Plan to sell off public land

[buckland]

Here are two more articles just out in the news: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/as-zinke-listens-in-on-the-monumental-divide-at-utahs-bears-ears-natives-feel-unheard/2017/05/14/3243a7ec-3726-11e7-b4ee-434b6d506b37_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_bearsears-fight-8pm-1%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.34a36dbe16c4.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/14/us/bears-ears-ryan-zinke.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0&mtrref=undefined&gwh=0E227C92FDA586D91D12E74ACC3572EA&gwt=pay

 

[buckland]

The Secretary of the Interior proposes a 95% shrinkage of Bears Ear. His recommendation to the president. Scaled back to 5% means mostly eliminating it.... it is like Walden Pond in a highway cloverleaf... its there but it's really gone.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/12/us/interior-secretary-public-lands-utah-bears-ears.html?_r=0

 

[Stalking Light]

And he basically didn't even give the supporters a voice.

http://www.patagonia.com/blog/2017/06/defending-the-idea-of-wilderness/

 

[rando]

While this is definitely terrible news - I am not sure the 5% number is really accurate. The proposed new boundaries will be released later this year, and then the law suits start. This also sets a pretty scary precedent for the next 26 monuments.

While I appreciate all the people who submitted comments, clearly they had little impact in the decision. By the analysis I read, the comments were between 90 - 99% in favor of keeping Bears Ears as is.

 

[buckland]

A bit of a shock for sure...I was hoping he would be more forthright, certainly the number of voices in favor far outweighed the special interest votes .... but no sure it is a "one person, one vote" system. The 5% was quoted from the article... but we can hope the gears will move slowly on this.

 

[Smokecreek1]

Yep-round one to the bad guys in our race to reclaim the glories and smoky skylines of the 19th Century. I had hoped for more from the Sec/Interior. This process will still take a long time to complete-if it ever does reach a conclusion-so we still need to keep writing those letters and making those phone calls-even if it seems the process is against us. Lot's of law suits on this horizon!

On a further unfortunate note and a back up for the above action, read that the Interior Dept had just suspended all public land resource advisory .committees, until next Oct-it seems that they need to be retained in the wisdom of our great leader and the career folks are in open revolt over the new directive. For those that don't know about them , each management area/organization, like a BLM District/NPS park, FWS District, ect. has a civilian advisory board made up of local interests (used to be called the grazing A to help the gov't manage each area and supposed to be the major reason behind the NM debate-more local input. Without them, there will be no ongoing public input into local land management decisions and to me seems anyway, to be against the major tenants of stated Public Land laws and acts that I was trained to use! Not sure how this affects the public meetings process they use as part of the regular LUMP,s. Hopefully some group or another will sue Interior over this.. Have not heard if this directive has been given to the USFS yet! Rule from the top not from "we the people."

Smoke

 

[ski3pin]

It's important to remember there are always a few battles lost before the war is won. Each overreach and misstep will just further mobilize the defenders of our public lands and our strength and opposition will grow.

Smoke, thanks for the heads up on the Interior Department Resource Advisory Committees. I have a couple of friends who serve on USFS RACs. I'll see if they have wind of something blowing this way from the higher ups in DC.

I served 2 terms (six years) on the Recreation Resource Advisory Committee for the California region covering most federal agencies - USFS, BLM, USF&W. The oversight these committees give is incredibly valuable.

 

[Cayuse]

This is going to be interesting for sure and the lawsuits will certainly be filed. Zinkes statement says that there were 76,000 and change comments files but because of the use of aggregators by Patagonia, SUWA and others we know that the true number was well over a million and that the comments were running over 80% in favor of keeping Bears Ears as is.

The legal decisions that come out of this could end up setting public land policy for a long time to come.

 

[Lighthawk]

The Secretary of the Interior proposes a 95% shrinkage of Bears Ear. His recommendation to the president. Scaled back to 5% means mostly eliminating it.... it is like Walden Pond in a highway cloverleaf... its there but it's really gone.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/12/us/interior-secretary-public-lands-utah-bears-ears.html?_r=0

Like over a million other citizens, I registered my comments with the Dept of the Interior. Zinke has disrespected the wishes of the American people for short sighted greed and vindictiveness against the previous administration. It's sad to see America's Best Ideas under constant attack.