If you are talking about the The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument…
The area is thriving with growth from tourists.
They are doing very well without disturbing the natural beauty of the area.
Protecting the pristine works!
Tourism from the Utah ‘Mighty 5’ National Parks, and adjacent National Monuments and Utah State Parks brings in over $1 billion per year and is a growing industry which develops associated jobs and brings in revenue that largely stays within the state and the communities where proximate to the parks. Next to Yosemite, Yellowstone, and Glacier, the Mighty Five are some of the most visited national parks in the country, and good management of nearby lands such as Grand Staircase Escalade, Dixie, and Manti La-Sal by the NFS and BLM has provided sustainable access and use for a variety of different porposes including camping, backcountry exploration, hunting, and sustainable jeep/OHV use. From purely an economic standpoint preserving these areas for public use is preferable and ultimately more sustainable than operating low yield uranium mines, oil exploration, and open pit coal mines which generate massive amoungs of tailings and wind-carried waste while producing relatively few jobs and sending profits out of state to the mining conglomerates which wil purchase the rights.
The advocacy for mining in southern Utah is driven largely by mining and petroelum industry supported ‘think tanks’ and lobbying organizations making factually unsupportable claims of the value of resources to be extracted and job creation even as the mining industry increasingly moves toward automation, and ignores the impact upon long term preservation of natural wonders and geologically unique features which are irreplaceable once mining, resource extraction, and industrial waste has damaged or contaminated them.
The continued protection of Bears Ears as a national monument, and of other federal lands in Utah is a no brainer. It isn’t even a question of economics versus environmental ethics. It is a issue of the short term benefit to a few conglomerates and wealthy indiviuals like the Kochs versus long term benefit to the state of Utah and the communities around these lands which are largely supported by tourism revenues which stimulate small business and job growth. But Trump, mining industry, et al, couldn’t give a Russian hooker’s piss anout long term benefits or economic analysis of the benefit to communities; it’s all about short term profits for favored industries.
Stranger
Trump orders review of national monuments to allow development
Developers’ rights before states’ rights.
Seems like even Orrin Hatch disagrees with that extreme stance.
Yeah, Orrin had always been a bit too milquetoast for my tastes.
I’m also from Utah, don’t live in San Jaun County, but have vacationed down there many times (mostly in the Comb Ridge/Cedar Mesa area now part of the monument). I can’t make up my mind about this one.
The 1906 antiquities act was originally written to protect archaeological sites just across the border at Mesa Verde. Protecting these kind of places like there are so many of in Cedar Mesa/Grand Gulch/Ruin Park is exactly what the act is for. They are so heavily visited already, regularly dug up by pothunters, knocked down by vandals, etc. It needs more protection than the BLM was giving it (tho they work hard at it). The park service does a good job with that kind of thing. But the designated monument is really bigger than needed for that protection.
Many native american activist types seem to declare any place that one of their ancestors once ate lunch a “sacred site”, but the Bears Ears isn’t like that. Those peaks really do feature in many of the legends/myths of the areas. They’ve been important for 1000 years+ as evidenced by a chacoan period road going straight from the Bluff great house to the Bears Ears, including a hand and toe trail pecked into the almost vertical cliff of Comb Ridge. We really should close that area off for gas drilling/coal mining.
On the other hand, my sister who cares more about the area than I do has been sending me articles arguing in favor of monument designation for about ten years now. The native american groups all talk about the importance of gathering firewood/herbs in the area. That isn’t the kind of activity the park service is good at managing. They are all about the protect/keep it natural side of things. They say it will be managed with input from the local tribes, are they planning some kind of race based thing? “you’re not brown enough to cut firewood/pick flowers here, get lost”
And yes, it does often feel like Manhattan/San Francisco environmentalist types feel that their beliefs about how what they sneer at as “fly over country” are as/more important than those of the people who actually live on the land in question. I remember seeing one talk about the road up Arch Canyon (also in the monument) as “That’s not a road, it’s a riparian zone” as if the road could go up the canyon without crossing the creek. They want to just lock it all up, closed to any economic activity at all, who cares about the people who live/hunt/graze there.
If I have to choose, put me down as wanting a monument maybe 50-60% of the size Obama designated.
The 1906 Antiquities Act may have been originally designed to protect archaeological sites. However, by 1911 at least, it was being used to protect natural wonders (see Devils Postpile National Monument), and that was done by a conservative Republican President specifically to protect from development (mining and damming). So I would assert that the use of National Monuments to protect more than just “antiquities” (meaning archaeological sites) has long been established as a valid purpose.
Which isn’t to say that a larger or smaller area would have been more appropriate at Bear Ears. But anyone who thinks that President Trump’s order is designed to shave off a few acres from that monument isn’t really paying attention to the core of what HurricaneDitka was saying.
Just as a clarification, the parks bring in over $1B in tax revenues. The total intake is nearly $8B per year and expected to go up, and this is largely money that will remain in the state, supporting local communities and small businesses, unlike resource exploitation revenues which bring in outside labor (and all the problems that come with it) and send their profits back to wherever the mining or petroleum company is headquartered. As noted, the state of Utah has already lost a large national convention over the issue of Gov. Herbert’s lack of support for preserving public lands and trying to reverse the Bears Ears NM designation, with the only people who stand to benefit are the mining interest hoping to expand a uranium mine shut down for low yield and the cost of contamination abatement measures and the politicians accepting campaign funds from the same.
This is a stupid issue because there is not a single leg for opponents of Bears Ears to stand on other than, “Because, free market…” It doesn’t make political sense, it doesn’t make environmental sense, it doesn’t make fiscal sense, and it doesn’t serve the long term benefit to the residents of southern Utah once mining of low yield deposits is played out and the work is gone, never to return.
Stranger
Oh yeah, I completely see the difference. HD seems to generally be in the “business wins over conservation nearly every time” camp, which even Senator Hatch doesn’t seem to agree with. (It also seems that some other congressional representatives in Utah tend to be more in line with Hatch’s view, at least from the articles in the OP, but that’s not perfectly clear.)
I’m saying that if someone proposed to tinker with the boundaries, given my lack of expertise on this matter, that would seem reasonable to me. But it sure does seem like the President agrees with HD that destroying nature through mining is a higher calling than actually protecting historic and unique lands.
I don’t know anything about the situation in Utah, but I’m familiar with what’s happening in Eastern Oregon …
Timber production is minimal, forests don’t grow in the high desert country … mining isn’t economical unless the companies are allow to leave their shit behind, let the US tax-payers clean it up … (and y’all can start with Hanford) …
Ranching is an on-going operation and has been for close to a hundred years … there’s a lot of established ranches out there that depend on dirt cheap grazing rights leases from the Feds … a hundred years ago, we couldn’t think of anything better to do with the land … it’s sage desert, thousands of square miles of sagebrush and nothin’ else …
The one valid complain I hear from these ranchers is that too much is taken all at once … cases where all the land is taken at one time, ranchers don’t have time to adjust and go bankrupt, lose everything … better to take a part of the land, let the business operation adjust … then take some more and keep letting the rancher downsize their operations … they kinda have to anyway since running cattle on the land is destroying it …
The core problem here is we have one law that says we have to protect the sage grouse habitat … and another law that says we must lease the land for grazing rights … Congress and only Congress can fix this … and however this is fixed, it needs to happen in a step-by-step fashion, not all or nothing … we certain have the time …
Well, at least that much of your post is accurate.
Stranger
Bullshit.
Seems like a reasonable compromise to me. HurricaneDitka?
I would be satisfied with something like that.
Good. Another problem solved in the spirit of bi-partisanship. You, me and ThisOneGuy now just need to call up the relevant authorities and get it done ;).
I’ll call Orrin (and he’ll promptly ignore me :().
Is Donald Trump still mad at California? Maybe he can give us a National Monument or two.
Well, he’s a congressman; that’s his job.
I lived in Moab for thirty years. Now, I’ve been in Durango for six; I’ve been around for a while. Here’s the Thing; this place has been a marginal place to live, back to prehistory. When I moved to my home on Cliffveiw Drive in Moab, ALL of the trailers on the other side were occupied by uranium widows. Their Menfolk had been taken by cancer. Read ‘Uranium Frenzy’ if you don’t believe me.
That area is one of the most thoroughly explored places on Earth as far as geology. Folks have poked around for more than 150 years; half as long that the Republic itself and its laws have existed.
They found what they found.
There’s nothing wrong with that there’s nothing left to find. The idea that the Feds are blocking someone from riches is fiction.
It’s just that the resources have been played out. The Uranium is still there, but it’s only economically viable if it is turned into bombs.
They are closing the Navajo Generating Station.
The shovels, trucks, and railroad are predominantly electric, powered by the plant itself.
So, you have this coal mine that feeds on itself. There’s a huge deposit of coal at Black Mesa. Electric Diggers load coal into Electric Trucks that dump coal onto an Electric Conveyor Belt that dumps onto an Electric Railway that goes straight to the furnaces; added with Federally Subsidized water (Don’t get me started on the water)
Even with all that, they are shutting down in less than two years.
Speak to me again about how to bring the Coal Jobs back.
Not to sidetrack too much, (really enjoying the discussion) but I have lived in SB since 1978.
Tar has been here all the time, (it gets sticky in summer sun, so its much more visible…on everyones feet.) Its from sloppy rigs and poor handling practices, leaky old well heads, like Summerland circa 1899, guys dumping stuff they shouldnt… and also from natural sources. I’ve had bubbles of gassy oil pop next to me at Coal Oil Point when surfing…
Anecdotes from old timers in the 1940’s was that the beaches often were so fouled you wouldnt want to go anywhere even close to them…(the smell also, its a bit of a foul organic oil smell). When larger amounts of oil were pulled out in the 50’s and 60’s it relieved some of the pressure of the pools underground, and the beaches cleaned up.
You can break open rocks on the beach and see the oil in them. Tar Pits is a local surf spot with a huge chunk of solid tar just sort of oozing into the ocean. Lots of working rigs here as well, onshore and offshore.