Clear sailing seen for Burning Man

Scott Sonner

Thursday, April 12, 2001 | 11:06 a.m.

RENO -- The proposed site for this year's Burning Man festival straddles a new National Conservation Area in the Black Rock Desert and could face additional permitting requirements in the future.

But Burning Man organizers say they don't anticipate difficulty winning Bureau of Land Management approval of the counterculture event that annually draws more than 20,000 people to the desert 120 miles northeast of Reno over the Labor Day weekend.

BLM officials who will conduct an environmental assessment of the site said they don't foresee any immediate hurdles, especially since it is just 1,800 feet northeast of the site approved last year.

But they won't make any promises after a three-year window, when the BLM implements a formal management plan for the desert covering an area about the size of the state of Delaware.

About half of the proposed site sits within the new federal desert protection zone established under the Black Rock Desert-High Rock Canyon Emigrant Trails National Conservation Area, which Congress approved and President Clinton signed into law in December.

The designation as a conservation area provides protection a notch below national monuments and parks, prohibiting most mining, geothermal activities and new roads, but allowing grazing, hunting and recreational activities to continue on existing roads and trails.

"If you look at the NCA legislation, there is language that allows for large-scale recreation events," said Jeff Johnson, BLM's environmental coordinator for the project based in Winnemucca. "We have three years to develop the management plan so in the meantime we are approaching it the same way as in the past."

Burning Man organizers filed for the formal permit as Black Rock City, the name of the village that emerges from the playa floor, the vast dried mud of an ancient lake bed.