Friday, June 8, 2018

~~BEAR ESSENTIALS: June 8, 2018~~



Univ. of So. Calif. Journalism Team Tackles SJC Issues: 
San Juan Record Editor Coordinates Project
Students Research then Write 16 page Supplement

v What is Gerrymandering?


-   Welcome to San Juan Opening Social Video Clips

   1-Video with USC jouralist Tommy Brockmeyer



n  Warning: Designations, Plus Publicity, Equals Destruction  by Bill Keshlear, published in the June Canyon Zephyr

“ Utah Diné Bikéyah, a nonprofit based in Salt Lake City that’s led by Navajo and Ute Mountain Ute tribal members, has aligned itself with companies that promote and profit handsomely from non-motorized outdoor recreation. They include some of the nation’s most prominent and politically aggressive: Patagonia, The North Face, REI Co-op, Black Diamond, Arc’teryx, Sage, OR, küat, Osprey, Yakima, Clif Bar and Mountain Hard Wear…..”

in contrast: “Doodah-No Monument promoters “are NOT beneficiaries of a sophisticated multimillion dollar, multiyear national campaign organized and administered by professionals who make a comfortable living off of creating and now litigating Bears Ears. Here’s a sampling of the salaries received by executive directors of several nonprofits behind BENM, according to their 2016 IRS Form 990s: Friends of Cedar Mesa, Bluff, Utah, $41,000; UDB, Salt Lake City, $86,000; Round River Conservation Studies, Salt Lake City, $98,000;  Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, Salt Lake City, Moab, Washington, D.C., $113,000; Conservation Lands Foundation, Durango, Colo., $150,000; and Grand Canyon Trust, Flagstaff, Ariz., Denver, Durango, Moab, $226,000. None of the directors, staff or donors of those organizations is accountable to the people whose livelihoods and lives might be affected by their decisions. Many cannot even vote in Utah.”  (Read the whole article)

"What happened in Blanding is a symptom of the underlying problem," he said.
The so-called "Kill Book," he added, is "abhorrent. This is the kind of thing that could have or would have been addressed more quickly with a state or local law enforcement agency."

With too many roads to fix and not enough money, a southeastern Utah community is testing out a new technique for building roads that has the potential to save taxpayers as much as 80 percent over traditional asphalt.”
















It turns out that these 18 “recovered” species were never endangered in the first place and were placed on the endangered species list due to poor data. This, however, has not kept the Department of Interior’s Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) from trumpeting their “recovery” as a success.”
                     Documenting Bears Ears “No Monument” efforts since July 2016

Friday, May 25, 2018

~~BEAR ESSENTIALS: May 25, 2018~~



v Primary Ballots will be mailed out the first part of June.  VOTE







The presence of one of the largest coal reserves on Earth was precisely the reason President Clinton created Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. A plan to reopen a once productive uranium mine was precisely the reason President Obama created Bears’ Ears National Monument.”
n  Mens Journal Visits all 50 States; Their Utah Choice: “The Most Disputed Monument” Bears Ears
Bears Ears National Monument, which the Trump administration is in the process of downsizing, has long been at the center of the fight for public lands. It also happens to be one of the best places in the Southwest to explore. For starters, you can hike to the ruins known as House on Fire, Pueblo granaries at the base of a rock feature with swirling marks resembling flames. Then there are the North and South Six Shooters, twin sandstone towers that sit nearly 6,000 feet atop talus cones and are famous among rock climbers. What’s more, the upper section of the San Juan River, from the put-in at the Sand Island Recreation Area to the take-out at Mexican Hat, makes for a mellow paddle through scenic canyon country, with thousands of petroglyphs etched into the red cliffs. —Jayme Moye”
n  Good or Bad?  Black Diamond Company Plans to Expand in Utah – Irony at its best

  






n  SUWA’s Scott Groene: Public Lands Don’t Belong to Locals
San Rafael Swell bill: "It protects less land as wilderness than is already protected for those values. It makes off-road vehicle problems worse with an unprecedented legislative scheme. It undoes a protected area for coal mining. It allows Utah politicians to sue the United States to put off-road vehicles through areas designated wilderness. And, as icing on the cake, it furthers the state of Utah’s grab at our public lands by handing management of federal lands over to local control, which will likely result in an ORV playground around Temple Mountain and more crowding around Goblin Valley."
(Written 4 years ago in the Canyon Zephyr.  If you’ve never read this article, tackle it now, including the comments at the end, and then consider San Juan’s future.) It was, after all, the Grand Canyon Trust’s Bill Hedden who once proclaimed, “Industrial-strength recreation holds more potential to disrupt natural processes on a broad scale than just about anything else.”  Twenty years later, Hedden and the Trust and other “green” groups seldom talk about the recreation menace.  Now, turning wilderness into a cash cow is a favored strategy, not a shameless exploitation.”   Jim Stiles

             Other Articles/ Events of Local Interest             
Winston Hurst has written several articles about Cummings’ explorations in San Juan County.  One is in Issue #13 of Blue Mt. Shadows (1994)
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Over the years, as far back as 1991, this publication has expressed its growing alarm over a monolithic Industrial Tourism economy. Consequently, we have understandably lost most of our former Moab advertisers. We are now almost completely supported by small contributions from our readers.
Sad to say, almost everything we predicted 25 years ago is happening--Moab has become a poster child for what NOT to become as a tourist town. To the south in San Juan County, the corporate outdoor industry is licking its chops as it moves forward to make that region "the next Moab."
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                     Documenting Bears Ears “No Monument” efforts since July 2016