Sierra Club?

["Carolyn Burgess" <carolyn_burgess@hotmail.com>]

<<<Mike, In my opinion we need all the alliances we can get.  I don't always 
agree with everything the Sierra Club gets involved in, here in Fl, but they 
do try to curb urban sprawl, a particular problem here in "Touristville" >>>

Let me give you a real example of what happens when you join forces with a 
group that (you think) will be an allie.  In eastern Massachusetts there was 
a former army base that was being surplused.  I was basically several 
thousand acres with a large pond, several marshy areas, woods and lots of 
dirt roads.  Oh, did I mention the arsenic in the ground and the old, 
burried amunition and bunkers.  But other than that, it would have been 
perfect for passive recreation (walking, dogs, hiking, mountain bikes, 
horses, etc.) after clean up.  It is in an area that could really use this 
kind of open space (about 20 miles outside of Boston). A group was formed to 
look at the issue and to formulate a plan for the transfer of the land 
to...?

The local towns would have taken (yes, it was free) the land and so would 
the state, but they were afraid that the towns or even the State of 
Massachusetts would not have been powerful enough to make the Army clean up 
the land.  So they turned to the federal government to see if there was a 
group that would be appropriate and willing to take the land.  Parks and 
Recreation (everyones first choice) was not interested, but US Fish and 
Wildlife was.  So Fish and Wildlife was questioned by the group formed to 
facilitate the transfer and it seemed that they were OK with passive use of 
the land.  So all of the towns at town meeting voted to transfer the land to 
Fish and Wildlife.

The focus for many years (the transfer took almost 10 years to complete) was 
the clean up of the land.  In the interim there was a change of command of 
the local Fish and Wildlife office, which was the first problem to occur.  
This person no longer was interested in allowing humans on the land.  There 
have been many open meetings with input from the community on using the 
land, and they basically won't even discuss any use at this point.  This 
property is basically woods with wide dirt roads, an equestrian or mountain 
bikers dream, but we can't even us it as a corridor to get to other areas 
that we are allowed to ride in.

We have had similar issues with The Audubon Society in eastern 
Massachusetts.  Many equestrians donated land and money to Audubon, when 
Audubon had a hidden agenda of vanquishing equestrians from their land.

So I would say that unless the organization was formed with equestrian use 
in mind, and I don't believe that The Sierra Club was, that I would not form 
an alliance with them as they will use you to get what THEY want, not what 
YOU want.

Carolyn Burgess

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