Angst in August Generates Involvement; Bear Essentials 8/17/2019

Be sure to come: Listen, Ask, Learn

~~ Agenda for Aug. 20 SJC Commission meeting in Bluff: 9 AM & 11 AM 

Bluff Community Center(3rd and Mulberry)

9: 00 AM 

1. Discuss potential changes to interlocal agreement between Bluff & San Juan County - David Everitt, SJC Interim Administrator
2. Discussion about a future trash drop box site in Bluff - Randy Rarick, SJC  Landfill Manager
3. Briefing on the countywide special election taking place this November - John David Nielson, SJC Clerk
4. Discussion of other issues in the Bluff area - David Everitt, SJC Interim Administrator
5. Public lands updates - Nick Sandberg, SJC Planning

11:00 A.M. Commission Meeting

1. Approval of minutes - August 6, 2019
2. Citizens' comments to the commission* (Please complete the request form - available at the door)
3. Consideration of the referability of an application for a ballot initiative submitted by San Juan County residents - John David Nielson, SJC Clerk
4. Approve new hires - Walter Bird, SJC HR Director
5. Discussion & possible approval of a sole source procurement for engineering services for cell closure for the County Landfill - Randy Rarick, SJC Landfill Manager
6. Discussion and possible approval for the Chair to sign a letter to the Bureau of Land Management with comments on the Canyon Rims Area Travel Management Plan - Nick Sandberg, SJC Planning
7. Discussion and possible approval of the Chair to sign a letter to the U.S. Forest Service regarding proposed rule changes - Nick Sandberg, SJC Planning
8. Discussion and possible approval of a resolution urging caution regarding oil and gas leasing on Bureau of Land Management lands near Hovenweep National Monument - David Everitt, SJC Interim Administrator
9. Discussion and possible approval of a resolution authorizing the Chair to enter into an employment agreement on behalf of San Juan County with the future San Juan County Administrator - David Everitt, SJC Interim Administrator

~~ SUWA's Frivolous Law Suit, Followed by Appeal to Ut. Supreme Court

~~ Utahans Say They Want the SL Tribune to Survive but Only 25% Read It 

~~ Looking for Common Ground With No Common Compass

~~ Fire Warnings in Colorado and SE Utah: Don't Burn Anything

~~ (Note to SL Tribune: Stop Bullying

~~SECRETARY BERNHARDT TRANSFORMS INTERIOR’S ETHICS PROGRAM 

~~ Accomplishments: Bernhardt's first 100 Days as Sec. Of Interior -- Video

~~ Canyon Zephyr Digs out Recapture Protest info: Spring 2014 Parts 1, 2, 3

~~ Secretary of Agriculture Announces: Changes to Heavy Handed Sage Grouse Controls  Aug. 1, 2019

    "Congressional Western Caucus Chairman Paul Gosar (AZ-04): "The Obama administration imposed one of the largest land grabs in American history under the guise of protecting the Greater sage-grouse, a species that isn’t even threatened or endangered. Their real motivation was to lockup as much land as possible, preventing multiple-use activities like oil and gas production, mining, and grazing in the process. The Greater sage-grouse was simply the means to their end as the bird’s habitat comprises 173 million acres in 11 Western States. Secretary Perdue’s announcement is welcome news as it is the third and final piece of the puzzle in terms of reining in the sage-grouse overreach of the previous administration. I applaud President Trump and his administration for treating Western states as partners instead of forcing their political agenda down our throats like the Obama administration."  

~~ Unrest with Adakai Leadership 

~~ Follow: San Juan's Monumental Divide - By Bill Keshlear

~~ Tourism Only Part of a Diverse Economy: Letter to the editor by Bill Haven

~~ Legal Fees Continue to Mount in Litigious Environment 

"The roosters at the Tribune would like to take credit for the sun coming up in the morning – 18 months after the sunrise!" They finally run a related story. The San Juan Record has been consistent in reporting the cost of defending freedoms in San Juan County. 1) From February, 2018 2)From January, 3) 2019 Read full story

~~ Free Range Report: SJC Commissioners, Face $500 A day Fine For Stonewalling GRAMA Request

~~ Nothing Obama Declared Was About Co-Management

~~Democrats’ Plan To Nationalize Land, Using Land and Water Conservation Fund

~~ Tourism Over-runs Antelope Canyon/ Page Arizona

~~ Navajo Nation Council in Gridlock over Renewable Resources

~~ Hurricane City Council Discusses the Lake Powell Pipeline Project

~~Trail of Tears Damage by Forest Service in Coker Creek still not fixed

~~ Black Market in Siberian Dinosaur Skulls?

Support Free Range Report

~~BEAR ESSENTIALS: Oct. 20, 2018~~

Matt Redd Monticello rancher, photo by Aaron Huey
November 2018 issue of National Geographic

~~Bears Ears: Lead story in November National Geographic: Battle for the American West

Though dozens of local people were interviewed over the course of several weeks by author Hannah Nordhaus, very little was used in the actual article from those interviews.  The editing staff at Nat’l Geo was part of that dilemma, and the real story was bigger than a single article could cover. Maps and photographs were great.  Sandy Johnson was one of several ranchers who were interviewed. (Photos were by Aaron Huey who made at least 4 or more trips to San Juan)

 

~~Sage Grouse Controversy Raised Again in  Newest Nat’l Geo

~~Cedar Mesa 360 degree video by Aaron Huey

~~What Bears Ears Means to Native Americans: Nat’l Geographic

Energy Fuels White Mesa Uranium Mill--Aaron Huey photo

Kyle Kimmele, one of many SE Utah citizens who own mining leases.  Photo by Aaron Huey

~~774 comments submitted regarding Energy Fuels/ US Uranium Market

“One of many comments made by businesses impacted by foreign suppliers of uranium: “The US uranium industry has suffered great harm and our national security is threatened as a result of excessive imports of foreign uranium. The United States over reliance on price insensitive uranium from countries like Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan with their state-owned and funded companies, has displaced US production and led to a severe decline in the industry. As a service provider to the US uranium industry, this has also hurt our business.”

~~Write-In Candidates for County Commissioner—Districts 2 and 3                                                          

                                                      

1)     Republican Al Clark running as Write-in against Kenneth Maryboy District 3

2) Democrat Maryleen Tahy running as write-in District 2 

n
Phil Lyman running against Marsha Holland District 73 

 Audio of  Debate with Marsha Holland.

 “Public lands management is an area that we certainly do not agree on. I prefer local management of local resources and I rely on constitutional provisions that guarantee that even a state like Utah has an equal footing with other states. Federal agencies are creating massive problems to which they claim to be the solution. It is time for Utah to end the madness. We are not a federal administrative unit, but a sovereign and independent State; sometimes we have to act like it. 
I have never been accused of being neutral on matters of public land, fiscal responsibility, or political accountability. The State Legislature has the duty to safeguard these qualities and to safeguard the liberty of the people against federal encroachment, not the reverse for which Ms. Holland seems to advocate.”

“Any legislation that I am involved in is going to emphasize less government interference with people’s lives and more accountability from government agencies. If I could figure out legislation to rein in the federal agencies and put them in their proper jurisdictional role instead of this god-like role that they think they have, I would do that.”    Recapture Incident: “A mistake that I made was believing that the federal agencies had integrity and that the department of justice believed that a person was innocent until proven guilty. And that the U.S. attorneys followed that same ideology.”

~~Kelly Laws Running for County Commissioner in District 3

Why Voters Should Not Support Tax Increases 

By Phil Lyman

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Be sure to vote: Mail in or at polling booths

Navajo Man Shot by Ranger at Canyon de Chelly

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Read Past Editions of Bear Essentials at: http://beyondthebears.blogspot.com/

Documenting Bears Ears Controversy and Public Land Issues since July 2016

                                                                                                  

Panicked environmental NGO'S throwing everything at the courts to see what sticks

Remember, these enviro groups need crises to keep the donations flowing, but if sage grouse enjoy healthy habitat and robust, growing populations, there is no longer a crisis to get hysterical about. If Utah’s Watershed Restoration Initiative continues to be successful in restoring habitat and boosting sage grouse numbers, SUWA and its corporate environmentalist cronies will have to look elsewhere for a crisis to exploit.

Commentary by Marjorie Haun

Just last week, Utah’s most obnoxious extreme green group, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA), had a big setback in court, and rightfully so, because its basis for the court action was at best, specious. Political operatives at the helm of the Sierra Club; the now unrecognizable, deconstructed soul child of John Muir, are guilty also of lobbing lawsuit bombs they know are duds. But green groups such as the aforementioned are essentially lawsuit mills, run by people with a lot of experience in dragging governmental entities to court. So, one might be inclined to ask, “what are the extreme greens doing gumming up the courts with weird and contradictory actions that are even weirder and more contradictory than usual?” The probable motive behind the greens is…well…the greenback. Read on.

Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance

On Friday, November 3, the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) received a stinging rebuke from the federal court in Salt Lake City. The court denied the radical group’s request for a temporary restraining order that would halt progress on the Sage Grouse Rehabilitation Plan being implemented by Iron and Beaver Counties in southwestern Utah. The Sage Grouse plan is a project of the “Watershed Restoration Initiative,” (WRI). The WRI partners the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS),the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and other federal agencies with local governments in order to reach stated conservation goals, one of which is maintaining healthy sage grouse populations in Utah. 

In a news release dated April 21, 2016, the NRSC states its goals for sage grouse, and details some of its projects:

To prevent sage-grouse from becoming listed under the Endangered Species Act, Utah adopted a Greater Sage-grouse Conservation Plan. The plan emphasizes habitat restoration on state, private and federal lands within areas identified as Sage-grouse Management Areas (SGMAs). Eleven of the twelve SGMAs in Utah have an increasing population trend over the last three years; however, the Sheeprocks SGMA has decreased to a critically low population level. In the Sheeprocks, the joint RCPP and WRI project will focus on combating pinyon-juniper encroachment and preventing catastrophic fires – major causes for the decline of sage-grouse in the area.

Sheeprocks Restoration Efforts

Objectives for RCPP grant over the next 5 years include the following:

Improve over 17,000 acres of sage-grouse and other wildlife habitat by reducing pinyon-juniper encroachment, weed invasion and the risk of  catastrophic fire

Create fuel breaks/green strips to protect sagebrush ecosystem

Past work in the Sheeprocks area include the following:

In the last three years, six large scale fires have burned in the area.  Fire rehabilitation has occurred on over 16,000 acres of these burned areas.

Since 2006, an additional 77,000 acres of habitat and watershed improvement were completed.

Long-term WRI planning includes the following:

Complete 8,000 to 10,000 acres of habitat and watershed improvement annually.  At this rate it will take about 15 years to complete improvements on the land that we have identified as priority habitat for sage-grouse and other wildlife.

The Iron/Beaver Counties project is similar to past efforts to clear excess juniper and pinion trees to improve habitat for sage grouse and other species which thrive in sagebrush-rich areas. And, ironically, in the past SUWA has filed lawsuits attempting to place the sage grouse on the endangered species list. So, why would a group that purports to champion the environment and wildlife initiate a contradictory effort to halt a project designed to improve sage grouse habitat? Although it’s impossible to get inside the heads of people who paint their faces up like badgers, it’s not hard to see that SUWA, and its ilk, need a constant supply of environmental crises to: (1) Garner ample donations from supporters using ‘the sky is falling’ hysteria campaigns, and (2) use the courts, and ill-conceived sue and settle processes, to pocket millions from U.S. taxpayers in the form of settlements and reimbursed attorneys’ fees. 

There is an even creepier motive that could be behind SUWA’s latest boner. Remember, these enviro groups need crises to keep the donations flowing, but if sage grouse enjoy healthy habitat and robust, growing populations, there is no longer a crisis to get hysterical about. If Utah’s WRI continues to be successful in restoring habitat and boosting sage grouse numbers, SUWA and its corporate environmentalist cronies will have to look elsewhere for a crisis to exploit.

Sierra Club

On October 30, the Sierra Club joined other environmental special interests in a legal effort to stop construction on a Pennsylvania natural gas pipeline project that is already well underway. Describing the Sierra Club’s latest lawsuit as ‘frivolous,’ on November 3, Marcellus Drilling News posted this:

The odious Sierra Club is at it again. Using what appears to be endless supplies of money from people like the Rockefellers, the Sierra Club, along with a mishmash of other radical environmental groups, filed an emergency motion in federal court on Monday, asking the court to stop any further work on the Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline. Atlantic Sunrise is a $3 billion, 198-mile natural gas pipeline project running through 10 Pennsylvania counties to connect Marcellus Shale natural gas from northeastern PA with the Williams’ Transco pipeline in southern Lancaster County.

Williams, the company building/owning the project, broke ground in September. Since that time 29 radicals in two different protests have been arrested for blocking construction in Lancaster County. However, the work continues–at a rapid pace. Williams knows the longer they take, the more likely antis will find a way to slow or stop the construction. On Monday the Sierra Clubbers filed their latest “throw everything against the wall to see if something sticks” frivolous lawsuit to try and stop it–to give their other (numerous) frivolous lawsuits a chance to work their way through the court system, in hopes something, anything will work to stop the project…

The Sierra Club claims to be protecting forests and farmland from the impacts of the pipeline. But pipeline projects, such as the Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline (ASP), are realized only with the buy-in from governmental and private stakeholders, and by surviving arduous, years-long strings of environmental impact assessments, geological reviews, land surveys, hydrological studies, and cooperative agreements with private property owners, state and federal agencies, tribes, and all others involved.

Not unlike SUWA, the Sierra Club is run by professional law-suers, who know exactly how much effort and regulatory control is involved in pipeline construction. And it’s a near certainty that ASP developers have honored state and federal regulations, and have the documentation to prove it, in court if necessary. So again, the motivation of this self-proclaimed defender of the environment for picking a losing fight in the courts is a riddle indeed. Natural gas is the least dirty of all fossil fuels, and a great deal cleaner than Pennsylvania coal. The environmental, economic and human benefits of natural gas are clear. And, let’s not forget that ecoterrorists guilty of ‘blocking’ construction and carrying out attacks against pipelines, have more often than not, left environmental destruction in their wake. Sierra Club is a political organization carrying out a political agenda, and as usual, the environment takes a back seat to its need to create a crisis mountain out of a ‘meh’ molehill.

Let’s be honest. The core motivation for SUWA, Sierra Club and their countless spin-offs, is money. It’s always been money, and will always be money. And when your business is to convince donors that the sky is falling, you need an occasional crisis to make your point, even if the crisis is the manufactured kind.

Published 11/6/2017 in Free Range Report

~~ Bear Essentials ~ Oct. 8, 2017~~

Quote of the week: “It is often said we now live in two Americas. Nowhere is that description truer then when it comes to land owned by the federal government. In the United States east of the Rockies, the federal government owns just 4 percent of all land. But west of the Rockies, the federal government owns more than half of all land including almost two thirds of all land in Utah. When an unelected and unaccountable bureaucracy owns and manages more than half the land in your state, that is a recipe for disaster.”               Senator Mike Lee

v DOI moving in the right direction on National Monuments:

“Creating too large national monuments — results in agencies lacking the necessary resources to adequately manage sites. The federal government currently has a backlog of $18.62 billion in maintenance projects. A better approach is to right-size monuments and allow for limited economic activity in areas where there won’t be damage.” 

v National Monuments Discussed by Heritage Foundation Washington DC (10-4)  Includes: Senator Mike Lee, Congressman Rob Bishop, Matt Anderson, Ryan Benally, New England fisherman, and Maine sportsman. The Antiquities Act was also discussed.  This was very informative.  Listen and Learn..

v Endangered Species Act:   

 “In the nearly fifty years since it was signed into law, the ESA has done more to impede economic activity, obstruct local conservation efforts, and give federal bureaucrats regulatory control over private property, than it has done to protect endangered species."    Senator Mike Lee

v Antiquities Act is Robbing Rural Communities of Their Land

v KUER Looks a Bears Ears Stories   Local interviews with Judy Fahys

v Brief History of Recapture Canyon  A video series compiled by Monte Wells

v Consider Donating to Free Range Report (Majorie is a non-NGO funded, patriot who deserves our support and thanks.  No one has helped San Juan County more.)

                         

Good News Bears

n  Secretary Zinke given High Marks for Return to Conservation Ethics

~Mr. Zinke has ordered all his agencies to put a priority on active management against wildfires. “We are spending $2 billion a year fighting fires, money that could be going to far better conservation efforts,” he says, visibly annoyed. ~Such mismanagement is what drives Western frustration, which threatens to become a new Sagebrush Rebellion. “Some of the anger is that our grand bargains have been broken, and those bargains said that you had wilderness, but you also have grazing; you could also hunt and fish,” Mr. Zinke says. Now Westerners “watch these catastrophic fires, and they’ve lost any faith that the federal government is capable of being a good steward.”

n  Trump Oks Emergency Funding for Wildfires and Urges Forest Service Reforms

n  DOI Blasts BLM Dan Love as Example of what is not Appropriate 

“We will hold people accountable when we are informed that they have failed in their duties and obligations,” Bernhardt

n  Yes, Presidents can Revoke National Monuments

“There is a reason we allow presidents to undo the actions of their predecessors. A president who could unilaterally set policy forever would have far too much power and be free of political checks and balances.  President Barack Obama designated most of his record-setting monuments during the twilight of his second term, long after the threat of electoral defeat had passed. Free of political checks, he ran wild with this power.”

n  Navajo Nation Should Not Sue Over Bears Ears  by Ryan Benally

n  “No Use” Public Lands Should Change to “Many Uses”

“Federal lands included in Bears Ears and other national monuments need management by local people on the ground , not by judges in black robes. A starting point would be to require approval by state congressional delegations of any national monument designated in their state. Let state wildlife managers have more say in whether grizzlies are removed from the endangered species list. Entrust Indian tribes with management of their antiquities as they already are with Canyon de Chelly National Monument.  Most of Bears Ears is under the purview of the Bureau of Land Management. It is time to return to the BLM motto: “Land of many uses”—not land of no uses.” 

n  Standing in Another Man’s Shoes   by Jim Stiles, Canyon Zephyr editor

n  BLM Reverses Obama Era Mineral Leasing ban in the West [This is huge!]

n  Should Trump Dump Pernicious EPA Regulations Affecting Farmers?

n  Sage Grouse need Ranchers for Survival

n  Forest Service Reform on Tap/ Helping Prevent Forest Fires

n  Western Caucus Calls for Bipartisan Forestry Management Reform

n  Book about the Bundy Family Written by Utah Author, Lyman Hafen

n  New Bill would Engage Local Stake-holders in Coal Mine Reclamation

 

Bad News Bears         

n  Antiquities Act Weakens Rural Communities by Locking up Land

n  National Review accuses Zinke of Failing to Free up Fed. Lands

n  Access Fund: Alarmist Voice Concerns about Bears Ears

n  Burdensome regulations counteractive to Conservation

n  Environmentalists Sue to Give Colorado River Human Rights

n  Zinke is for shrinking monuments, except in Montana?  Go figure?

n  Greens take on the Working Class

n  Westwise Claims Zinke’s Report is Riddled with Lies

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http://beyondthebears.blogspot.com/

                                     Documenting Bears Ears “No Monument” efforts since July 2016