new post about damage to playa. BM own people agree with us

allanon2 · Post by **allanon2** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 1:37 pm

as the original thread about this information was attempted to be hijacked by someone I am posting it here for people to comment on. the original post was done by Obcurotron. This information contained below comes from BM own people who seem to agree with what we have been saying for years.

obscurotron wrote:

Joined: 16 Aug 2005
Posts: 15

(formatting is horked because, oddly, the first posting of this was deleted by someone other than me. How neat!)

Well, let's start with the presumably unbiased observations of various folks
who post and communicate over at 3playa.

First:

Taniwha - Sep 14 2005, 2:17PM profile - link - bookmark - plonk
I've driven thru the BM site months before the burn every year since it's
been there (except this one sadly) - the compaction is pretty obvious if
you're looking. The playa surface is changing, esp downwind (north) of the
location with a lot more playa serpents forming every year making it pretty
much impossible to drive fast through that area any more (I be the land
sailing people who used to sometimes camp in the middle of the serpent field
are pissed!). There's also been a softer area north of the serpent fields
forming - that may have more to do with the lack of full flooding of the
playa (I suspect it's more a case of frost bloom).

It used to be that serpents were just forming downwind of the left and right
sides of the BM site, these days though they're right across the entire
area.

On the good side DPW's taken to squishing a bunch of the serpents during
cleanup ... probably just moves them further north though.

This weekend we (the rocket people, but sadly not me this year) are off to
the playa - years ago we stopped going at labor weekend because of BM -
nowdays everyone gripes about all the dust that blows into our launch site
from the DPW cleanup (sometimes when its really windy you just have to lock
yourself in your car, other times it just creates a general haze).

Second: (an independent assertion of playa serpent/transient dune locale
prior to and concurrent with the event)

Taniwha - Sep 14 2005, 2:49PM profile - link - bookmark - plonk
Bob - there used to be no serpents south of BM in the years before it
moved there (there did used to be a few slightly south of the current
site probably from the road that comes from the first entrance down towards
Trego).

Remember 10-mile didn't exist until relatively recently - and I don't think
the 10-mile has much effect except during the burn (most people I know use
the other two entrances anyway - 10 mile doesn't really take you anywhere
usefull that 12 mile doesn't already).

I do agree that 12-mile and the road north from it do cause some dust - but
I suspect much of that ends up off-playa (and BTW these days there is a line
of serpents forming slightly east of it, those are particularly recent in
an area that has often been a late lake in the past) - when stuck in a
rain storm at dusk and deciding to sleep over I've sought them out as
somewhere no one would hit me in the dark

Third: (though our angsty friend from the Stanford Linear Accelerator group
won't say so here, he says interesting things in other places):

Badger - Sep 14 2005, 3:29PM profile - link - bookmark - plonk
Hey Bob, how was Burning Man for you this year?

I have a hard time believing that. I saw what looked like a lot of pits and
shallow holes that looked older then just one season. They had cracks on the
surface, and it was compacted. I would also guess that there is an increase
in the playa snakes, but I have no first hand knowledge of any of this, save
what I saw the one week a year I'm there.

Interesting that you note that. Someone casually mentione the pits around
BRC ~1' dia. After that I started noticing them EVERYWHERE. Never had
noticed them before. Not sure what they are I guess I'll have to contact Rex
Scat Scates for an informed update. I'm sure it has everything to do with
pissing on the playa.
NB: Whether it has to do with urination or postholes, they were not there
before the event was being held in that locale.

Fouth: (interesting observation)

stu - Sep 14 2005, 4:40PM profile - link - bookmark - plonk
First camping rule: Check your boots.
I zigged when I should have zagged while driving off the playa during the
July 4th weekend this year, and I'm pretty sure I could tell when I drove
across the city footprint. There was lots of stuff lying around, like balls
of duct tape, glowsticks and other such things.

au revoir et amore

NB: or should we dismiss this as belonging to someone else? (the MOOP,
that is).

Fifth: (remember the rebar and stakes we've been talking about, but no one
believed in?)

geekster - Sep 10 2005, 3:02PM profile - link - bookmark - plonk
Will eat for food.
Yeah, and I ran into a t-stake while riding my bike that was sticking about
8-inches out of the playa. That would have probably been the thursday or
friday before the event. It sure looked like a little "landmine" put there
just for that purpose if you ask me. Who the fuck would cut a t-stake off
that low to the ground? That thing was a tire shreader just waiting to be
hit. It caught my right bike pedal and caused me to go skidding across the
playa. I also found a piece of rebar sticking out about 2 or 3 inches. It
wasn't a candycane either, it was just a straight piece of rebar sticking
straight up. This was before anyone had arrived in those areas. I don't see
how that stuff could be "buried by dust" and missed. Sure as hell looked
intentional to me. I pulled out the rebar and tried to find the t-stake the
next day so I could mark it with a caution tape flag but was unable to find
it. I guess I will have a GPS next time.

ETA: I guess that stuff could be left over from juplaya or others using the
area before the event if the area isn't dragged before the streets are laid
out.
NB: could be leftovers from someone else, but unlikely. Read on

Sixth: (wow)

III - Sep 10 2005, 5:26PM profile - link - bookmark - plonk
NOT MY CAMEL!
juplaya is held somewhere else entirely.

that stuff is probably all left from the previous year - as bob
points out, there are many hundreds of acres to cover, and if someone
decides to pound a stake in all the way, or hacksaw it off at ground level,
it can be easy to miss. over the winter, the playa softens up and floats
that stuff out, so the next year round it'll be sticking out a couple of
inches.

it's amazing how much of that stuff is left behind - when i did cleanup, one
of my duties was pulling out shit that got left behind. (i could do about
twice as many, by hand using assorted tools as el circus mano could using a
bobcat in the same time.) it was amazing how many people would just decide
to either leave it, or worse yet try to hide or disguise what was left
behind. i have no doubt that i missed many pieces.

my favorite extraction ever was a 10 ft piece of rebar someone had pounded
in so that there was only 1 1/2 feet sticking out. i know which camp it was,
too, because i saw the standing on a ladder early in the week in order to
pound it in. odd thing is, they were a usually really diligent about cleanup
kinda camp...
NB: I've only pulled out 2.5-3 foot sections of rebar. 10 feet.
Wow.

Seventh: (more moop, instructions included!)

geekster - Sep 10 2005, 1:35PM profile - link - bookmark - plonk
Will eat for food.
Thought I might mention ... when we were building our little thing out
there, we found a boatload of old moop. Screws, nails, spikes pounded in the
playa. Some of it in neat little piles like a box of screws had tipped over.
All of it very rusty and crusty. I would say nearly half the random moop we
picked up from walking the site appeared to be from years past. Does anyone
do an "inspection" of the various installation placements? I think there was
even a color 8x10 glossy photograph with circles and arrows and a paragraph
on the back explaining what it was buried under that 1/2 ton of garbage.

Eigth: (thanks Chai Guy, this is a good datapoint to reinforce some of what
we've been saying)

Chai Guy - Sep 10 2005, 1:51PM profile - link - bookmark - plonk
This isn't Nam. There are rules here!
Yeah, that's weird. Very early in the week (on monday am) I found 7
(seven!) pieces of rebar that were just barely visible in the road. I
guessed from the rust and the fact that they were barely visisble(and in the
middle of the road) that they had been leftover from last year.

eta: they were pounded in rebar stakes with just the tops showing, just
wanted to clarify that
NB: sure, it was found. But not when it was originally supposed to be.
Thanks for making the playa an unsafe place to drive a motor vehicle from
Trego to 12 mile or 3 mile. That's swell, guys!

Ninth:

Badger - Jan 26 2004, 8:55PM profile - link - plonk
Hey Bob, how was Burning Man for you this year?

Indeed.

Been spending the last three hours or so delving (and I mean digging) into
all the links the SBM site has referenced. Some VERY interesting stuff comes
up.

Won't go into detail but the references, posts, BLM docs are quite
interesting in what they say. More importantly is what they don't say and
how what's NOT said is inferred by the fuckos as grist for their little
mill. As I and others have suspected, a good deal of these reports are
indeed being taken wholly out of context. Fortunately, this isn't subjective
analysis on my part lest my points be considered slanted and or biased.

Suffice it to say the C4 will be placed at my convienience.
NB: If it wasn't for inference, places like the SLAC wouldn't exist,
would they. Was Mr. Heisenberg seeing electrons?? No. Quantum physics
proves its existence through several theories and calculations. Amazing how
some inferences are OK, and some are not. Hypocrite.

Tenth: (riddle me this)

III - Jul 06 2005, 6:28AM profile - link - bookmark - plonk
NOT MY CAMEL!
we ran into some seriously deep frost bloom on the north west wing of the
playa - it was deep enough that badger had to turn around because he didn't
want to get his panel van stuck in it. a saturn would have gotten stuck in
the fluff. less than a mile to the east, there was mud. i got a little stuck
crossing a wash where skillet had chewed it up going ahead, but he was nice
enough to tow me through. decided to pick our way through the edge of the
dunes on the way back. probably violated all sorts of wilderness
restrictions in the process. i expect the playa to loosen up quite a bit by
the time the event rolls around - it just doesn't stay that way with 30,000
people messing around on it.

NB: So wait a second. You're going to bitch at US for 4 Dodge Neons
driving on the playa at >55MPH in 1997, but offroading on the dunes,
which do support plant and animal life, is just OK?! Talk about your
garden-variety hypocrites! And no, that's NOT a concession that the playa
itself is not part of the ecosystem and therefore life sustaining.

Anyway, thanks for all the fodder, guys. That's just what I have time
to fit in this reply. There are facts in there. There are observations in
there. Do those observations support our claims? Yes, they do.

It will be really interesting to see how you all go about dismissing,
minimizing or otherwise negating the comments from other users on 3playa.

And using the Iraqi Information Minister to help you is cheating.

spectabillis · Post by **spectabillis** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 8:42 pm

How was the other thread hyjacked?

allanon2 · Post by **allanon2** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 9:31 pm

spectabillis wrote:How was the other thread hyjacked?

plus that other thread was not about this information.
The above our words from many peopel that work for Burning Man LLC. Many fo the peopel are mucky mucks in BMand they agree on 3playa that BM has been effecting the lake bed in a negative way. this explains why everyone has been so quiet. When shown your own words its hard to just bash and slander someone, liek they normally do. the truth is often hard to take.

-allanon

Fat SAM · Post by **Fat SAM** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 10:01 pm

spectabillis wrote:How was the other thread hyjacked?

Like this! Attack!

HughMungus · Post by **HughMungus** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 11:49 pm

allanon2 wrote:
spectabillis wrote:How was the other thread hyjacked?
plus that other thread was not about this information.
The above our words from many peopel that work for Burning Man LLC. Many fo the peopel are mucky mucks in BMand they agree on 3playa that BM has been effecting the lake bed in a negative way. this explains why everyone has been so quiet. When shown your own words its hard to just bash and slander someone, liek they normally do. the truth is often hard to take.

-allanon

So...I should stop dumping my blackwater on the playa?

spectabillis · Post by **spectabillis** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 12:58 am

Cosworth Magellan · Post by **Cosworth Magellan** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 3:49 am

Many fo the peopel are mucky mucks in BMand they agree on 3playa that BM has been effecting the lake bed in a negative way.

Hmm. Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

sputnik · Post by **sputnik** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 6:14 am

Kinetic IV · Post by **Kinetic IV** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 8:17 am

Granite Fox. Cute. If you dig deep enough and ask the right questions you'll find that they have joined in the fight against that mercury belching, water table depleting, soot generating monster over the ridge from the playa. The point of discussion about being single minded is moot.

(I'm assuming the image of the rock and the fox referred to that)

spectabillis · Post by **spectabillis** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 12:55 pm

sputnik · Post by **sputnik** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 1:08 pm

Kinetic IV wrote:(I'm assuming the image of the rock and the fox referred to that)

It's a pic of a fox eating a squirrel. It has nothing to do with this discussion.

Kinetic IV · Post by **Kinetic IV** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 1:11 pm

I need a bunch of that monitor clean stuff....Spectabillis, where on earth did you get that picture? I love that....

allanon2 · Post by **allanon2** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 8:22 pm

Cosworth Magellan wrote:
Many fo the peopel are mucky mucks in BMand they agree on 3playa that BM has been effecting the lake bed in a negative way.
Hmm. Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

send a email to
[email protected]

there are about 50 of us there that share ideas back and forth. we do not bash or flame anyoen on that list

ttyl
rex

NEXUS · Post by **NEXUS** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 10:07 pm

allanon2 wrote:

there are about 50 of us there that share ideas back and forth

Hmmm...best you get immunized, that sounds communicable.

Cosworth Magellan · Post by **Cosworth Magellan** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 3:10 am

allanon2 wrote:
Cosworth Magellan wrote:
Many fo the peopel are mucky mucks in BMand they agree on 3playa that BM has been effecting the lake bed in a negative way.
Hmm. Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
send a email to
[email protected]

Not a Simpsons fan, are you?

Kinetic IV · Post by **Kinetic IV** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 6:43 am

I see more comments of no substance from the folks who turn Left at 10 mile onto 447 and never go beyond the trash fence. If anyone gets the chance turn Right, go to 12 mile and head North...then head Northeast across the open playa. You will be re-educated quickly. And hold your breath when you get caught in that massive freakin dust plume that goes about 20 miles out. LNT? Yeah, right. I betcha you can see that plume from space. It almost looks like Granite Fox was put up and is already belching out stuff.

2 months ago I'd have been laughing and poking fun at all this. Now I know better. As I've said before I know what I saw and I know what my ass felt as I drove across there. And if anyone else heads out that way they'll experience it too. People can bullshit all they want but the truth is there awaiting your discovery with a short little drive across the playa. Go slow if you do make it out there so you don't break your suspension. And be extremely cautious on the playa edges...some spots are wet and you'll be buried in the muck fast.

Cosworth Magellan · Post by **Cosworth Magellan** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 10:40 am

Reprinted without permission from the same 3playa thread:

brickshob - Sep 14 2005, 3:35PM profile - link - bookmark - plonk
Drink the fucking kool-aid
I've seen serpents as far back as 1986 when I was flying across the desert on ATV's and dirt bikes. The serpents were sources of hours of fun when not found while moving close to 100mph.

I've also seen the odd pits. Generally they seem to be found in groups, so I suspect Badger's piss theory is on.

Also, the trash level has decreased a lot since my first times out there. At least in the vacinities that I have frequented.

You can go read the whole damn thread yourself if you want. The relevant part starts here:
http://3playa.cultureshark.net/?view_th ... 104#bottom

You may need an account if you've not got one already. Suffice to say that the causes (and the effects, as well) are not so clear cut as our "friend" would have us believe. But, hey, it's easy to quote out of context from other message boards, right?

Edit: I'm going to shoot my browser cookies.

ZaphodBurner · Post by **ZaphodBurner** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 10:53 am

Kinetic IV wrote:I see more comments of no substance from the folks who turn Left at 10 mile onto 447 and never go beyond the trash fence. If anyone gets the chance turn Right, go to 12 mile and head North...then head Northeast across the open playa. You will be re-educated quickly.

2 months ago I'd have been laughing and poking fun at all this. Now I know better. As I've said before I know what I saw and I know what my ass felt as I drove across there.

Could you elaborate, please? I'm not sure I'm following you correctly.

I was disappointed and embarrassed by the sheer amount of trash on the side of the highway coming out of BRC that was obviously dumped or lost (and abandoned) by Burners.

For that reason I'd like to see a stronger police presence on that part of the road. Making it a shooting gallery and fine the fuck out of anybody who loses their trash. The LEOs could use the money and BRC could use the support.

-c

Kinetic IV · Post by **Kinetic IV** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 11:11 am

Zaphod, after the event this year I wanted to avoid the 447 zoo through Gerlach so I went North to 12 mile above the BLM closure zone, made the big sweeping turn onto the playa and headed North. After a couple of miles I hung a nice turn East towards Trego and bam, bam, bam, bam, it was jar your teeth out time on playa serpents. It was bad enough to crack the glass on the windshield even more than it was. And the dust plume from the event is immense. I sat on the watershed ridge past Sulphur a good 40 miles away and looked. There is absolutely no question where the dust plume originates and that it covered 20+ miles in distance down range.

So to say there's no impact from the event? Bullshit. The plume counts. As for the playa serpents they are out there and I feel it's time to get a scientific explanation as to their origin. Nobody knows for sure right now....that can be changed. There are other little things but after seeing the plume and hitting those playa serpents I can't totally dismiss the group's claims. And off it goes from there.

ZaphodBurner · Post by **ZaphodBurner** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 1:00 pm

Kinetic IV wrote:There are other little things but after seeing the plume and hitting those playa serpents I can't totally dismiss the group's claims. And off it goes from there.

Not having seen a "playa serpent" I'm curious as to the scale (length, height) of such a thing.

Personally, I don't think the playa or the bugs that may or may not live on it care much, but it's interesting to know what changes BRC has made to it.

Having spent my time in environmentalist's boots, I've gotten a little wary of a lot of these sorts of complaints. A CLASSIC example is the Mt. St. Helens visitor's center, which has a massive display of how the mountain buried the entire ecosystem in hundreds of feet of mud and ash after a searing supersonic shockwave scorched every living organism to carbon...and how it's cyclical, and how the ecosystem always returns...

THEN, in another display, there's a sign that says not to pick up ash or pumice from off the trails because "if Mt. St. Helens wanted people to have ash, she would have given it to them."

So I went outside and immediately began collecting rocks. Apparently she gave me permission, 'cause she gifted Portland with it quite a bit of it a couple of times back in 1980. And if an x-thousand-times-the-power-of-the-A-Bomb-explosion which left a crater large enough to contain the entire human race in it didn't kill the ecosystem, then how are people picking up pebbles and ash going to hurt it?

Environmentalists are often an amusing lot. Not sure if you met Shroom, but she cleans up trails in the Columbia Gorge and one time when she picked a huckleberry somebody angrily snapped: "You're eating bear food!"

-c

unjonharley · Post by **unjonharley** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 1:31 pm

Any one know what the playa looked lke before our military got done bombing the hell out of it? All the time running heavy equipement on it to service the tagets. Not even to mentoin the hundreds of thousands of man and equipment hours to clean it up.

~
None of BM people have found the remains of people before us.
~
Just this week saw a movie filmed on the BR playa. Last night a commercial filmed there.

Cosworth Magellan · Post by **Cosworth Magellan** » Wed Sep 21, 2005 6:12 am

Any one know what the playa looked lke before our military got done bombing the hell out of it?

Like this:

blyslv · Post by **blyslv** » Wed Sep 21, 2005 9:10 am

Can't you guys generate your own content?

Kinetic IV · Post by **Kinetic IV** » Wed Sep 21, 2005 9:37 am

Whining again Blyslv? Quick, call in the rest of the 3Playans to launch the attack and discredit strategy. Badger's in Mississippi, he's not here to defend himself so come on in and lash out against this, obscure the message, defend your friend even though he's wrong, yeah, that's the ticket.

It's too late. Those posts clearly show how 2 faced a couple of people are, they attack the Stop BM people while at the same time they discuss and agree with the very things that they are denying here. And no amount of smoke is going to cover this one. Oh and what was that comment....people own their own words? Oh let me guess, those posts were written by socks?

That giant sucking sound is a few people's crediblity going out the window.
So when do we get to see the first feeble defensive effort again?

Let me grab something to drink, sit back and watch the show....and I'm not talking about CNN's coverage of Rita either.

Edit: Here's a really good post about this thread that makes me glad they stay over there for the most part.

precipitate - Sep 21 2005, 9:40AM (†) (x)
insoluble
blyslv, quit feeding the troll. It only gives him fodder for masturbation.

Edit 2: Cites, so I don't get accused of making it up which is a standard 3Playa tactic:
http://3playa.cultureshark.net/?view_th ... start=32f6

Cosworth Magellan · Post by **Cosworth Magellan** » Wed Sep 21, 2005 9:58 am

That giant sucking sound is a few people's crediblity going out the window.

The only giant sucking sound I hear is...

Ah, forget it.

MissNev · Post by **MissNev** » Wed Sep 21, 2005 11:58 am

Some people really need a soap box....any soap box will do....every soap box will do.

EvilDustBooger · Post by **EvilDustBooger** » Wed Sep 21, 2005 12:41 pm

It`s a slow sluggish slushy slimey slippery slope sliding up on that soapbox.
Especially for a Sock.

Kinetic IV · Post by **Kinetic IV** » Wed Sep 21, 2005 12:43 pm

Was your slippery sock comment directed at me? Just curious...

EvilDustBooger · Post by **EvilDustBooger** » Wed Sep 21, 2005 12:52 pm

Kinetic.
I`m guessing your tootsies might have slipped into several assorted styles of socks. Am I wrong?

Nice to see you at the M&G by the way.

It was good to have a face to go with the name.
Or 1 of them.

Kinetic IV · Post by **Kinetic IV** » Wed Sep 21, 2005 1:40 pm

EvilDustBooger wrote:Kinetic.
I`m guessing your tootsies might have slipped into several assorted styles of socks. Am I wrong?

Nice to see you at the M&G by the way.

It was good to have a face to go with the name.
Or 1 of them.

That got me snickering a bit, thanks. There are no mysteries here, I'm wearing tube socks this week with colored stripes, so yeah my tootsies have slipped into several assorted colors of socks. Red, blue, green, black. And new socks feel pretty good!

Seriously I've got one sock I created last month for Miss Katie, a playa character I had fun with this year and who will be back in 2006. That account is "1st Star to the Right".

And not every soapbox will do...I read almost everything posted and have for years. But there's only certain places I'll post, especially if it's negative. So that comment is inaccurate. Understandable but definitely inaccurate.

Anyway we now return to our regularly scheduled thread programming already in progress...

new post about damage to playa. BM own people agree with us

new post about damage to playa. BM own people agree with us

2 pages of blank space were the reason

Re: 2 pages of blank space were the reason

Socks