Regardless of the actual damage in this instance, the CCC is empowered to restrict the use of public lands when they reasonably think environmental damage might

Regardless of the actual damage in this instance, the CCC is empowered to restrict the use of public lands when they reasonably think environmental damage might occur. Parker/Ventana violated their rules, so the CCC sent a Cease and Desist, and they settled with Parker paying fines and Ventana agreeing to restore the area a bit. As a matter of public policy, the system worked as far as I can tell. As a matter of actual wrongdoing, I don't think we'll ever know — as you say, that would require a scientific study to discover. As for Parker's absurdly long article, I dug into one of his more verifiable defenses and found that he's full of it: "The media reported that this fish was an “endangered” species whose spawning ground was a creek near our wedding site. Yet a simple Google query of “steelhead trout” reveals that this fish is not, as the media had reported, a truly “endangered” species, but rather a fancy variant of the common “rainbow trout” that is abundant across North America — so abundant, in fact, that it is sometimes considered a pest species. " Steelhead/Rainbow Trout is listed here on the NOAA website: http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/species/fish/steelheadtrout.htm http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/species/fish/steelheadtrout.htm This web page says that 1 "distinct population segment" is endangered, 10 are threatened, and 1 is a species of concern. And they kindly point to a report listing which is which: http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/pdfs/fr/fr71-834.pdf http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/pdfs/fr/fr71-834.pdf Lo and behold, the Steelhead along the Northern and Central California coasts are on the "threatened" list. So the "pest" bit was just empty rhetoric.