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Show Reality Therapy 1 ! j Those who support more or ex panded national parks or more con-gressionally con-gressionally designated wilderness ; in Utah claim that these kinds of congressional designations are great for Utah's economy. Congressman ! Wayne Owens has been quoted as saying, "I think 10 percent of the state should be in wilderness it's so vital to our state's economic fu-! fu-! ture." It is not clear how Owens factors fac-tors the costs of wilderness designation, including foregone re-J re-J source potentials, closure of thousands thou-sands of miles of roads, foregone j ; opportunities to manage wildlife . habitat, clouded water rights and j entrapped state lands into his rose j colored vision of the benefits of i congressional wilderness. He offers 1 j nothing to suggest that he has I I considered these costs in any way. j Furthermore, he ignores national J ' j park service visitation data which j I shows that back country use is the i j only declining manner of use in national parks. Back country use, the only kind of use possible in ' congressional wilderness, has been declining steadily for at least the ; i past four years. ii ; If all this is not enough to i demonstrate that Owens is totally ; j beyond reason with regard to con-' con-' gressional wilderness, then one , i! need only consider the statutory ' j purpose of congressional wilder-. wilder-. , ness. Congressional wilderness is intended to exclude all signs of the j activities of man and, if need be, to j ! exclude man himself. Since it is . ; mankind that creates economies, I ; the exclusion of man excludes eco- I I nomic activity. Clearly, congres- ! j' sional wilderness is diametrically I opposed to viable economies. To argue the contrary, as Owens does, j demonstrates a type of megaloma-! megaloma-! ; nia peculiar to congress, where reality is often an abstraction not j 1 necessarily relevant to the sponsor- ship of legislation. ' Owens argues that mining is j gone and more people are clamor- ing for wilderness. Will Owens reverse re-verse his stand when OPEC creates the next embargo and tourism becomes be-comes a thing of the past? Owens points to the ski industry as an example of how tourism will help the economy. He does not mention that Utah's ski resorts are barely getting by. Owens argues that tourism will support southern Utah. He doesn't explain how people will live on four months worth of minimum wage. Owens does not mention, nor does he attempt to explain why Moab has experienced a 20.6-percent decline in population since 1980 and its average nonagricultural wage is less than 80 percent of the state average. Why is Moab suffering so when Arches and Canyonlands National Parks are experiencing their highest visitation levels ever? Why are Escalante, Panguitch, Monticello and a score of other southern Utah towns similarly suffering if tourism is such an economic boon? Tourism lives off the infrastructure and wages c " 'h higher economic uses of the laiiu Essential community infrastructure from Moab to St. George was not and could not be built from revenues rev-enues derived from backpackers. It was mining, oil and gas, and timber tim-ber taxes and wages that built and sustained the roads, schools and hospitals of southern Utah. It is irresponsible for Owens to argue that removing the land base in southern Utah from multiple use by designating it a congressional wilderness will benefit anyone. Owens is in desperate need of reality real-ity therapy. Unfortunately, residents resi-dents of Salt lake County are the only people in Utah qualified to administer the treatment. We can only hope that the people of Salt Lake County exercise their curative powers in 1990. William D. Howell 57 North Main Street Helper, Utah 84501 |