OCR Text |
Show Is Monument Really Bad? I have always respected your newspaper. You have in the past attempted to provide readers with a full and generally unbiased account ac-count of developing matters that would be of interest to the citizens citi-zens of Garfield County and possibly pos-sibly influence their future. Years ago you published articles of mine that often ran counter to general opinion in the county. Such practice is the traditional role and almost the duty of a newspaper, and you have done it well. If you publish this letter, you are still operating in that mode. But, as for unbiased reporting report-ing of matters important to your readers, there, my good publisher, you have, with regard to the new Escalante Grand Staircase National Na-tional Monument, gone sadly astray. What is wrong with the monument? What terrible thing has it done to Garfield County? It has brought travelers who otherwise other-wise would not have visited the county. Is that bad? It stopped a major coal development that would have harvested a valuable resource at a time when the coal was not really needed by this nation na-tion (in fact, most of the coal would be sold to Pacific Rim countries). Is that bad? We have by dint of President Clinton and the Escalante Monument preserved pre-served in this country a precious nonrenewable natural resource that will one day be of immense value and use to this nation, not Japan, and could, if necessary, be extracted from the monument for the use of American, not Oriental, industry. Is that bad? It prevented pre-vented a foreign-owned corporation corpora-tion from reaping profits derived from the sale of American coal? Is that bad? Everything about the Andalex coal development was contrary to the best interests of this region. Proponents of the mine bring up the argument about jobs -- 900 new jobs created by Andalex. Jobs for whom? Well, for 900 people from somewhere else of course; there certainly are not 900 people out of work in Kane or Garfield Counties, people who could or would mine coal or drive huge coal trucks. Nine hundred new people with, say, two dependents de-pendents each, or some 2,700 additional people in the area! In one fell swoop a third as many newcomers to Kane and Garfield Counties as there are existing residents! What would that do to the traditional "way of life" of this area? Has anyone given thought to that? Another argument used by Andalex An-dalex and its proponents is the matter of school funds. Supposedly, Suppos-edly, citizens of the effected counties, as well of the state, would no longer have the responsibility respon-sibility of providing their children with an education, Andalex would do it. I am no expert in this matter, mat-ter, but I do know there are not that many "school miles" in the coal area, and the monies provided pro-vided by coal would be but a fraction frac-tion of the value of the coal extracted, ex-tracted, and the new schools necessary nec-essary for the new inhabitants in Garfield and Kane Counties would themselves use up much of the revenues; and common sense tells me the smart foreign owners of Andalex would contrive where possible to mine coal that was not in the school district, thus directing direct-ing all revenues to themselves. Another argument against the monument relates to oil. Eastern Garfield County supposedly lies over a lake of oil! A recent report from a government agency said (if I recall correctly) there is possibly pos-sibly a billion dollars worth of oil under the monument. I ask... where? When I lived in Escalante Esca-lante some 35 years ago, we were hosts each summer to Tenneco, an oil company. They drilled holes here and there in the area, almost all dry as far as I or anyone any-one else in the town knew. One small find in Upper Valley did not amount to much. To say the economy of Ecalante was lifted to unprecedented heights by that tiny oil operation is nonsense, and the advocates of oil wells in Garfield Gar-field County know it. The scut-tlebut scut-tlebut in the '60's was that Tenneco Ten-neco found lots of oil, but capped the wells. If that is true, the stockholders of the company had a gripe; they paid for the exploration explora-tion but were denied any resulting profits. Of course, there still may be some oil under the new monument, monu-ment, but if so it is fractured and it is deep.. .hard to find and expensive expen-sive to drill. There is also gold deep in California's Sierra Nevada Ne-vada mountains the fabled "mother lode" of the Forty-niners. But the gold remaining is too hard to locate and too expensive to mine to make the effort worthwhile. worth-while. So, did Californian's then say that a fortune in gold lies under un-der the Sierra and we won't permit per-mit creation of a national park or monument that might interfere with us someday getting it out? They did not! Rather, when Yo-semite Yo-semite was established, residents in the area made a real and tangible tan-gible income from the tourists it attracted, and still attracts. A bird in the hand is worth not two, but ten in the bush. What other calamity has the new Escalante monument wrought upon the people of Garfield County? Can cattlemen no longer run their stock on the public pub-lic range? They can. Indeed, cattle operations are a real asset to the park. What could be more exciting for the visitor say, a little kid from New York City -and more symbolic of the West than to see a cowboy riding across the range.. .best of all if he is chasing something. The problem prob-lem now is to get ranchers to ride horses again instead of trucks and wear Stetsons instead of baseball caps. Cattle operations are not adversely ad-versely effected by the monument, monu-ment, and I understand logging is permitted. So what, for Pete's sake, is the beef? What about the economic advantages ad-vantages of national parks and monuments? Has Bryce Canyon National Park not benefited the county? I submit that Garfield County particularly Panguitch has done very well by the park. Has Zion National Park harmed Washington County? It has made Washington County. Consider this, my friends: almost $4 billion comes to Utah annually from tourism. tour-ism. I am told by tourist officials in St. George that 90 percent of visitors to Utah are here to see the parks. It is the unrivaled scenic sce-nic beauty found in our parks and monuments that is the true treasure treas-ure of this state, and will prove increasingly so with the passing years. Representative Jim Hansen would rescind Escalante's new monument because he was not duly informed by President Clinton Clin-ton in advance of the upcoming development. Well, most anyone could tell you why the president did as he did. Hansen, and others in Utah of like mind, would have drowned the proposal in a sea of endless debate and controversy. Anything to kill it! Hansen is so provincial in his thinking and so shortsighted in his outlook that he would end eastern Garfield County's prospects for a dependable, depend-able, long-term and ever growing income from tourism; he would destroy the monument in a childish child-ish fit of anger over Clinton's decision de-cision to exclude him from the planning phase. That is the mark of a man? That is leadership? The people of Garfield County have been blessed with surroundings surround-ings of surpassing beauty. They are now doubly blessed with the creation of a magnificent national monument that will preserve their land from rash, scarring development develop-ment while producing a reliable and ever expanding income to citizens. That is bad? Tony Van Hemert St. George |