Keeping the Monument Open

The Bureau of Land Management is proposing new alternatives for the management of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. This was announced in the Draft Resource Management Plan released August 11, 2023.

This plan announces such changes as target shooting range closures, cancellation of 29 grazing permits, possible road closures, along with other future changes in management.

At The Byway we are taking the position of keeping the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument open to the public and available to all. There are many reasons for this approach and I would like to discuss a few of them in this article.

Safety

First and maybe most important is the human safety factor. Many of the tourists who come to Garfield and Kane counties are just looking to spend a day or two in an area that they have heard is gorgeous and uninhabited. All of us look for a little peace and quiet in our lives.

Many of the people in our area know the story of a couple who were stranded on the Grand Staircase National Monument. This was a couple of senior citizens who just wanted to ride and observe the fantastic scenery of our area. Although they were driving a vehicle which was equipped to travel the types of roads that are on the monument, they became stuck. Neither one of them realized that all they needed to do was to put it into four-wheel drive. 

Knowing they could not walk that far, they spent the next three days in the vehicle writing love letters to each other. The woman passed away, but the man was rescued by a local rancher who came out to check his cattle. Both would have perished had the rancher not come along when he did. Others have been rescued in situations that were not quite as life threatening but could have proved fatal if they were missing long enough.

Three of our local county sheriffs have expressed their concern in a statement issued recently online. We would encourage you to go to the Facebook pages of the Garfield, Piute and Kane county sheriffs and read their excellent thoughts on the removal of cattle and closure of even more areas on the monument.

These sheriffs face extensive search and rescue operations each year. This is an intense challenge for local search and rescue resources. Not only are countless hours of manpower used up in a search of this kind, but the emotional fatigue when looking for lost persons takes a toll on the whole department as well as local citizens who are hoping and praying that a positive outcome will result. But sometimes it doesn’t.

Furthermore, we spend a large amount of money on our search and rescue capabilities, and the proposed changes to the monument would increase the financial burden placed on our local counties.

Historical Use and Fire Suppression

The historical use of grazing on the Grand Staircase was guaranteed when the monument was first proposed. This right has slowly been chipped away at by many different groups that believe that local people should have little to no say in what takes place on the monument, even though it is located at our back door. The current preferred alternative proposed by the BLM would cancel 29 grazing allotments on the monument, which would leave many families in Garfield and Kane counties out of business as there is not enough private land available for ranchers to purchase, if they had the money to do so.

An often overlooked reason for keeping an area open is for fire suppression. An area without maintained roads is very dangerous to fight a fire in. History has also proven that areas which were grazed helped in fire suppression. Grazed grass is shorter and less likely to spread fire.

Economy

Another major reason for keeping the Grand Staircase open is the impact it has on our local economy. Tourism has a major impact on the economy of Garfield, Wayne, Piute and also Kane counties. The Garfield County Office of Tourism reported that tourism was up in 2023 reaching $2,220,687 in TRT money coming to the county this year from tourism. 

This money helps fund travel council, trash pickup, and Emergency Medical Services with a percentage that is to be spent on advertising. According to the Kem Gardner Foundation, which published studies on travel dollars spent in the state of Utah, an estimated $85,700,000 was spent by tourists in Garfield County in 2022. A large part of our workforce survives on the dollars that tourists spend. Even though the tourist season is short and a lot of the work is part-time, locals feel it is worth the down time to live in this area.

The BLM is currently proposing a new management plan with four different alternatives. Each of these alternatives contains differences and they are seeking the public’s input. An information-only public hearing has already been held in Escalante. Similar hearings will be held October 4, at the Kanab Center, 20 N. 100 E. Kanab, Utah; October 17, at the Marriott, 75 S. West Temple St., Salt Lake City, Utah; and October 18 at the Panguitch Elementary School, 110 S. 100 W. Panguitch, Utah. Also there will be a virtual meeting on Wednesday, October 25, 2-4 p.m. MT by registering at https://bit.ly/3DQAOFA. A large attendance would at least let the agency know we care about what happens in our county. Written comments will be taken until November 1, 2023. These comments can be sent to: https://eplanning.blm.gov/eplanning-ui/project/2020343/510. You can also mail letters stating your preferred alternative to: ATTN: GSENM RMP Project Manager, BLM Paria River District, 669 S. Highway 89A, Kanab, UT 84741.

Some people indicate that they do not think what we say makes a lot of difference, but if we say nothing we lead them to believe that whatever they do is fine with us. If this is not the case with you it would be wise to respectfully indicate so in a written comment.

In an interview with a former BLM employee, whose job was to write plans for the agency, the employee indicated a similar feeling. They indicated that they were considered the eyes on the ground for the agency and yet after they wrote the plans, they were forwarded “up the chain of command” to several different levels who had never seen the proposed area. When the plans were released they looked nothing like the original plan that had been written by those who had “eyes on the ground.”

The decisions made by this agency will have a great effect on the safety, historical use and economy of Garfield, Wayne, Piute and Kane counties. It is right that the people in this area should have a say in what happens in our counties, and yet other groups who use today’s technology to rally thousands of people living all across the country and have mostly never seen the area will respond en masse. We need to respond as well. We encourage you to attend your local scoping meetings and then comment online as to your preferred alternative presented at these meetings.

Please keep in mind only respectful comments are taken into consideration, so if you would like your opinion or thoughts taken into account on the future of our counties, maintain a modicum of civility. Please remember to be respectful and polite, but do make your presence known. 

If you are not able to use a computer, write a letter or contact a friend for help, but at least join in keeping the monument open.

– by Elaine Baldwin

Feature image caption: Shortly after a confrontation between the park service and Garfield County over the maintenance of Flint Trail near Canyonlands, Garfield County obtained partial funding from Utah’s Division of Outdoor Recreation for the maintenance of the road down Poison Spring Canyon south of Hanksville. In May this year, the county hired Danny Halterman (pictured here in his Cat 306) to finish the final stretch of BLM 15060 — a stark and dangerous switchback section up 800 vertical feet of cliff to the top of The Big Ridge, very near Flint Trail.
The road had been impassable for years but now reopens The Big Ridge to OHV use which had previously been restricted through a strip of Glen Canyon NRA to the north. This is one of the examples of the work Wayne and Garfield county road crews do to keep access open, often with- out the cooperation of federal agencies. Courtesy of Dave Dodds, May 11, 2023.

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