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Show aaa DER ALUN SEINE computer technology to fuse the two images..satellite and ground. THATS HOW IT WORKS. And since your letter is unsigned, I will probably print it despite your admonitions not to. FEEDBACK Anything that I can do to throw a wrench into yet another mind-numbing extreme sport seems like a plan to me...JS (Continued) And here the gloves come off: “By securing more water and building the infrastructure to store and deliver it, the Basin can become a major center of economic and political power. Vernal could rival the largest Utah cities in size, and surpass them in influence. Fiddling while Rome burns? Perhaps that is too strong an anlaogy for some, yet these last two sentences sadly sum up the egregious disdain for common sense that is so badly needed now. Ron Weales Vernal, UT AN ALLY OF TAMARISK Stiles, : “Let's meet at Goose Island. Colorado river, first campground on the left.” Easy to find and close enought to town to go have morning coffee at Uncle Bebop’s or breakfast at Cafe Eklectica. Great nighttime lightshow on the cliffs as the tourboats cruise down the river. Last August I camped there among the shady private hedges of flutteriing tamarisk. At dusk a deer wandered thru our campsite. We stayed up very late watching the lunar eclipse, the moon balanced along the cliff edge, red as the rocks. Alas my friends, Goose Island lays in ruins. Nothing much left of it really, but blackened stumps and a few cottonwoods, otherwise stripped naked to the bones and thrust into the fire. Goose Island is a changed place. The camp host at big Bend fills me in. “The tamarisk is a non-native species. It’s not healthy for the river. The birds don’t like it.” Yeah, but the campers do. “Besides, now that it's been cleaned up, we can keep an eye on what's going on there. It’s cut out the wild parties.” she tells me. Gosh, who’d wanna have a wild party on a camping trip? Or shade and privacy for that matter? Ina climate this hot, shade is a resource. I tell the camp host that the tamarisk is difficult, some say impossible, to eradicate, that it is endemic throughout the southwest. “Oh, that shouldn't be a problem. they’ve emported extoic beetles to kill the trees and poured poison on the stumps.” WAY TOO GO BLM! Another brilliant plan! As I drive along 128 and then out the Potash road, the devastated places are like a war zone. All those sweet little spots across from Negro Bill Canyon. Gone. Near Williams Bottom, across from Poison Spider trail, it looks like a scene from Dante’s Inferno. And it is only just beggining. These are merely previews of coming attractions. The entire area will be “treated.” And not just once. A brochure, put out by the BLM states, “The restora- tion of the Colorado riverway is expected to take many years of continuous treatment.” As to the release of the tamarisk leaf beetle, the brochure states, “there will always be a risk when ‘releasing a foreign organism into anew environment.” The poor tamarisk. Our unwanted immigrant. I’ve always found it ae lovely. If it’s so hard to get rid of, perhaps we should just embrace it. The southwest willow flycatcher, an endangered bird, seems to like it well enough. Prediction: The actions being taken to suppress the growth of the tamarisk along the Colorado will prove to be bigger envi- IN PRAISE OF LOCH WADE Thanks Jim, for publishing Loch Wade's essay titled “Do We Really Need Wilderness — It Depends on your Definition.” I’ve been waiting years for somebody, anybody, to fire the next salvo in the most important cultural debate we could have: How should we live with the land? I guess we civilized people would rather just pretend that our ship of state floats above it like some kind of Destroyer-class warship. Do you remember when those first torpedoes started exploding below decks in 1995, fired by William Cronon with his “The Trouble with Wilderness” essay that just nailed what's really wrong with us? (Euro-American white folks, that is.) I guess because they were mortally damaged then, professional environmentalists never did return effective fire, and now I'll match their hopelessness with my own stupid hope that they can’t spin this sinking ship much longer. First, Cronon showed us that one of our primary wilderness foundations, the idea of the sublime, comes from Western thinking that separates humans from both God and Nature. No matter which one we're striving to be re-united with, we pursue it with an unearthly zeal that totally ignores the only thing that matters: what we do everyday in order to live. Then he reminded us of another (mostly American) cultural construct supporting wilderness: the passing of the frontier, and how that desperate attempt to preserve our defining moment in history led in no small part to the wilderness movement. Ever since Teddy Roosevelt, urbanized American elites have been trying to uncover their “rugged individualist” character, testing themselves in battle against “the wilderness” with what little remains of their leisure time. Finally, when we ignored and insulted the people who were here before us (again) by worshiping “uninhabited, pristine wilderness”, we completed our recipe for disaster, and made it law, Zahnizer’s 1964 Wilderness Act. Other, more sustainable cultures could and should preserve wild lands, but our of- ficial, legal rationale, reflecting misguided notions of who we are and what our history is, and including no thought at all about how we actually live, should make us wonder whether anything has really been saved. And obviously, the US is so fractured now that any attempt to rewrite the Wilderness Act would be impossible. So we're stuck with another unworkable idea in our law. Anybody else hear the bell tolling? Cronon says that “The dream of an unworked natural landscape is very much the fantasy of people who have never themselves had to work the land to make a living.” Of course, the progressives would reply that with technology ripping more and more resources from the land faster and faster, we can have more and more people in the cities and still preserve wilderness. That kind of thinking leads to more and more idiots like me tiptoeing around cryptobiotic soil while carrying 40 lbs of food, water and gear on our backs, sure that we are “leaving no trace”. about that?” As Loch Wade would say, “what is wild After building expertly on Cronon’s thesis (“it was civilization that created the wilderness, where one had never been before!”), Loch is now finishing us off by showing us that we are horrified to even think about what it means to live sustainably with the land. And that real freedom is synonymous with the real wild. Talk about terrorism! Clearly, nobody is going to come up with an idea that allows all of us, all 6.5 billion, soon to be 9 billion farmers to live with this Earth sustainably. The professional enviros always complain that by talking about this unpretty picture we’re not helping anything. Obviously, they don’t remember that young people, more than anything else we can give them, need our honesty. At least this way, with Loch Wade's essay by their side, they can start dreaming now about a real life in the wild! ronmental disaster than the tamarisk itself. And in the end, years from now, I betcha the tamarisk will still be around. Cyndy Hodo Doug Meyer Moab, UT SUBSCRIBERS: Send your email address to: eczephyr@gmail.com MY KIND OF IDIOTS Jim Stiles (Do not publish this under ANY circumstance) Read. your blurb on Google earth. We have been using google earth to scope out locations for an awesome new sport in Canyon country for some time now (the sport shall remain nameless, not because it is harmful in any way to the environment - it leaves no trace whatsoever - it is just pretty radical and greatly misunderstood so we keep it obscure). Also, as a BCS rock art hound and a rock climber, I have no fear that google earth will ever be able to see rock art. Besides the resolution issue, I can tell you as a rock climber that google earth completely distorts/destroys vertical rock faces in any view... REES NATIVE GARDENS Selling at the MOAB FARMERS' MARKET Love the zephyr, keep up the great work. terry Saturdays, 8 to 12 You're wrong...I wasnt suggesting that Google would use satellite images to reveal rock art. They are currently using 3D ground cameras to shoot every square inch of the planet and then using DAVE WAGSTAFF CONSTRUCTION Would you like fo see this country before we 'won' the Wes!? So would |. CALL 259.9844 Pretty Cool Mustrated 2436" Map of Westurater @, anyon a ‘New Construction. Re-models "High Quality at a Fair Price " CALL (435) 259-5077 after 5 PM STILES...SAY IT ISNT SO! Ca aS Solus a Shipenet to: J.Tok. “ semoagdnren a te 5 cha sa) PO Box [31° Tennessee Pass CO, 81649 | smokeartwork@yahoo. come 503. 988- 1218 0° |