Christa Sadler has repeated park officials’ claims
about what the proposed plan would do. However, a careful reading
of the entire document and unpublished supporting studies, and hard
questioning of park staffers, reveals that the plan is “not as
advertised.”
Addressing some of Ms. Sadler’s
specific interpretations:
* The plan would not
encourage people to “get off their butts’ or out of vehicles. On
the contrary, visitors would have to spend much more time in
vehicles (with 100 other tourists), or waiting in line for
vehicles, or fighting for a parking space, than they do
now;
* No existing public roads would be closed
to motor vehicles or converted to trails. The plan encourages
increased traffic on all but a tiny fraction of park
roads;
* The proposed tourist trails that
environmentalists object to are in high-quality, unspoiled,
roadless rim areas classified as Primitive or Threshold Wilderness
under the existing Backcountry Management Plan: Atoko Point to Naji
Point on the North Rim, and Pinal to Papago Point on the South
Rim.
Environmental organizations support some
elements of the plan but strongly criticize its fundamental
purpose, which is to vastly increase the number of tourists on the
overlooks and trails. As an alternative, they endorse an immediate
limit on the number of visitors and an extension of the existing
reservation system to day use. Some park officials agree, but the
idea was deleted from the plan because of heavy political pressure
from the tourist industry. n
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Dennis Brownridge replies.
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