National Trust of Historic Preservation is Untrustworthy

Published Oct. 12, 2016 in the St. George Spectrum

By Janet Wilcox

45 year Blanding resident, retired school teacher and co-founder of Blue Mountain Shadows

On Oct. 5 the National Trust of Historic Preservation issued a press release stating, that “the Bears Ears region has been added to its 2016 list of 11 most endangered historical places.”  To the unwary mind, “historical preservation” seems like something we should all believe in.  But believe me, this is not a national organization you can “trust.”

UTHP was chartered by Congress in 1949, and in 1966 when Congress passed the national Historic Preservation Act, Congress also provided federal funding to support the National Trust’s work, and it was federally funded for 30 years!  Thankfully, today it is privately funded.  But where do those private donors come from?  What countries do they represent? Why have they shifted from preserving historic buildings and sites, to vast landscapes like the Grand Canyon and Bears Ears?  The antiquities act of 1906 was designed to protect specific features under immediate threat, not to be used as a landscape management tool.  The current administration has overused this executive ax, as it hacks away at state lands throughout the nation.

In 2013 the National Trust of Historical Preservation had an annual expense budget of $52 Million and paid out approximately $3.8 million in grant support; another $23 Million went to payroll for 497 employees, 36 of which were paid over $100,000.  That sounds like a lot of money and people to micro-manage your state and mine.

One of their 2013 smaller grants for $7,500 went to Utah based Friends of Cedar Mesa to develop two films showing why the greater Cedar Mesa “is deserving of protection.” Basically they fund organizations who will promote their pre-planned preservation agenda. If Cedar Mesa were still their focus, it would likely qualify as a site worth protecting because of thousands of Anasazi sites, but that is no longer the focus.  Acting on environmental whims and avarice, the proposed monument of 2013 suddenly expanded in Dec. 2014 onto a very important mountain range in San Juan County, including The Blue Mountains, Elk Ridge, and Bears Ears. This location is a dearly beloved and valuable resource to all of San Juan County. From this mountain has come much of their wealth, recreation, solitude, and resources.

The article did get one fact right, “low federal agency staffing” has made protection of some of the proposed Bears Ears 1.9 acres a problem.  And why is that?  It’s because our nation is now dealing with a $20 Trillion debt.  Currently US National Parks and Monuments are under a 2 year deferred maintenance totaling nearly $11.5 Billion. Utah alone is behind $278,094,606 in park maintenance.  There is no money to support EXISTING parks, much less new ones.  If our nation has to be bailed out again in 2016, what foreign countries are paying the bills, and how much US land collateral are they accumulating?  The power of a nation is in its land and citizens who care about it.  Don’t give more Utah land away. There are at least 13 such parks, monuments, wilderness areas in our state.

San Juan County is already home to six of those federal designations/ destinations:  Natural Bridges Nat’l Monument, Hovenweep Nat’l Monument,, Canyonlands National Park, Dark Canyon Wilderness area, Grand Gulch Wilderness area, and Glen Canyon National Recreation Area.   We have learned from others’ mistakes, that tourist destinations have a heavy negative impact on public lands. We want to keep these lands pristine, as Secretary Jewell so aptly described them when she visited in July. The environmental scare tactics would tell you otherwise, but they are not based in reality.  Come visit our public lands and see for yourself.

San Juan County residents, Ute, Navajo, Hispanic, and Anglos are against converting another 1.9 M. of public county acres, into another poorly cared for National Monument. Private property rights exist in the proposed Bears Ears monument area, that do not meet the definition of “public lands”, including 43 grazing allotments, 661 water-right infrastructures, 151,000 acres of state trust land, 18,000 acres of private property, and hundreds of miles of roads and infrastructure which are granted a RS2477 right-of-way. 

Sign our petition, join our protest, and let sovereign state’s rights speak louder than rich lobby coalitions. www.savebearsears.com

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