Promoters say Burning Man Festival will be tidy and organized

Wednesday, May 6, 1998 | 1:28 a.m.

About 75 people attended a public hearing here Tuesday night on the festival's permit application pending before the Bureau of Land Management.

Organizers want to hold the annual Labor Day gathering on public land in the Black Rock Desert north of Reno.

Event coordinator Larry Harvey said that no single-day admissions will be sold.

"We now require that if you come, you come to live there," Harvey said. "It is not an event for casual spectators."

Another hearing will be held tonight in Gerlach, which is just a few miles from the proposed festival site.

The BLM is requiring event organizers to submit an environmental report by June 1. A decision on the permit is expected about two weeks later.

About 10,000 people attended last year's event, held on private land in Washoe County.

County officials charged Burning Man $250,000 for fire, law enforcement and sanitation services and imposed a list of more than 100 requirements to comply with health and safety regulations.

Organizers complained the demands and charges were excessive.

Duane Hoover, who will supervise event staff, said the group was working "hand in hand" with the Washoe County sheriff's office, medical officials and the BLM.

"Burning Man is an organic community," he said. "We do learn."

Supporters at the hearing said the gathering that concludes with the torching of a 40-foot tall wooden man sculpture is a tribute to responsible free expression.

"I'd rather have my son spend six days at Burning Man than six hours at Meadowood Mall," said supporter Mike McCurry.

"There's nothing to be trampled, there's no woolly mammoths to be trampled," another said. "There's no legitimate reason to deny us."

The notion that there is nothing in the Black Rock to damage concerned Chuck Dodd, who was one of the few people who spoke against the festival.

Dodd, a member of the Oregon-California Trails Association, said the event encourages irresponsibility.

"They come here to be free of responsibility," he said. "The prevailing view is that there is nothing out there of any value."