Letter: Many better uses for BLM funds

Monday, Feb. 2, 2004 | 9:05 a.m.

To date, the federal Bureau of Land Management's land auctions in Nevada have raised $700 million. Already the fund is overspent -- $754 million has either been spent or allocated mostly for trails, parks and general environmental improvements, most of which must now be maintained with Nevada taxpayer dollars. Seems everyone is running a deficit lately.

Wasn't it just a short time ago when it was reported that several hundred million dollars in this fund was unspent and not allocated? Was this before or after Sens. John Ensign and Harry Reid voted to divert $30 million every year from this fund to improve the water quality of Lake Tahoe? How about spending some of those funds to improve the quality of Floyd Lamb State Park? We should fix this financial hot potato so that it becomes truly useful to the citizens of Nevada.

Let's see, $700 million could have given full-ride university scholarships to 15,000 or possibly 20,000 Nevada students. This fund could have built two world-class research facilities and a second university campus to attract real long-term businesses and foster sustainable growth.

In every other municipality in the country, it's taxpayers who pay for parks. We need to start moving these funds toward new horizons of opportunity.

RICHARD RYCHTARIK