The County Seat

Proposed Monuments in Utah, S2 EP52

Utah's have been wary of monuments since the 1996 designation of the Grand Staircase Escalate Monument. The monument was declared with no input from the state or the counties and has largely been viewed as a political move that has hurt the economies of Kane and Garfield County. Monuments can be declared by the President of the United States by using the antiquities act. The designation of millions of acres as a monument seems like a misuse of the law and takes away the input from local governments. In a state like Utah this is particularly troubling because 67% of the state is made up of federally managed lands. Monument designations take some possible uses of the land off the table. The proposal by the Outdoor Industries Association of a 1.4 million acre monument in the Canyon Lands area seems to go beyond what is necessary for protection especially when the proposal is similar if not identical to a previous plan that surfaced last year from the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. Below are some links where you can learn more about what is being proposed and some opinions on whether another monument in Utah would or would not be a good idea.

Outdoor Retailers http://www.outdoorindustry.org/news/oia.php?newsId=17492&newsSubType=&action=display
Outdoor retailer Letter: http://www.suwa.org/wp-content/uploads/OutdoorRetailersLetter.pdf
Canyonlands Map http://www.scribd.com/doc/113022883/Canyonlands-monument-plan
Salt Lake Tribune Story http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/55262577-78/monument-canyonlands-national-outdoor.html.csp
Deseret News http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865566603/Group-to-ask-President-Obama-to-turn-Greater-Canyonlands-into-national-monument.html
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/765615482/Outdoor-companies-ask-Obama-for-Utah-monument.html
Antiquities Act http://www.cr.nps.gov/local-law/FHPL_AntiAct.pdf Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance http://www.suwa.org/issues/greatercanyonlands/ Sierra Club http://connect.sierraclub.org/app/render/go.aspx?sBlogID=5491&xslt=blog/blogbase.xslt&mode=post&sPostID=187624&tab=Blog&g=63ae90c8-370a-43fe-8b0d-ffa9000856ad&cons_id=&ts=1356116339&signature=9e0b411fc12cc95fc9d859d367d61072
Blue Ribbon Coalition: http://www.sharetrails.org/uploads/BRC_Letter_Re_OIA_Canyonlands_Petition_11.20.12_FINAL.pdf
Additional Points of view http://sagebrushcoalition.com/
look for rebuttal from Lynn Jackson. http://sagebrushcoalition.com/2012/12/01/ashley-korenblat-responds-to-the-controversy-surrounding-the-oia-greater-canyonlands-letter/