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
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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