Sent to Senator Orrin Hatch August 16, 2016
Even though we know you
visited San Juan County earlier this summer, we haven't heard much from you
since, and Rural Utah really needs your support and negotiating skills. In 2014
the Environmental funding lobby, Conservation Lands Foundation, set their target on Cedar Mesa, in San Juan County along with
sites in a dozen other states as the “current campaign” for more National
Monuments. If protection truly is their goal, then that is the area where
Anasazi ruins abound, and they probably do need greater protection, though
we’re not sure that more tourists are the wisest way to do that!
Now in 2016, we
are engaged in a great land battle, trying to escape the greedy grasp of the
CLF, who has now expanding their campaign to include a total of 1.9 Million
acres. This involves Forest Service lands of Bears Ears and the Abajo
Mountains. Very few sites exist in this area, but it is where Native People and
Anglos alike depend on its grass, timber, and water. Hunting, Boy Scout camps,
and 101 recreational activities are centered in this area, along with Dine and
Ute traditional activities. To abscond with this land, is government
overreach.
Both Cedar Mesa and the
Blue Mountain area already have BLM policies, and Forest Service controls
established, but both have been underfunded. If these lands needed
protection, why wasn't federal money provided so both agencies could do their
job? Making another National Monument is not going to fix a $18 Trillion
dollar debt, nor help improve protection, or economic livelihood of the
area. We feel you are in a position to do something significant to stop
this impending disaster. Utah cannot afford another donation to Obama's
National Monument showcase. Why aren't our congressmen fighting for us?
A
group of 2000 local people have been working for 6 weeks, in every way we know
how, to alert others, argue our case, bend the ear of our congressmen, and
Secretary Jewell. We have signed petitions, written letters, gone to the
State Capitol, built floats, stuffed newspapers with flyers, and argued our
cause in every way we know. None of us are directed by a well-paid CEO,
nor reimbursed for our expenses. We have done it because we love this
land, that we today call home. We say to the Hopi, and Navajo who want to
come back to their old Utah homelands, “Come, Enjoy, Visit, Celebrate, and
leave it as pristine as you find it. But don’t take our freedoms and our
land away from those who have lived here the past 200 years.” We
hope you will do more than appease listen, and look. We need a warrior to
lead this battle.
