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Show There's SHU More To The Story An open letter to Matt Edwards and anyone else who will think: I feel you haven't given Marlene Haws a fair shake. There is much, much more to be said about the rest - of the story, and it has to do with what Marlene Haws said to you about having to live here for the past 40 years to understand. I want to thank my daughter Crystal for her honest remarks and feelings she expressed in the paper she wrote in your class this summer sum-mer at Escalante High School. Her letter set forth not only her concerns, con-cerns, but our families' concerns, Marlene Haws' family's concerns, and those of the other ranchers' and farmers' families who have lived in this valley for the past 100 years. To refresh your memory, my daughter wrote the following: "I believe that the way Escalante will turn out to be will be based on how much actual action is taken to prevent or make things happen. So many people here just gripe and complain about how horrible things are turning out here and how the environmentalists are ruining our lives. I think that if more people don't try to defend how they feel, Escalante will soon become the way everyone doesn't want it to turn out, getting fuller and fuller of environmentalists who will eventually eventu-ally overrun our town and turn it into a living hell." Matt, Marlene was right when she wrote in her letter to the editor I that it is impossible for you to ; understand the hell her family has been through, along with mine, ; Doyle Cottam's, Thurman and Mar-; Mar-; jie Spencer's, Pratt Gates', Neil and Robert Listons' Stanley Liston's - Beryl Shurtz', Lincoln Lyman's and - many others. These families long ago legally filed claims on water so that we - could have water in this valley to : grow food and feed for livestock, ; They built dams up North Creek - and Wide Hollow. They made their own little power plant to bring in : electricity; later a bigger plant was built in Boulder. They put in ; fences, and made grazing allotments ; so livestock could graze in a controlled manner and not overgraze the land. They developed water that provided pro-vided not only for their livestock but for wildlife as well. And I can't forget Paul Steed ; and others before him who built sawmills and obtained Utah State University and other well-educated professional men through the U.S. Forest Service to monitor the harvesting of timber and plant trees as the timber was harvested. Because of the many years of good management, the very latest count shows there is much more timber now on Boulder Mountain than there ever has been. Likewise, there is more feed for livestock on the desert. This has been proven by trend studies almost all of which are up. The few that have remained stable can be expected to rise as more water is developed in the unused areas. These early settlers and their descendants made Escalante, Boulder, Boul-der, Tropic, Henrieville, Cannon-ville, Cannon-ville, Hatch, Panguitch, Antimony (See LETTERS on page 4-A) LETTERS From Page 3-A and Rubys Inn at Bryce an j environment of love for family and 1 for each other because they had to have each other to make it work, i These are the folks who were ! and are the true environmen- talists. j When I came here over 30 years J ago, this was where I wanted to live. On the whole, everyone was ! happy. Kids were busy putting up hay, milking the family cow, raising pigs and chickens, selling ! eggs, getting wood from the sawmill to build their houses and barns, etc. Busy and happy. And then slowly the "living hell" began creeping in, the exclu-sionists, exclu-sionists, who want it all for themselves. them-selves. These exclusionists powerful, powerful environmental ! organizations with their billions ! not millions, but billions of ! dollars, using our Congressmen and Senators to pass such legislation as the Endangered Species Act that has been used to close forests to timber j cutting because of spotted owl and other birds, legislation that has allowed the President by Executive Order to close roads on 40 million acres. - For example, the Willow Flycatcher habitat has been used as an excuse to stop the construction of a new reservoir at Escalante, claiming that the bird's habitat, the , wetland along the Escalante River will be destroyed. Everyone here knows that, because of the numerous springs and creeks along its path, the Escalante River wetland is always wet whether we are' filling our reservoir or not. Yet, the new reservoir construction, construc-tion, so desperately need by local ranchers and farmers, was stopped by these powerful environmentalists environmen-talists just one day before the Utah National Guard, with its heavy equipment and personnel already on site, was ready to start work. The arbitrary and totally unexpected unex-pected creation of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument Monu-ment four years ago has made it impossible to develop our coal, our oil fields, our carbon dioxide, and the rich deposits of other minerals while our nation purchases these vital commodities from other countries. Such typical government actions ac-tions have destroyed our Garfield County's tax base and forced local communities such as Escalante into near bankruptcy as they attempt to pay off their share, the matching funds, on "government help" the grants they have received. Escalante' s sewer lagoons which the government said were required, along with rising property taxes to meet mandated changes, are creating a terrible burden on our senior citizens, many of whom are the very people who helped to build the community. Matt, I guess you would agree, without the farmer and rancher and their families, without the sawmill and the families it supports, without Lincoln Lyman Construction Construc-tion and those who work for him and their families, you would have to leave, too. The schools would be shut down for lack of students to attend. Your job would be lost for lack of funds to run the schools. You could still live here if you could survive on $5.50 an hour for cleaning motel rooms six months out of the year. As we face higher taxes that could ultimately drive us all away, consider this latest government fiasco: H.R 701, the Conservation and Reinvestment Act, better known as CARA, has now passed the House of Representatives. It will give the government $42 billion to buy up private property. I guess those of us who are left after everyone else has been run out of their homes for the above-cited reasons, will 'be forced to sell to you-know-who! Our beloved, stalwart fighter for private property Congressman Jim Hansen voted for this bill. Obviously there are many more (See LETTERS on page 5-A) LETTERS From Page 4-A paid servants of the people who are caving in. The bill passed with 315 ayes and 102 noes, ' 196 Democrats and 118 Republicans. We are being betrayed. Guess who will be in control when the ranchers, the farmers, the miners, the sawmill workers, the small businesses are eone? Now, I ask you Matt, won't that be a living hell? Keith Carter Escalante |
