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Show Comments From Cannon Hearing Continued ESCALANTE We continue with public comment from the Chris Cannon hearing on the Grand Staircase -Escalante National Monument held in Escalante on June 2. , lit Louise Liston, Escalante "First of all I would like to read a letter that Quinn Griffin asked me to read to Congressman Cannon. He was unable to be here today" She read: '"Dear Sir: First of all, I appreciate your coming to Escalante Es-calante you and your staff and (See CHRIS CANNON page 3A) i j ! CHRIS CANNON From Front Page giving us an opportunity to express our views to you regarding the Grand Staircase National Monument. Monu-ment. You may notice that I purposely pur-posely left Escalante out of the name of the monument. It is hard for me to associate a name that I love so dearly with the pact that I detest so much.' "'Kate Cannon, manager of the monument is quoted as saying, 'although the controversy is heated initially, over time these places prove their value and become popular popu-lar and now they are some of the best loved pieces of protected land.' '"This statement proves to me that the monument administration cares very little about us. They wish us gone so there will be no one left to voice an opinion from the opposite viewpoint. I do not believe that the means justify the end. The words protect and save are used many . times by monument supportive people. I have yet to learn what the land is being protected pro-tected from and for whom it is being be-ing saved.' '"A writer for the Washington Post made the observation that initially ini-tially the Bureau of Land Management Manage-ment was chosen to manage the monument so multiple uses could continue. It was thought that they would be less restrictive than the national park system. What he found was that this new hybrid form of management is either more restrictive, more threatening, than any other form of Federal agency, because it is not friendly to the in-digenies, in-digenies, those whose main source of income have been and continues to be derived from this region. Nor is it tourist friendly. It is not even people friendly.' '"The misguided developers of the monument, have, of their own initiative, declared the monument "sacred ground." The so called protection pro-tection of natural resouces has declared de-clared off limits, all who are deemed not fit to tread lightly upon "their" titled property. Ownership has changed. It is no longer ours. A middle ground conservationist admitted ad-mitted that the monument has not helped the communities in the economic eco-nomic way that he had anticipted.' '"State officials encourage the locals to take advantage of the opportunities op-portunities that the monument would provide, by becoming guides and outfitters. Yet, after the final draft, no cattle permittees are allowed al-lowed a guide or outfitter permit. The cowboy already has the existing exist-ing facilities such as corrals and cabins to take care of clients out on the range. No new environmental assessments would be needed. Why have the monument staff denied me the opportunities to promote the rancher. You will not give a straight answer, I assure you. And yet someone else, from completely out of the area, may come in and show people around on my range for money, but the cowboy cannot.' '"Most people who care already know my story. I've had my cattle taken and sold.. Untruths have been published in the paper by the monument and BLM leadership. My name has been demeaned and my reputation scuffed. Does this happen because of the monument? The Grand Staircase people are saying say-ing that it has nothing to do with the monument. ' But I ask you the question in reverse. If the monument monu-ment had not been created, would I still have my cattle? Thank you for your time.'" Liston said, "Also, Representative Representa-tive Cannon, Quinn has been asked many times, because this has ballooned bal-looned out into other states as you probably well know this situation. situa-tion. And he was asked by Senator John Kyle from Arizona to respond to some. of Kate Cannon's accusations accusa-tions that she published in the paper. pa-per. And I have a copy of his response. re-sponse. This was given to me but I'm going to give it to you because I'm sure he can get me another one, if I do that. "And then, I have just a couple of comments to say on my own behalf. Representative Cannon, responded, re-sponded, "You've got another four minutes because you were talking for Quinn." "I was hoping you would say that," Liston said. "A short while ago time flies last September of 2000 I was asked to participate partici-pate in a panel on a 'Learning from the Monument" conference' that they had up at the University of Utah. And I wrote a pretty extensive exten-sive paper on that but, I want to share with you just a few little things from there that I feel quite strongly about. "I submit to you that as a result of the designation of the ' Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument Monu-ment the people of Garfield County have suffered a great loss not only in lost revenues, but more importantly in the fact that a way of life that nurtures the value and work ethics often needed in society, so-ciety, is being replaced with a life that brings more and more Federal regulations, restrictions and threats. And it is turning a once proud and peace loving people, into a hostile, antagonistic, suspicious and distrustful dis-trustful community. And this is my favorite: "In the words of a 93-year-old life time resident of Escalante 'times have changed here. This is the poorest time of my life. Before the monument people were happier. Now everybody is finding fault with everybody else.' "Now, that's kind of sad, when you think about it. This man is 93 years old; he's seen a lot of history pass through Escalante. I attribute much of that change in attitude to the people's fear in how to proceed, and what to expect, and how to preserve pre-serve the lifestyle they love and have sacrificed over the years to maintain. "Those of us called upon to work with the Federal agencies are even often perceived as traitors to those values and traditions that people hold. And that's hard. I've found that my involvment with county government on a nationl level, with Congressmen and residents resi-dents in Eastern states where Federal Fed-eral ownership of land is meager, cannot begin to comprehend the impacts being placed upon local governments and local economies that rely upon the land for their survival. And I don't know how we educate them to that, Chris, but Rep. Chris Cannon replied, "Force." " Force," repeated Liston. "It's very destructive though when, the fate of a region is determined by people who do not have to live with the direct results of their decisions. deci-sions. And that's exactly what we are experiencing here. We have shared the beauties of our deserts and high plateaus and time settled mountains in Garfield County for decades and borne the monetary burden of caring for millions of visitors that traversed the land. And I think that that shows what kind of people we are, what kind of stewards stew-ards of the land we are. They are still coming, the land is beautiful. The land in itself, in many places, is it's own preservation agent. It doesn't need to be preserved by management. "And I would submit, Congressman Con-gressman Cannon, that even though we cannot change the boundaries of the monument, we can change the management plan. And I would suggest that that's what we go for. If we could change the management plan into something that's workable, work-able, and multiple-use becomes the management plan instead of preservation, preser-vation, then maybe we have a chance to survive," Liston concluded. con-cluded. 1. ' ' . Y - S , - ' ' ... iv'f j I' A Crockett Dumas, Escalante "Thank you Congressman for coming out today," said Dumas. "I'm Crockett Dumas, resident of Escalante, at least on the weekends. Congressman, you have a very special spe-cial district, with a very special people. Especially from Castledale right down through this country, right on down the Paria. "I did some graduate work at Utah State over 30 years ago and I was in Idaho at the time. And after that I swore I'd never come to Utah. Five months later you can imagine where I was. They didn't run me out of town, even though the folks in Panguitch put their hands on my shoulder and said, those folks over there are a little different. And I found out how different. "But somehow wc, all of us together to-gether in this room, we have to find a way to get the radical center and work on this contested divorce over public land. And it can be done. (See CHRIS CANNON page 5A) CHRIS CANNON From Page 3A And I speak to that because I've got the opportunity to do it in the most contentious place over public land in northern New Mexico. "Anyway, there's a lot of you sitting around here and a lot of what we are talking about are heritage industries. in-dustries. I see Bob Ott and all these guys with their tans and hats down through here. And there is another environmental movement that's going go-ing off. It really started about six or seven years ago. And that's one of preserving the heritage industries, indus-tries, the farmers, the horse-related activities. Because those folks want to keep that land in agriculture, agricul-ture, they want to keep you in business. They don't want you to have to sell out and it become subdivisions sub-divisions or sell your water and it goes down the river. "Up in Emery County right now, you know they sold their water wa-ter to the power plant. And they only get to use so much and when that reservoir gets to such a level . like it did in July, they had their water shut off. You've got the same problem utr at Mill Site with sediment, they're working on that up there, like out here to Wide Hollow Hol-low trying to get a new reservoir set up. Once your storage is gone, your water is gone. "So that's what we're kind of talking about. And we're talking about managing the monument. And I happened to be in New Mexico Mex-ico at the time of the scoping meetings. meet-ings. It was really interesting. Went to the one in Santa Fe. I thought there was going to be two of us there, my wife and I. But we were the only two property owners there. But it was the largest attended at-tended scoping meeting for the monument in Santa Fe 179 people. There were hippies, the trust funders, the half humans, the movie stars, Michael Martin Mur-phey. Mur-phey. They were all there. "But you know what. They said something, I was quite surprised. At that meeting, I didn't see it captured cap-tured in the plan anywhere. At that meeting, the thing that came out from that group was, leave it alone. " Leave it like it is, we've got enough national parks. It's a very special area, it's a self-discovery area, with very special people. Jerry Roundy captured this in his book on the Escalante. And I hope you are working on a second edition because I sure got compliments and things that people would like to have added. But, it's a very special (See CHRIS CANNON page 6A) CHRIS CANNON From Page 5A place and we need to work to get in this radical center and support the folks that are here. And work on the plan here so that we can get it so that we can all enjoy this place and the people that are here can make a living. ' ; Q . W " lJ iir'L:J Brent Griffin, Escalante "I'd also like to welcome Congressman Con-gressman Cannon here," said Brent Griffin. "You're kind of a light at the end of a tunnel or a little bit. I'm cousins with Quinn Griffin. Quinn's father and my father are ' brothers. Thirty-some-odd years ago on the range down there that's been so highly publicized in the media, their forefathers, their parents, par-ents, their fathers, their fathers bime on their mothers side, were some of the first ones 125 years ago that moved here. "What I have is more comments. com-ments. I know you've received a lot of letters on your desk from Quinn. I'm sure you have. From countless discussions from him as well as Louise Liston, But anyway, any-way, as I was sitting thinking and listening to some of the people, I just jotted down a few things "I just want to make some quick comments of what myself and probably what most of the local people here have felt and what they've seen. Like I said, we've been up on that range for over 30 years, when we first went upon there. And it is one of the roughest areas that there is for running cows. You never, ever, ever saw another human up on there. You never saw any trash or litter up on there. One thing I've seen over the years, more recently with the hikers backpackers, back-packers, is litter, trash, toilet paper scattered everywhere. For quite a few years we took the heat from the BLM: 'clean your mountain up'. We did our best. Finally, we just said, 'Hey, this is not our stuff. We know where the water is, we make our own sourdough biscuits, we do stuff like this, we don't have the tofu wrappers, we don't have the pop cans.' "Anyway, we had an old gentleman gen-tleman in town that died here a year ago or so, how old was Neal? 90-plus. 90-plus. There was an article here in the paper a few months ago that made the statement 'Too bad we didn't have a Rip Van Winkle here that could wake up and he would be so disgusted with the way the land is now...'- But I beg to differ with that news statement. "This old gentleman that passed away told me with his own lips just a few months before he died, that he'd been running cows and sheep down in that desert since he was eight years old and he says, "That desert looks just as good if not better now than it ever has". Now, is that because we've been ruining ru-ining it? And now we hear, 'We've got to save it.' Now, what are we going to save it from? We saved it, to this point. "There's plenty of grass down there on the Fifty. I don't know how many of you have been down along there. The areas they 'went and looked at to decide if they were going to take our cows off, they flew into one area to a place that they eat the grass off first. ..they said yep, the grass is gone, get I i I I them off of here. They didn't bother to go. Quinn had other places he wanted them to go look and see. A moderately fed area, an area that was never touched, grass. They wouldn't go, 'No, we don't have time, let's get back,' they said. Down on the sooner, right below the mountain, the grass had grown up so tall it was headed out, it was just waving in the wind. They wouldn't let us go down there either. "Then they said, "Okay, get your cows off. You can't push them off the mountain, you have to get them off completely. We couldn't push them over, push them onto the bench, push them onto the desert, fine, that would have worked. But no, whatever we caught, we had no corrals we pushed them up to our main corrals, cor-rals, we got enough, we rode them on up down off on the desert, up into a corral, took them to town, made arrangements with the auctions, auc-tions, took care of our family business busi-ness at home, got back. Yet we were given 10 days to get the cows off. "Later on, they took about nine riders down for about 1 1 days and with helicopters and got 50 the BLM. And yet us four or five guys are supposed to do as much as the other guys, supposed to do it in 10 days. "I am a businessman and the comment was made that the businesses busi-nesses will prosper from the monument. I've seen first hand the money that comes through the community, families on vacation versus backpackers and hikers. The people coming here as a family wanting to see the area, drive down to the Hole-in-the-Rock, which they can't do unless they've got a truck that's about that tall and are an expert driver. Those are the people that are here who genuinely want to come and see the area and stuff. The other people, the hikers, backpackers buy an apple, a bottle of water, that's it. So if you depend de-pend on that, that particular type, that's not going to do it for us. "I just want to say. I tell everyone, eve-ryone, whether it's in timber, the' cattle. I feel sorry for Stephen Steed and the timber. I wish we had jumped in wholeheartedly, earlier. ear-lier. After hitting us like they're hitting now. We're all next. Everybody Eve-rybody is next if something is not done. "I have a letter from my uncle who is with the Garfield County School District. He wants me to give that to you. Like I said, you are a light at the end of the tunnel. We're finally fi-nally seeing somebody here that hopefully can help us out. They've got bills, money against us like you wouldn't believe for a bunch of cows that won't even bring a tenth of what they've got against us. Again, thank you very much for coming down." (See CHRIS CANNON page 7A) CHRIS CANNON From Page 6A v wV 1 1 Josh Bernstein Boulder "My name is Josh Bernstein. I live in Boulder. I have been living summers in Boulder for the past 13 years. I am the owner of BOSS which is the Boulder Outdoor Survival Sur-vival School. I am also the founding found-ing president of Southern Utah Guides and Outfitters. "And for those who are not familiar fa-miliar with the survival school, we do not work with abjudicated youth or at risk audiences. We work with adults who are paying clients desiring desir-ing a wilderness experience in this country as well as other parts of the world. We have an international audience of adults: I just wanted to be clear on that for those who don't know. "I've just three points to make and then I will step back. The first is, for the past five years we've been working with the management, manage-ment, if you can call it that,, of the monument. And I don't think that management or management plan are the right words to use. I think they have been mandating a lot of what's been coming down for all of us involved in this monument. "Personally, the way we're affected af-fected as an outfitter, our group sizes have been cut so we're no longer profitable and that's a significant sig-nificant impact on any business. The logic behind some of the rules is astounding and confusing. For example, we cannot cut wood to make a spoon to eat with, but we can burn it. I don't understand. "We can have 12 people with 12 pack animals, but we can't have 15 people. I'll give you a few more. We can have fires on the mesa tops to boil our water but there is very little water at the tops of mesas. "So, the logic being used to direct di-rect what we do and what we've been doing for the last 33 years here is hardly obvious. We are the largest larg-est and the oldest continuously held permittee in this territory. I don't understand where these folks came in and where they've got the rules for what they have created. I have sent letters. I've got three binders over the past years. Letters to Barb Sharrow, to Kate Cannon, Thomas Fry, to A. J. Meredith, to Henri Bisson, and I have faxed, them to your office, as well as Hansen, as well as Senator Orrin Hatch, Governor Gov-ernor Mike Leavitt, Washington, D.C. and I spoke with former Secretary Sec-retary of Agriculture Dan Glick-man. Glick-man. No one who has any brains has agreed with the management plan. They said, will how can people peo-ple count those number of hooves and say that 15 people is worse than 12 people and 12 pack animals. ani-mals. "Why do you have to have fires only on the mesa tops if fires are an integral part of a healthy ecosystem. ecosys-tem. The Forest Service is just beginning be-ginning to realize that their policies have ruined some of Boulder mountain moun-tain because they banned fires. So I question the word management. I just want to put that out there. And I think that if this is an opportunity oppor-tunity to revisit the management plan, more power to you. "Second point that I want to make to people here is, I don't want outfitters to be relegated to a category cate-gory of 'other,' because I think the cattlemen, outfitters, ranchers, loggers, log-gers, miners, we all have some detriment, det-riment, some harm coming to us because of this plan. I don't think it's a time for us to separate. I think that we need to stand together. to-gether. "And as a low impact outfitter and someone who has been here for a long time, someone who represents repre-sents 65 employees and a certain amount of land and a passion. I love this place. I've been here since I was a kid. I'd hate to see it change the way it is. I agree with the points made, that we've been doing a good job without this management man-agement plan. If it's not broke, don't break it. "The third point I want to make is, I hope that this is not just another an-other opportunity for people to voice their opinions in a vacuum. I've been to a lot of these meetings, especially with the monument and the outfitter issues. We come to' a meeting and we voice our opinions and people write things down. And then stipulations are made and draft I plans are drafted and then nothing happens. "We say, 'Well, didn't you hear us when we said this?" '"Yeah, we heard you, we listened, lis-tened, but it didn't effect the policy.' pol-icy.' '"Well, did you hear me when I wrote this letter and sent this fax and sent this FedEx and started hiring hir-ing lawyers?' '"Yeah, but really the people in D. C. know what's going on and they're making the rules.' "And then you talk to the folks in D.C. and they say, 'No, it's a local issue. It's the people there who are. making the decisions.' deci-sions.' "I don't know who's making these decisions, but again, if there's a change in the winds up on the hill now, and if we can start getting some people to put their heads on straight. I think there are a lot of people here in this room who know what should be done and it's time they got listened to. Thank you." |