It seems the Trump administration is on a wall-building mission! The Nevada branch of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) sent Burning Man a 372-page proposal that reviews the environmental impact and sets out to ensure public health and safety on public lands such as Black Rock City.
You see, Burning Man recently filed for a new 10-year permit with a maximum event population of 100 000 people, which would give the festival occupancy of Black Rock City until 2028. Now while the government has a window to change the permit requirements, they want to build a wall around it!
Taken from Alternative A of the proposal:
“The Event site would be a 3,900-acre pentagon surrounded by a perimeter fence. The perimeter fence would enhance site security, define the Event site, and prevent windblown trash from leaving the site.”
Their most serious concern, however, is “the federal government replacing, overseeing, or managing areas of Black Rock City’s operations that have been successfully built and managed for decades with expert, dedicated staff and thousands of volunteers”
Burning Man has called this wall “logistically onerous, environmentally irresponsible, unnecessarily redundant, prohibitively expensive”. Despite the fact that an event perimeter has been effectively established and maintained with a temporary and wind-permeable barrier (also known as the trash fence), the event claims these physical barriers would result in 10 miles of dunes that would “need to be remediated with heavy machinery” and would be less effective at catching trash then the fence that is installed every year.
