by Mary O'Brien, Utah Forests Director
As you know, in December 2017, both Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments were unlawfully slashed by the president. We’re challenging those illegal reductions in court, but, in the meantime, the administration is rushing out draft management plans for Grand Staircase, and adding your voice to the process now is critical.
The draft plans are worse than we thought possible. The law requires that national monuments be managed “in a manner that protects the values for which the components of the system were designated.” In the case of Grand Staircase, that’s dinosaur fossils, dark skies, fragile biological soil crusts, clean air, and irreplaceable cultural resources and historic sites. But in its draft plans, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) proposes to downgrade all these and other values.
Instead, the BLM is proposing to turn the 22-year-old Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument into an industrial sacrifice zone. Of the four alternatives proposed for managing the reduced monument units, the BLM's preferred alternative (Alternative D) takes every opportunity to reduce protections for the resources and values for which the monument was protected in the first place.
Grand Staircase is world-renowned for its fossils. More than two dozen species of dinosaurs have been discovered in the monument since its designation in 1996. The proposed management plans fail these fragile and irreplaceable treasures. Until a paleontological management plan is developed at some uncertain future date, the draft plans call for allowing “casual collection” of fossils by anyone, admitting that some rare fossils might end up in someone’s pickup truck by mistake, acknowledging that “loss of significant [fossil] specimens could occur.”
Other troubling aspects of the draft plans include:
The plans cover not just the shrunken monument units, but all of the lands cut from the real Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Please write about your own experiences in the monument, what the place means to you and to the nation, and include any background or expertise on land management issues you may have. Please don’t copy and paste. Writing in your own words is vitally important in order for your comment to be fully considered.
All of these factors must be studied and acted upon in the final plans.
If you’d prefer to write a letter, you can mail it to: Bureau of Land Management, Attn: Matt Betenson, 669 S Hwy 89A Kanab, UT, 84741.
Escalante, Utah
Monday, October 15, from 4 to 7 p.m., Escalante High School, 70 N. 1 West, Escalante, Utah.
Kanab, Utah
Tuesday, October 16, from 4-7 p.m., Kanab Elementary School, 41 W. 100 North, Kanab, Utah.
We appreciate your commitment to defending and restoring Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. The BLM is hustling to complete its management plans by year’s end in an effort to beat the courts and Congress, either of which could restore Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument's original boundaries. Adding your voice to the land management planning process now can only make things better.
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