Appeal filed against the raised population cap of 60,900

[catinthefunnyhat]

Indeed. I feel bad about hastily snarking in here. The discussion is actually quite interesting, and the facts are well presented.

I agree that it would be nice to see some proper studies on the changes in the playa and whether/how much Burning Man has significantly contributed to those. Any large event -- any human activity at all, really -- has an impact on the environment. But some environments are more resilient than others. It would be interesting to see how the impact of this event compares to others of a similar size, held in different kinds of environments.

[Jackass]

So what's the real issue here cxbrx? Is it the fact that your formerly intimate gathering is now growing to numbers that you find unacceptable or is it that you "can't" landsail anymore? You're worried over dunes yet you suggest paving the desert? If you really wanna see the surface disturbed I guess that would do the trick. Im sure a patch a asphalt in the middle of this lakebed would last maybe 10 years before it cracks to pieces and falls apart. Why not pave yourself a narrow strip up one side of the playa for landsailing, that would be cheaper and less intrusive

[VultureChow]

The event is one injury or death lawsuit away from ending.

I never understood this belief. Is the BM Org not insured in any way? Is the fear a public backlash or a multi-million dollar lawsuit?

People have died at Burning Man before. And they will in the future. In a town of 60,000, one accidental death in a week is not that unusual. And I'm sure the org has been sued before.

[kiss-o-matic]

I guess I don't see the difference in land sailing causing change and the BM event causing change. This is also to land that is relatively unused otherwise? I consider myself a green person, but this sounds like it's getting a bit ridiculous. Pardon me if I'm more concerned about leaking nuclear reactors, irradiated drinking water, and crooked politicians in areas that are highly populated 365 days a year. Not 8.

[Ugly Dougly]

I suspect the people who "really matter" care more about the surface of teh neighboring highway than they do about the state of the playa surface.

[Bay Bridge Sue]

Interesting compilation of information. One of the things I noticed in the photos were some of the roads (like to the pond or hot springs) that are there before TTITD... but it's a good collection of data nonetheless. Not that it seems the appeal will have ground to stand merit - the BLM has too much to lose by losing that permit (and some limited control over the event).

Cancel the permit... and you then have a guerilla BRC. Everyone involved (that I've spoken to) in TTITD knows this, and likely they would rather have some control over what happens out there than a free-for-all of 100K people flash mobbing the Playa.

With the permit, they can set the closure area, have a developed population city plan (the blocks and roads), insure minimum requirements are met (eg the Jots, water trucks, etc)...

Just one of the impacts of not issuing that permit and having 75K "individual campers" decide to all camp out for a week in the Black Rock desert - can you say Latrine Pits?

Trust me - they'd rather everyone play ball with each other than lose their grip on what they have. The alternative WOULD truly be disastrous for the ecology of the playa...

[pink]

I read your page in its entirety last night and was also going the comment on the lack of photographic evidence before Burning Man caused a plethora of photos to be taken. I've seen plenty of recent pictures taken that do not show dunes.

The lack of the ability to bike in 2008 wasn't the result of dunes-the entire playa surface was deep dust. I was there before the event began, and the surface wasn't any better than after the masses arrived. If anything, the road surface was a bit better from the water trucks compacting the road areas (but not much). The lack of rain in those years seemed to be a much bigger issue than the population. The utterly lovely playa surface in 2011 is evidence for this. More people, but less impact dust-wise. In fact, the only time I saw any type of dust storm last year was when the wind shifted to come from the north during exodus.

Also, although you cite the visibility of the 2007 city as an issue, the scars left by what I assume were the land speed trials are MUCH more visible. I do appreciate your analysis, but I don't agree with using a lawsuit. And as far as tearing up the playa surface, does not a convergence of land sailors do the same thing? Any use is going to leave scars, create dust, and create change.

[Dr. Mercury]

Well, this is a remarkably civilized discussion, isn't it? For the Internet! Where are the trolls?

For what it's worth, I am very impressed by the collection of extra-Burning Man Black Rock Desert photographs here. It's a remarkable work of scholarship. I have the 1926 movie myself, and of course the land speed videos, but none of the others. What's more, if Christopher Brooks is right, and the city really IS causing these dunes, then that's something that we at least need to consider and subject to impartial scrutiny, regardless of the implications for Burning Man or what one might feel about his lawsuit.

My experience is that the dunes are much much worse now than they were in 1999 when I first started going. I don't remember any problems biking around at all in those early years. In 2010 I took a plane up in a dust storm at the end of the week and looked down on the city, and was shocked to see where the dust was coming from: the city itself! Black Rock City looked like a big horseshoe with sand blowing out of the open arc; no storm to be seen anywhere else. It was the first time I had thought of weather conditions there as anything other than natural phenomena.

I do however take issue with Mr Brooks' recommendation to replace "Leave No Trace" with "Tread Lightly". The Ten Principles are meant to be ideals that we aspire towards, and the fact that we do not--and cannot--adhere to them perfectly does not mean that they should be changed. Mr Brooks feels we should replace something prescriptive with something descriptive. Imagine if we took the same approach to the legal code!

Dr. Mercury ☿ Connecticut Oakburners

[Ruleryak]

@cxbrx - how much of this is based on your actual experience with the Black Rock Desert? You're saying things to indicate that the conditions are worse year after year but seem to be completely ignoring the fact that it's a lakebed with a natural cycle that really doesn't have very much at all to do with the previous year's occupancy. For instance, I think anyone that was there could agree that 2008 was the worst year as far as dunes and storms goes in the last decade. Dunes were thick and were everywhere, and it felt like the dust storms would never end. In 2011 the surface was immaculate, there were basically zero dunes at all anywhere, and there wasn't a dust storm that mattered until the Monday after the burn. The lake soaked longer and dried out later in the 2010-2011 interim, leading to far better conditions.

If your argument is that the lake bed is in worse shape after the event each year than it was prior to the event then you'd be correct - it is every time, whether the difference is minor or major is again tied to the amount of rain the region received and how long the playa soaked.

Instead your argument seems to be that there is a cumulative effect of the city's existence and that each year conditions are worse than the previous year - simply not true.

[Rice]

The weather conditions affect the dunes on the playa way more than burners do. A moist winter gives much better ground packing than a dry winter. I am not saying Burning Man has zero impact, but I suspect it has less than is claimed.

[pink]

Well, this is a remarkably civilized discussion, isn't it? For the Internet! Where are the trolls?

For what it's worth, I am very impressed by the collection of extra-Burning Man Black Rock Desert photographs here. It's a remarkable work of scholarship. I have the 1926 movie myself, and of course the land speed videos, but none of the others. What's more, if Christopher Brooks is right, and the city really IS causing these dunes, then that's something that we at least need to consider and subject to impartial scrutiny, regardless of the implications for Burning Man or what one might feel about his lawsuit.

My experience is that the dunes are much much worse now than they were in 1999 when I first started going. I don't remember any problems biking around at all in those early years. In 2010 I took a plane up in a dust storm at the end of the week and looked down on the city, and was shocked to see where the dust was coming from: the city itself! Black Rock City looked like a big horseshoe with sand blowing out of the open arc; no storm to be seen anywhere else. It was the first time I had thought of weather conditions there as anything other than natural phenomena.

I do however take issue with Mr Brooks' recommendation to replace "Leave No Trace" with "Tread Lightly". The Ten Principles are meant to be ideals that we aspire towards, and the fact that we do not--and cannot--adhere to them perfectly does not mean that they should be changed. Mr Brooks feels we should replace something prescriptive with something descriptive. Imagine if we took the same approach to the legal code!

Dr. Mercury ☿ Connecticut Oakburners

I'm surprised you never noticed that WE cause the dust. My first burn, driving down 37, there was no dust in Gerlach. No dust on the highway. But a big cloud around Gate. Dust churned up by the vehicles in front of me and a cloud in my wake. And this was about noon Monday in 2005, so it wasn't like there was a long line at Gate. Of course we cause the dust. It's just how much-which is affected by weather and wind.

[Bay Bridge Sue]

I still remember seeing the mile-high wall of dust as it descended on Winnemucca (we had flown there for groceries and got stuck there) in 2007. Wasn't the worst since then, but residents were taking pictures, saying it had never ben that bad.

Of course there was the burn-generated wind which generated the Wind-generated white out a couple years ago...

What gets me is the serpents grow and shrink. They may have not been there in 1847, but who knows - most people took pictures for the grandeur and the barrenness, not to catalog playa serpents. A couple of the pix - looked like it had something like a serpent off in the distance, but, of course, it was too far away.

Its physics - ake dried flooded chalk dust, pulverize it with tires over and over, and add some good strong wind... of COURSE you'll have dust. You have dust, you have serpents. But if a good dry spell where you have fluffy playa conditions, you will still get dust... and serpents... even without the burn.

(All this talk about dust is making me jones for the smell of playa dust, dammit!)

[pink]

I love the smell of playa in the morning!

Cue "Ride of the Valkyries"

[stinkyfoot]

The event is one injury or death lawsuit away from ending.

Well, that's the kind of statement that makes you hope the idiot offspring of the hyper rich always buy extra tickets for handlers so someone else can get thrown to the mercy of the corporate court system when Darwin inevitably intercedes.

[oneeyeddick]

It seems to me that deserts are supposed to have dunes, and worms.

[Foxfur]

Yet another example of a sniveler punching the udder to try and get more than he's entitled to under the guise of concern for the environment which is in actuality a selfish desire to control our actions so that he can sail his little hobby dirt boat.
Guess what, bitch?
This ain't a democracy.
We pay cash, in fuck you quantities.
Start walking.

[EspressoDude]

I love the smell of playa in the morning!

Cue "Ride of the Valkyries"

opens bag of playa gear, sniffs aaahh, shuffles cd's for "Ride of the Valkyries" mmmm. going to have to make sure that cd is in the car for playa trip later in the week

[junglesmacks]

Yet another example of a sniveler punching the udder to try and get more than he's entitled to under the guise of concern for the environment which is in actuality a selfish desire to control our actions so that he can sail his little hobby dirt boat.
Guess what, bitch?
This ain't a democracy.
We pay cash, in fuck you quantities.
Start walking.

Sig worthy, my friend.

[Corvus]

It seems to me that deserts are supposed to have dunes, and worms.

And spice. Don't forget the spice.

[Foxfur]

Yet another example of a sniveler punching the udder to try and get more than he's entitled to under the guise of concern for the environment which is in actuality a selfish desire to control our actions so that he can sail his little hobby dirt boat.
Guess what, bitch?
This ain't a democracy.
We pay cash, in fuck you quantities.
Start walking.

Sig worthy, my friend.

You or anyone else are more than welcome to it.

And now something a little more eloquent..
cxbrx,
The specious 'facts' that you've presented in such a long-winded and abstruse manner were the original reason that many have refused to validate your proposition to reduce the population cap by 10,900 burners. You put it over the top when you admitted to having participated in the event for over 20 years. Your position is disingenuous at best and utterly fraudulent at worst due to this simple and indisputable self admitted fact. I feel your true motive is that of a bitter old burner who wants to see a pop-cap rollback. Were you truly concerned about the destruction of the playa surface and generation of dunes that are deleterious to your pastime, you would remove yourself from the ranks of those who are the root of the perceived problem not to mention the hobby that you engage in.

Deiter is shocked by the destruction that occurs at the death camp that he works at. He cries out for succor to the powers that be yet he continues to go to work because he enjoys the friendship and bacon.

Doesn't make sense to me...
It would be a waste of ammunition to shoot your logic full of holes as 99 & 44/100ths of a percent of my projectiles would be unmolested by the substance of your argument as they would pass through the holes that you have already shot through it.

I'd continue to churn out counteroffal but I need to get back to work on my MV: A parking lot sweeper whose filter bags have been removed so as to allow the production of a voluminous dust column. It will also tow a disc harrow behind it...

[gyre]

What?
No tracks?

[theCryptofishist]

I also suspect that if a truly robust EIS were to be performed on how the event does affect the southern portion of the Lahontan lake bed that one might be successful in appealing the new cap in numbers.

I don't really know what you mean by a "truly robust EIS". I realize that you have had a much closer seat to the action than I have and are aware of things that I know nothing of. I do know, however, a thing or two about EISs and even allowing for the fact that there's more than likely a bias against going above an EA, I don't think that there's a need. Sure, 328 pages is a lot longer than most DEAs (I don't have the final downloaded). But I think of the EIS that came my way yesterday--3 large binders, somewhere between 2 and 3 inches each (in fact, one of the binders was broken the damn thing was so heavy), supplemented by five comb bound 11 x 17 inch map books--and the permit is dwarfed. Or I think of Hycroft mine expansion--a gold mine that's going to operate around the clock, 365 day a year and leave behind nasty acidic waste for decades to centuries after it closes. Last year's adding a runway to a small, local airport was an EIS, and we rolled our eyes and said "it should have been an EA." And I can think of some EAs that we thought should have been EISs. Freeway projects in Reno sliced up in exit to exit pieces instead of analyzed as a whole. Border fences and remote surveillance projects piecemealed the same way. Huge housing developments outside Phoenix built without regard to where the ephemeral washes are. All much more problematic the permit, in my view.
Not to mention that it would have added at least a year to the process.

[pink]

Crypto, please explain accronyms!
EIS = Enviromental Impact Survey
EA = ?? (I know you don't mean Enrolled Agent)
DEA = ?? Not the one we all know...

And the difference between the levels of study? Do you work for the BLM?

[theCryptofishist]

Environmental Impact Statement
Environmental Assessment
Draft Environmental Assessment (both eas and eiss have draft and final stages.)

An EIS is a longer, more comprehensive document. Freeways, mines, large housing projects (I think 25,000 units is the mandatory threshold for an EIS), utility scale renewable energy, trains, levees, are examples of the sorts of things that require one.

[vargaso]

Just going by pictures of Burning Man over the years, it's pretty clear that the amount of dunes has increased, and the overall playa conditions during the event are rougher, on average. I remember being surprised and somewhat disappointed my first year in 2007 that the playa was not smooth and cracked as I had seen in pictures of earlier years. 2011 was more like it, but we all know that last year was unusual. Now, correlation does not inherently equal causation, but it doesn't take much of a leap to think that 50K + people and cars are going to churn up the playa surface. I'm sure weather changes also affect it, probably more.

That said, land surfer guy is wrongheaded in his appeal.

[DrYes]

This guy posted a completely reasonable argument. Well-researched considering the paucity of hard data. He can't be blamed for the fact that it's difficult to produce a magic bullet proving a negative about Black Rock from 12+ years ago.

It's not possible to honestly argue that Burning Man doesn't create a crapton of dust. We know we change the environment, and he's completely right that Leave No Trace is poorly named, since we certainly leave a heck of a trace in carbon emissions, tearing up the playa, and so on. I don't know why it's so hard to acknowledge that.

At the same time, how many people landsail on Black Rock desert? If 50,000 people were landsailing on it simultaneously during a week, don't you think it'd tear up the playa and create quite a lot of dust too?

Without any judgement about what's the more worthy activity, the fact is that Burning Man allows this piece of federal land to provide a valuable service to a lot of people. I can't imagine even 1000 landsailers are on Black Rock during the course of an entire year (though as I know nothing about landsailing, perhaps that's wildly incorrect). Any activity besides perhaps gazing at the playa from afar is going to leave a trace on it. The relevant question is not whether a trace is left, but the social utility gained from using it vs. the costs associated with using it (environmental, changes that affect other users or potential users of Black Rock desert, etc).

I get that we damage the playa, and that the more Burners there are on it, the more damaged it becomes, but it's not as if we're trashing the environment in any particularly permanent way while there (other than the carbon emissions, which don't directly affect the playa much). We're changing it in very minor ways that really only affect (as per his own research) a small group of other users of Black Rock. I feel like an asshole for saying it, but I just think it's a situation where the interests of an additional 10k users (and the corresponding economic benefit that Gerlach and Empire will see) trump the interests of a lot less users.

If there really are anything approaching 10k people whose activity in Black Rock is substantially impeded or prevented, he's got a very reasonable argument....assuming he can develop a stronger case that Burning Man is really causing the dunes, and not just causing a lot of more temporary dust.

The latter isn't likely, and I'd be surprised to find out that 10k landsailers or land speed record seekers hit the playa every year.

--matt

[theCryptofishist]

... we certainly leave a heck of a trace in carbon emissions...

That was quantified in the EA as at about half the level of GHGs required for an EIS. Also, there's no evidence that the ~60,000 people involved would create any less if they didn't attend the burn.

[trilobyte]

I don't think calling it a leave no trace event is inappropriate, I read it as an aspiration. To argue that it should be changed is kind of like arguing that Virginia is for lovers should be changed because that bitch/asshole you fell for in Virginia Beach didn't love you back.

[some seeing eye]

The initiator of the suit is focused on the recent year cycle of complete flooding and leveling in the context of the long term likelihood of global warming and endless drifting. The National Environmental Policy Act, which requires the Environmental Impact Statement, to my knowledge, doesn't require zero impact on the playa, that by BLM rules is open to a variety of competing uses. I think it just requires the impacts be considered and that users conform to their predictions of impact. But I'm not up on case law. I wonder if the rocketry events are as LNT as BM?

[theCryptofishist]

I think it just requires the impacts be considered and that users conform to their predictions of impact. But I'm not up on case law.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "users conform to their predictions of impact". I mean if it's a poorly prepared thing, no one may be able to. But I've heard about some real dogs (excuse the term, canine eplayans) getting approval.