Having toured Bears Ears National Monument on Monday and Tuesday, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke was heading to Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (above) on Wednesday.
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, halfway through his tour of two sprawling national monuments in Utah to decide whether they're inordinately large, told reporters on Tuesday that he was not likely to recommend national park status for Bears Ears National Monument.
"I don't think a national park," he said in response to a reporter's question. "Because 'national park' has some distractors on it. I don't think a national park is on the table."
Secretary Zinke did not elaborate on what he meant by "distractors." In Utah, Zion, Canyonlands, Bryce Canyon, Arches, and Capitol Reef national parks, comprise the "Mighty Five" that the state has heavily advertised nationally. All but Canyonlands got their start as national monuments and have nurtured vigorous tourism sectors in the state. During the government shutdown in the fall of 2013 the state worked out a deal with then-Interior Secretary Sally Jewell to use state revenues to keep the five parks open.
Mr. Zinke, in Utah since Sunday, has been tasked by President Trump with reporting back to him by June 10 with a recommendation on whether to shrink the size of the 1.3 million-acre Bears Ears, leave it intact as is, or possibly push for it to be abolished. Bears Ears is one of 27 national monuments the Interior secretary is reviewing; also on the list is Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument in Maine, a monument made possible by the donation of nearly 90,000 acres from Roxanne Quimby, who made her fortune from Burt's Bees.
Secretary Zinke time and again has stated that he arrived in Utah with no predetermined decision and that he wanted to listen to all voices. "I don't think public lands should be a partisan issue," the secretary told reporters on Tuesday.
Since arriving in Utah the Interior secretary has spent the bulk of his time with Utah's Republican congressional delegation and Republican governor, all who opposed designation of Bears Ears by President Obama -- on Monday the secretary boarded one of three Army Blackhawk helicopters with the Utah politicians to fly over the monument -- and ranchers who oppose the monument. The secretary also has been criticized for spending comparatively little time with area tribal leaders who support the designation.
Tuesday afternoon he was criticized for failing to meet Monday or Tuesday with Utah Diné Bikéyah leaders, who the past seven years led the drive to see the Bears Ears landscape protected.
“A tip of the hat—in the form of a one-hour meeting with tribal leaders (on Sunday)—is a start, but insufficient to provide Secretary Zinke with the depth of information he needs to make his appropriate decision," said Utah Diné Bikéyah Board Chair Willie Grayeyes. "Sixty percent of San Juan County residents live south of Blanding, yet he only set foot in the wealthy, non-Native, anti-monument portion of the county. It is a whole different world down here. As the local, on-the-ground experts on the ecological and cultural value of the Bears Ears, we believe elders and reservation community perspectives in Utah deserve to be heard.”
On Wednesday the Interior secretary is to visit Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, a 1.9-million-acre monument President Clinton designated in 1996. On Wednesday afternoon business leaders in Kanab, Utah, a gateway community to Grand Staircase, intend to lobby Secretary Zinke on the value of the monument. Those who organized the turnout say they have collected more than 200 letters from business owners, residents, and visitors of Garfield and Kane counties voicing support for the monument.
They are concerned, however, that the secretary will not meet with them: "Given that the Department of Interior refuses to meet with local business owners, there is concern in the community that a fair assessment will be conducted," they said in a release.
Most of the 27 monuments under review are managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. The BLM oversees both Grand Staircase and Bears Ears, though the National Park Service is to provide consultation on Bears Ears. Katahdin Woods and Waters is a unit of the National Park System. Any recommendation the Interior secretary makes that would aim to alter Katahdin Woods and Waters surely would spur a lengthy legal battle, as the land was privately owned and donated to the Interior Department.
Lucas St. Clair, Ms. Quimby's son who led the effort to both persuade Maine residents and businesses that the monument would be good for the state and to secure the monument designation, earlier this year told the Traveler that he didn't think President Trump would try to abolish the monument.
"This was an ongoing debate for over 20 years. At the end of the day, we were the landowners, and so this is an outcome that everyone agreed on. It's having a lot of benefits for the community. One of those benefits is the fact that a decision was finally made and people can start planning for the future," said Mr. St. Clair in February. "No one, especially a member of Congress, wants to be the person who opens those wounds back up. That's exactly what would happen if they tried to undo it. And there's also the legal complexities of this monument being a land transfer and all of the challenges with the deeds and indemnification and the agreement between the Park Service and (Elliotsville Plantation, Inc.) and the Department of Interior. They're all very intertwined. It would be virtually impossible unless they were to violate contractual law to undo it, so I think people recognize that as well."
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So, he says he hasn't made his mind up yet but the only people he's meeting with are the small amount of people that are against this monument. Hmmmmm. And these people are against this monument because...............oh yah, they are more interested in the mineral, gas and oil rights and far less interested on what the lands mean to the native amercian people in the area, or anyone that sees the land aa something that should be preserved for future generations to see. Sad. Pathetic. And very, very wrong.
I don't think there is any doubt the end results of his self-titled listening tour were pre-ordained.
FWIW, you can take all those pastoral I am a nature kinda guy early words of his and bury them in your compost pile.
There sure is alot of prognastication going on about what he will and will not do. If you keep in mind that the status quo for Bears Ears and EGSNM are now as National Monuments, there is some logic in hearing the con voices a little more strongly for the pro voices have already had their success in the real battle. I believe he's already stated he's not amenable to shedding federal lands and giving it to the states. I am pro-monument and park lands, however, to be honest, I've yet to see anything on Bears Ears that tells me its special, I mean stand out gorgeous special, from a geological beauty perspective. As a native Utahn, Bears Ears is fairly common, and pales in comparison to the mighty five. if there is such native american ruins as spoken of, they'll carry the day. I think people outside of Utah are glamorized by Bears Ears vistas on the internet and tv without really knowing how common they are in Utah. The San Rafael is superior, but it does not have the ruins. Anyway, my thoughts.
http://www.jhnewsandguide.com/jackson_hole_daily/state_and_regional/frie...
The landscape, per se, was not the main reason for its designation. Rather the enormous concentration of archaeological sites and the land's ancestral and continuing significance to the tribes were.