Burning Man challenges BLM’s $2.8M bill
By Jenny Kane, Reno Gazette-Journal
The Burning Man organization is challenging a $2.8 million bill from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management after last year’s 70,000-person arts festival in the Black Rock Desert, according to a federal appeal filed by the San Francisco-based arts nonprofit.
The arts organization submitted a 1,000-page appeal in April that accuses the BLM of trying to cover up budget shortfalls and financial missteps with an annual permit that Burning Man says has consistently been overpriced since 2012. The invoice for last year’s permit was about $2.8 million, which Burning Man organizers have started paying off in installments.
The appeal comes a year after BLM officials retracted a request for a $1.2 million VIP compound reserved for higher-ups at Burning Man. The compound was just the tip of the iceberg, according to Burning Man organizers, who are appealing everything from $940,000 in law enforcement costs to a more than $1,000 bill for the shipping of an unknown item from Reno to Gerlach.