SierraScape March 2014 - August 2014
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by John Hickey
Chapter Director
Missouri Sierra Club

The Current and Jacks Fork Rivers need your help! The National Park Service has proposed a management plan that would significantly reduce horse traffic in the rivers as well as illegal road access to the rivers, but anti-conservation forces are pushing back hard to get the Park Service to abandon its principles.

Hundreds of Sierra Club members submitted comments to the National Park Service before the recently passed deadline of February 7th. Perhaps you, the reader, submitted comments. If you did, thank you!

However, the struggle is not over. For the next six months or so, the Park Service will be reviewing the comments, and deciding whether to stick with its preferred Alternative B, or whether to give in to political pressure from the local Congressman and weaken the management plan. The Sierra Club of course recommends Alternative A, which provides the strongest protections for the Riverways. We need to make sure that our federal elected officials listen to the pro-conservation majority!

Please send in a comment to Senator Claire McCaskill TODAY. She has an easy web-based comment form; the link is www.mccaskill.senate.gov/?p=contact .

Key points to make:

• Support Alternative A, which provides the greatest protection for the Park.
• Share a story of your own experience at the Ozark National Scenic Riverways – either a positive story to underscore the specialness of the place, or a story that illustrates current problems at the Riverways.
• Give the National Park Service the tools it needs to do its job, including a strong new management plan, as well as adequate funding and political support to do implement the new plan.

Thanks for submitting a comment to Sen. McCaskill – this fight is critical, since whatever new management plan is chosen will guide the Park for the next 20 or 25 years!