In "City Slickers II," Billy Crystal pulls off a daring rescue of his brother during a horse stampede near the edge of a cliff.
Environmentalists and federal land managers wish he - or someone - would now pull off a daring rehabilitation of the southern Utah land disturbed by the film crews."City Slickers II" production crews trampled about 30 percent more acreage than they were supposed to in an area above the Colorado River, just off the Shafer Trail, south of Dead Horse Point.
Of most concern, however, is that crews were supposed to rehabilitate the 20 or so acres of damaged soils last fall, said Brad Palmer, an area manager for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.
"It's taking them almost a year to do what we hoped they'd accomplish last fall because fall seeding is optimum," Palmer said. "We had to put some pressure on them. We had threatened to go after their bond. . . . That seemed to help them move faster."
Rick Dalago, location manager for Castle Rock Pictures, which produced the movie, said the reclamation was delayed because BLM deadlines for reseeding last fall conflicted with the film company's completion dates.
"We just couldn't do it properly (under the deadlines)," Dalago said.
Palmer said Castle Rock had crews out at the site on Monday, recontouring the soil and preparing it for seed planting this fall.
In the meantime, the BLM has placed a one-year moratorium on filming in that area until "we see some success from the reclamation."
Right now, the scar is visible from Dead Horse Point, but successful reclamation would render it unnoticeable.
Farther south, near Indian Creek, the film company's contractors are just starting to reclaim another site used for a stampede scene. It was near this location that a crew illegally bulldozed a 20-foot-wide road about half the length of a football field.
BLM rangers issued a citation to Dalago.
Dave Krouskop, realty specialist for the BLM, said the illegal road was created to provide a smooth ride for a scene in which Billy Crystal was being dragged by a wagon.
Dalago said the road was on part of 200 acres that the BLM had permitted Castle Rock to film the stampede. He said the road allowed the filming to do the scene in 20 acres instead of disturbing the 200.
Scott Groene of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance decried the damage wrought by the "City Slickers II" film crews.
Near Dead Horse Point, "they had permission to remove boulders and remove some vegetation, but they didn't have permission to go blade (what looks like) a landing strip," Groene said.
He said the the cumulative impacts of filming on public lands could cause irreparable harm to the sensitive ecology of the Colorado Plateau.
"The bottom line is not that we shouldn't have a film industry but that they should stick to the rules," Groene said.
Betty Stanton, director of the Moab Film Commission, said the hard-line environmentalist stand is scaring movie-production business from southeastern Utah.
But Dalago said that, despite the problems with "City Slickers II," he would return to the area again.
"I think Moab is incredibly beautiful. We like it there."