Utah land management plans - covering 11 million acres - will invite off-road vehicle destruction, energy development in spectacular, fragile landscape.
The Denver Post reported last Sunday about a series of nasty schemes that the Bush Administration hopes to finalize in its remaining 200-odd days in power.
The article, entitled "Bush prepares parting shots," describes a number of infamous proposals, including efforts to rewrite rule for all of our national forests to provide less protection for wildlife. Earthjustice has been fighting that one for years, with much success.
But Bush's appointees are masters at trying to undermine environmental protection by focusing on the obscure, the minutia of regulation and administration.
Take, for instance, resource management planning for Bureau of Land Management lands in Utah. Sounds boring, right? But the stakes couldn't be higher. Because Bush's appointees are desperately working to simultaneously complete plans for six different areas of public lands in Utah covering 11 million acres, an area larger than the states of Massachusetts and New Jersey combined. And as they finish these plans, they hope to finish off wilderness protection in Utah.
That's because these plans, as now proposed, will undermine protection for wilderness by letting off-road vehicles rip through proposed wilderness and wilderness study areas, and open an astonishing 9 million of the 11 million acres for oil and gas drilling.
Areas such as Arch Canyon, rich in cultural artifacts of ancient native cultures - preserved for a millenium or more in the area's dry climate - will get scant protection, as BLM has failed to even try to find resources to protect them.
For the planning area around Moab, a few statistics tell the story. BLM proposes NOT to protect more than 89% of the nearly half-million acres of wilderness quality lands. Further, as the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance explains "BLM's proposal will result in 84% of the public lands mear Moab ... being within 1/2 mile" of a road or motor vehicle route. The land made famous in Ed Abbey's "Desert Solitaire" will be more like a mega-dirt bike race track than the iconic wilderness of the West.
The story is even worse in the Kanab area near the Arizona border, where BLM has proposed to protect none of the area's 90,000 acres of wilderness-eligible lands. In the Monticello area near Canyonlands National Park, BLM also proposes protecting none of the more than half-million acres of wildlands outside of wilderness study areas found there.
The plans are hardly fair and balanced in terms of energy development either -- 97% of lands in the Vernal area will be left open to oil & gas development, leaving 3% for the rest of us. So much for "multiple use." All of the six plans proposes leaving open to energy development at least 3/4s of the entirety of each area.
The public will have a chance to "protest" these plans when BLM issues its decisions on them in the next few months. We can guess what kind of a fair hearing those seeking wilderness protection will get. And while it may be possible for the next administration to unscramble these bad eggs, it may take almost as many years to get it right as Bush's appointees took to get it so wrong.
Print this page
Email this page
Bush and his crony's don't care they have the money, power and no conscience. The way they have sold this country out, undermined our National Treasures.
How horrible - I cannot believe what this world is coming too. It is wrong to destroy the land. I'm so sorry to hear this.
words cannot express my disgust with bush and his boot-licking cronies in business and industry and his narrow-minded conservative supporters who have destroyed and continue to destroy what is left of the wilderness heritage of america. this man's stupidity will go down in history as legendary. january cannot come soon enough.
I always try to understand both sides of an issue. But what could the BLM's argument be for allowing off-road vehicles in such a huge wilderness area? The BLM is supposed to manage land, not destroy it.
Please Earthjustice- can you let us know a way we can start writing/ send our environmental concerns to the next Obama administration. Is there an email address we can individually send messages to? Both to Obama himself, and an email address to the Democratic and Republican parties headquarters so that they become aware of us and our voices and our concerns? Also can we, as a group Earthjustice start sending
our next leaders our messages? Thanks on behalf of all humanity.
STOP THIS MADDNESS !!!!! DONT LET THIS HAPPEN IF YOU LOVE YOUR MOTHER [THE EARTH] STOP THIS!!!!
Bush/Cheney should be INDICTED FOR TREASON, for CRIMES AGAINST NATURE, for CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY. Piddling around with impeachment means NOTHING! These 2 "men" together have single-handedly brought America to her knees, lost all respect of foreign governments, incinerated HABEAS CORPUS, WHICH IS THE FOUNDATION THIS COUNTRY WAS STARTED, decimated our Treasury. If they were not our government "leaders" they would have been shot or hung by now. We do not worry about bin Laden, we have suffered under Bush/Cheney.
I live in Austrralia. It seems that America is in death thows with regard to environmental management in many key regions accross the lower 48 and Alaska. Bush and his cowboys must be removed and replaced with a person more ethical and in tune with the current environmental climate
Set up web page that will generate support for challenging and repealing the interiors rule under 5 USC 553.
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=browse_usc&doc...
(e) Each agency shall give an interested person the right to
petition for the issuance, amendment, or repeal of a rule.
Basically, all BLM land is being incorporated into a State- Corporate Feudalistic so-called "Rights-of-way" system. The scale is sweeping and driven by a false market of oil and mineral speculation. Just like under Enron, we will be stripped of our public resources and given only rent for land while only a few holding companies get a lions share for specious reasons and arguments that have nothing to do with national security and energy independence.
Folks can keep up to date on these planning efforts by visiting the websites for The Wilderness Society's BLM Action Center -http://www.wilderness.org/OurIssues/BLM/ActionCenter/index.cfm - or the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance www.suwa.org.
This is shocking and must not be allowed to happen! It would be criminal to destroy this sacred land for more oil, which will only add to environmental problems.
Having taken our children to these marvelous areas over the past 40 yrs., they like us have a great appreciation for the many wonders. Now what will there be left for their children!? Get rid of the Republicans!! All they care about is their money.
It's much easier for the President of the U.S. to go begging to the Arabs for extra oil than to LEAD this country and its manufacturers to produce more fuel-efficient cars, to tell the people that they need to wise up and save their wildernesses.
Righteouss exalt a nation but sin is a reproach to any people.
Somebody, please get Bush/Cheney out of office. Impeach them both.
They are only interested in helping their oil and big business buddies at the expence of the American people.
This is appalling.
Folks need to read up about the "cryptobiotic crust" that takes 50 to 100 years or more to form, and that covers a good deal of the land in SE Utah. It is destroyed by footsteps, so you can imagine what bikes and ATVs will do to it. Not to mention the foot-high "shrubs" that grow there -- that take 100 years to reach that size. They're essentially "old-growth" forests that are no more than a foot or two high, and yet they are increasingly being pulverized. I'm sorry I can't recall the species name offhand....I learned about it while attending a Natural Areas conference in Flagstaff a few years back.
http://www.nps.gov/archive/care/crypto.htm
Post new comment