    Do these enviro groups have standing here?
     

    Boats

    Beer, Bikes n Boomsticks
    Mar 13, 2012
    4,073
    Howeird County
    I am unclear what "objects" in the desert are being hurt. Are people shooting cacti?

    I've tooled around on BLM land in Nevada and it was trashed. Vegetation shot up, and people would dump stuff there, which would invariably get shot up (like washing machines, dishwashers, computers, etc). Lots of unpoliced brass, beer cans and bottles and the like.

    I am sure some of it is just people dumping and then the dumped items getting shot up, but not all of it. But even in that case, the shooters get the blame.
     

    ted76

    Ultimate Member
    MDS Supporter
    Jan 20, 2013
    3,151
    Frederick

    KenS

    Roof Rack
    Aug 12, 2019
    10
    Howard County
    I'm For Protecting the Environment

    If shooters don't respect the planet, they have no place to complain about laws that restrict their destructive & self-defeating behaviors?

    The right to shoot doesn't include the right to screw up the planet and deprive all of us of a clean environment.


    That’s a problem everywhere out west. When I lived in Utah, trigger trash was a big problem. By trigger trash I mean both the garbage left behind by the shooters and the shooters themselves. People just don’t take care of the property of the people of the United States. :mad54:

    LRSU sponsored cleanups on BLM land, but it was a small drop in the bucket. Trash can be picket up, but the damage to vegetation, and cultural sites is inexcusable. :sad20:
     

    adit

    ReMember
    MDS Supporter
    Feb 20, 2013
    19,514
    DE
    If shooters don't respect the planet, they have no place to complain about laws that restrict their destructive & self-defeating behaviors?

    The right to shoot doesn't include the right to screw up the planet and deprive all of us of a clean environment.

    Trigger trash pales in comparison to what the ILLEGALS are leaving behind.
     

    KenS

    Roof Rack
    Aug 12, 2019
    10
    Howard County
    Let's not get distracted from the problem at hand. Shoes leaving their yeah behind access up things for the rest of us.
    People fleeing for their lives and a chance to live a normal life are a totally different issue, and are irrelevant to the issue discussed.
     

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