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Show SEPTEMBER 1996 this is the place by John Helton SCORECARD We must protect the Birdie Times are and fishers, changing. who Hunters have tradi- © tionally been at odds with environmental groups are burrying the hatchet with the greenies. At least between now and Nov. 5. The hook and bullet set is joining forces with environmentalists across the country to defeat Republicans running for US Senate and House seats, because the GOP has had such an abysmal record on the environment. During the past two years, the Republican-dominated Congress has tried to roll back the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act and Bogey @ __ Strike two. Having just cleaned > the egg from its face on banning a four-foot fiberglass cow from Main Street, the Park City Council again has been caught with its pants down — we speak figuratively only. This time, the council had to admit that it’s temporary zoning ordinance, effectively halting building on Main Street for six months was. . . well, not such a good idea. Mayor Brad Olch fessed-up that the idea was his. An idea that came only after his brother had finished construction on a Main Street building. In an interview, Councilman Paul Sincock as much as admitted the council had been stampeded into action. Gee, Paul, who's in charge at City Hall, anyway? Bogey While the Salt Lake news media was gushing over Utah’s > Gov. Mike Leavitt and the somewhat limited role he played at the Republican National Convention in San Diego last month, they missed a few things. Local news media skipped over the part that Leavitt and Lt. Gov. Olene Walker played in keeping the word “tolerance” out of the Republican platform. Leavitt was cochair of the platform committee and Walker was the chair of the subcommittee on abortion. And they both voted to keep language for a Constitutional amendment outlawing abortion. But local news organizations played up Time magazine’s story on how Leavitt could be a choice for Secretary of the Interior — a good choice if you hate wilderness but like mining and timber cutting. @ @ i lightly... for Someday 4h thic will be a popular tourict attraction ! the Endangered Species Act, to name just a few. This has not gone unnoticed, even by hunters and fishers, who have traditionally leaned a litle to the right. the lana my Son, we must tread “sy Wy i 800 A.D. -, § 3.0300 John ©9@ 4 q EDITORIAL Funding for Public Lands Outdone by Political Rhetoric payers, of course. And it is working quite well. Tourism in Utah’s National Parks is up 35 percent. But tourist boomtowns, like Moab, Springdale and St. George give nothing back to the parks from which they mine their gold. And Utah’s representatives at home and in Congress aren't tates now has more economic impact for public lands than do timber, mining and grazing. Tourism dollars earned by private industry serving visitors to public lands is now greater than the extractive industries combined. Yet as our public lands, parks and forests get loved to funding is not death, forthcoming Slowly our parks and forests and other public lands are being trampled down. As Mark Gerard points out in our cover story this month on the Anasazi ruins in Southern Utah’s Grand Gulch, the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has reduced drastically the number of rangers in the area. Where there once were half a dozen full-time rangers, there are now only two part-timers. And the ruins are paying a price. The very same thing can be seen in our national parks. While the visitation to the parks has increased by 30 percent in the last 13 years, funding has declined by $202 million a year. National parks now have a backlog of $8 billion in needed expenditures. Congress continues to play politics with our parks and other public lands. They boost entry fees, then cut the overall budgets. In the end, forests and parks are reduced to chits in budgetary rhetoric. Big-talking, high-handed budget cutters are not willing to protect what is special about the land on which we live. PAGE willing to help out much either, Christopher Smart enough to protect these American treasures, But don’t let the new federalists take this as some sort of charter. Because state parks and lands are just as bad off, if not worse. The state of Utah, for example, does not have a better record of protecting lands, although Gov. Mike Leavitt and the Republicans would have us place all federal land under state control. The Utah Legislature has shown on any number of occasions its disdain for public lands. The recent debate on creating open space along the Wasatch was enough to show that Utah lawmakers see public land as some sort of communist plot. Ironically, while Utah's Congressional delegation and legislators here at home are _ talking Sagebrush Rebellion — the privatization of all land — they are pumping up the idea of tourism in Utah’s rich canyon country. A page on the World Wide Web To the contrary, Rep. Jim Hansen pushed his own bill in the House of Representatives to create a parks closure commission. The bill didn’t get out of committee, but its intent was clear, just the same. In their zeal to do away with big government, Utah’s Republicans, among others, are willing to watch our, public lands and American treasures waste away for lack of funding. This from a Congress which was willing to give the Pentagon $20 billion more this year than the Joint Chiefs requested. This from a Congress which provides anywhere from $140 to $200 billion annually in corporate welfare. But political rhetoric aside, there are things that are more important than the bottom line or a $30 tax cut for average Americans. Among them are our national parks, national forests and other public lands. When we begin to give away and sell our national treasures, as is going on now with the trade of Snow Basin to oil magnate Earl Holding, we computer link-up shows Utah's redrock country to millions each year. wealth That service is purchased by Utah tax- an American. 2 that all comes lose. with We open lose the spaces and the freedom that comes with being @ |
