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Show * THE ZEPHYR/FEBRUARY-MARCH 2009 a death in the family. (For more on Herb, see page 28) Bad Times Coming at Big Water pets For decades, the state of Utah and the federal government have been wrangling over the disposition of state school trust lands. Within each township in Utah are four state sections. Those sections were supposed to generate revenue for the state, but because of the random distribution of those sections they often wound up in the middle of national parks. Utah claimed that the landlocked nature of those state sections limited their ability to be developed and exploited. At one point Utah actually threatened to turn one state section at Arches National Park into an RV campground. A couple of years ago, Governor Leavitt and Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt worked out a huge land swap. It sounded like a good idiea at the time. Recently, however, Utah acquired an enormous 44,000 acre parcel of land in southern Utah as part of the trade that could forever change this isolated and...colorful corner of the state. It’s called Big Water and right now it’s not much to look at. But if the Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration has its way, life is going to change dramatically. i ‘ ; UY eae . I21 EAST JO0 SOUTH #108 MOAB, 800.635.5280 “| Top S Ways ie Save the Economy 10. Convert Wal-Mart stores into homeless shelters : it ‘ The state agency wants to develop the land for its tourist and retirement community potential--Sun City Utah-style---and projects that in the decades ahead, “tens of thou- for laid-off employees er — 9. Outsource Alaska state government to Blackwater MOAB: Cash killed our Cachet This seems to have been a bad summer for a lot of Moab merchants. Many Main Street businesses are reporting drops in sales. There is genuime concern out there that tourism is falling off, although visitation increases at Arches would hardly support such a notion. At the same time, Moab has been getting some negative press lately. Rob Schultheis, in Inside. Outside, wrote that “Moab doesn’t look 8. Put birth control into all water supplies 7. Rent out the White House as a B&B 6. Sell our like it fell off the to Ira in AIG 4 9 5. Auction off all the red states instead of Little Sprawl. And boy are there a lot of people there. People and stuff. Too di : of both.” stake i back of a truck anymore; now it look like it fell off a thousand trucks. It’s Big Sprawl much : _ to Saudi Arabia ‘ the: aeua oe : For the purely economics-minded, profit/loss, bottom line type, the problem in Moab lately is that there is more stuff than there are people to buy the stuff. And most importantly, we have lost the weird, funky charm that made us an attrac- - tion in the first place. anos one ’ bi 3. Make China the 51st state 2. Invade Luxembourg October/November 1999 4. _ So it was with uncharacteristic hope that, in the last issue, I spoke of an opportunity that many believe could make a positive difference here in southern Utah. Briefly, a group of citizens in Moab decided to create a Sierra Club Group...to be called the Glen Canyon Group. Working under the umbrella of the Utah Chapter, this group would become the only grass roots Sierra Club organization in the canyon country. Among its priorities “ Drill for oil at 9732'39.18"W 3134'52.49"N, — a : are the passage of a decent Utah wilderness bill, an imcreased effort to stop efforts to turn southern Utah into a toxic/nuclear waste dumping; site and...the restoration of Glen Canyon. : It was difficult to imagine that the third priority could cause us much of a problem as with our fellow Sierra Clubbers. After all, in 1996 the mational board of the Sierra Club E voted to approve the decommissioning of Glen Canyon. Dam and restoration of the once splendid and currently drowned canyon that lies behind it. The new group felt there could not be a more noble goal than to support efforts to right a terrible wrong--truly the damnation of Glen Canyon is one of the worst environmental tragedies of this century. Of course, we had all heard the rumors--that the Utzah Chapter opposed the national board’s position, and that they would fight us, tooth andl nail, to prevent the Glen Canyon Group from pursuing this third priority. But I don’t thiink anyone took the rumors seri- fs : 7 * x : : x The Solutions invite y you to rethink, respect, reduce, reuse, “and recycle, right here in Moab! For a Moab area recycling directory, and information on our hands-on projects, visit: www.moab-solutions.org or call 259-0910. ously. We were dead wrong. What has emerged in the last several weeks is as ugly and disturbing...and heartbreaking...as any environmental battle I have ever been a part of. And this struggle is with adversaries who are supposed to be our allies. It is unbelievable. 2000: BEING INTOLERANT OF INTOLERANCE From April/May 2000... Recycling conserves water, creates jobs, lowers pollution, protects pristine areas, and promotes personal responsibility. Recycling matters! If you do not live in Moab, and certainly if you resicle outside of Utah, you are probably unaware of an ugly incident that occurred here on INew Year’s Eve. Two young local WHERE THE ZEPHYR GOES, WE GO...SEE YOU ONLINE Science is facts; just as houses are made of stone, do ee so is science made of facts; but a pile of stones is not a house, and a collection of facts is not necessarily canoe company Lc. science. WE RENT CANOES!!! 1371 North Highway 191 Moab UT 84532 2 | | Jules Henri Poincaré (1854-1912) ~~ French mathematician. 4 ss - JUST LOOK ~ POEL Tao ewes FOR THE A-FRAME, Free gies g Foe esa) ; DEY omn Acyl cr UAC an LEN eel OA Nancy Jacques...www.ravenseyepress.com 800.753.8216 435.059.7722 NORTH . TOWN. OF |