Grand County, Utah Public Lands Plan Fails to Address Watershed Issues - 2014

 

Grand County, Utah Public Lands Plan Fails to Address Watershed Issues

According to a recent press release, the Grand County Council intends to hear comments on three alternative proposals for “long-term designations of public lands” in Grand County, Utah on April 23, 2014, with their “final” decision expected sometime after May 2, 2014.

Embedded in all three Grand County alternative plans are the Utah Recreational Land Exchange Act (URLEA) exchange parcels. All three Grand County proposed plans treat the URLEA as settled law. Despite its lack of legal acceptance, Grand County plans to use URLEA as the backbone for its own land use designations.

As specified in my written protests to BLM, articles here and at MoabGas.com, I strongly disagree with the proposed “reverse land swaps” in Grand County. I call it a reverse land swap whenever the Utah School and Institutional Land Trust (SITLA) will receive land and mineral rights within Grand County. Such transfer of Grand County BLM land to SITLA encourages fossil fuel exploitation in Grand County, all under the guise of a “Recreational Land Exchange”.

If the BLM and Grand County Council make their land use decisions based on URLEA’s current “Exchange Agreement”, I will consider that neither BLM nor the public had an opportunity to hear my voice. Before Grand County enshrines URLEA in its land use documents, BLM should share my written protests with the Grand County Council. Until my written protests are accepted or rejected, they are germane to Grand County’s long-term land use decisions.

On March 25, 2014, BLM closed its acceptance of written protests to URLEA. Before that date, I submitted two written protests to BLM. According to Ms. Joy Wehking of the BLM in Salt Lake City, mine were the only written protests received. The BLM protest period lasted forty-five days. On May 1, 2014, my written protests will be more than forty-five days old. A forty-five day protest period should also be the maximum time it takes BLM to answer my written protests. Fair for one is fair for all.

On April 15, 2014, I addressed Joy Wehking with my concerns about not receiving a reply from BLM regarding my written protests. This was her answer: “Because the decision for the Utah Recreational Land Exchange that you protested was signed by the BLM Utah State Director, your protest must be reviewed and responded to by the BLM's Washington Office. They have been provided with the relevant information and will be sending you a written response to your protest. As to when this may occur, I do not know".

From my previous articles, we know that the URLEA parcel exchange is flawed. For example, Parcel 32, adjacent to Canyonlands Field received a “grazing land” appraisal. Upon completion of the “reverse swap” conveyance, SITLA is on record with BLM that they plan to sell that parcel and its mineral rights to the private sector. If that happens, Moab visitors will likely find a petrochemical production and distribution facility intertwined with and dwarfing the Moab Airport.

The Grand County Council, which never saw a steer or an old energy extractionist that it does not like should start posting signs welcoming visitors to “Moab – The New Industrial Desert”.

For the past few years, Grand County resident Kiley Miller has kept her email contacts informed about assaults on the environment in Grand County. In her latest email (below), she lays out the stakes for all to see. The Grand County Council Public Lands Working Committee, recently proposed three alternatives for the future of public lands in Grand County. When the Grand County Council, loaded with “wild westers” appoints a committee to create land use plans, we can all expect the worst.

As Kiley miller said, “We expected bad, but this is far worse”.

Background: On April 9, 2014, the Grand County Council Public Lands Working Committee identified three alternatives, along with maps, for long-term designations of public lands in Grand County. A public meeting is scheduled for 6 pm Wednesday April 23, 2014 at the Grand Center to present the maps and to take public comments; the Grand County Council will accept written comments on the proposal until May 2, 2014.

Even the best alternative (Alternative #3) proposed by the Working Committee would roll back environmental protection in Grand County. Members of the County Council need to hear from you; the County must “GO BEYOND #3” and strenuously improve the Working Committee’s proposal.

All the alternatives ignored the public input that the county received. Of the 182 letters received by the Council from Grand County residents and business owners, nearly 90% favored strong wilderness and public lands protection.

And yet, the County’s best alternative (Alternative #3): Protects just over half (58%, or 484,446 acres) of the proposed wilderness in Grand County -- and then riddles that “protected wilderness” with ORV routes. The Working Committee decided that places like Porcupine Rim, Mary Jane Canyon, Fisher Towers, Goldbar Rim, the Dome Plateau, and most of Labyrinth, including Mineral, Hell Roaring, Spring, and Tenmile canyons, were unworthy of wilderness protection.
•  Would punch a hole through the heart of the Book Cliffs -- one of the largest remaining roadless areas in the lower 48 states -- to build a “Hydrocarbon Highway” for fossil fuels extraction. The county proposes a mile-wide “transportation corridor” (proposed as 2 miles wide in the other alternatives) to ship fossil fuels from the Uinta Basin and proposed tar sands mining in the Book Cliffs to dreamed-of refineries in Green River, or to the railway.
•  Leaves open to oil and gas drilling the entire view shed east of Arches National Park, including the world-famous view from Delicate Arch. The Working Committee rejected proposed wilderness areas east of Arches. This is the same area that caused a national uproar and sent Tim DeChristopher to prison when, in its the waning days, the George W. Bush Administration sold the famous 77 oil and gas leases. Under the county’s best proposal, leasing and drilling in that region may follow.
•  Allows oil and gas drilling and potash mining on the rim of Labyrinth Canyon (upstream from Spring Canyon). The lack of real protection in the greater Labyrinth Canyon area in all three proposals is a glaring and curious omission.
•  Supports continued off road vehicle abuse and offers zero concessions on ORV routes designated in the Bush-era BLM travel plan -- even though the planning of those routes likely failed to follow the law. The county would codify the BLM’s Bush-era route designations even though a federal judge recently set aside a nearly identical travel plan in the Richfield BLM office for failure to comply with legal mandates to protect archaeology, riparian areas and other natural resources. It is just a matter of time before the Court overturns the challenged Moab travel plan.
•  Fails to protect Moab’s watershed. There is no wilderness proposed for the La Sal Mountains on US Forest Service land. Destructive cattle grazing will continue.
•  Limits the use of the Antiquities Act in Grand County -- the same act that was used by three different Presidents to protect what is now Arches National Park.

Alternatives 1 & 2 are even worse. Both would impose a 2-mile wide transportation corridor for the Hydrocarbon Highway through the heart of the Book Cliffs. This is wide enough to build an entire city within the corridor. Alternatives 1 & 2 provide even less protection for Grand County’s proposed wilderness and less protection from oil & gas and potash development.

What you can do:

The Grand County Council needs to hear from you!
1. Please, call your council members at (435) 259-1342 and let them know they need to improve Alternative 3. This should be the beginning of the discussion in Grand County, not the end.
2. Attend the public meeting Wednesday, April 23rd at 6 pm at the Grand Center.
3. Send a letter to the Grand County Council before May 2nd:
Grand County Council
125 E Center Street
Moab, UT 84532

Also, send a copy of your letter to:
Mr. Fred Ferguson
Legislative Director, Rep. Rob Bishop
123 Cannon HOB
Washington, DC 20515

Thank you, Kiley Miller and the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) for the above information.

Moab and Grand County, Utah now stand at a crossroad. On the old energy side of the road, sit the ranchers, miners and mineral extractors. On the new energy side of the road, sit outdoors people, environmentalists, botanists, photographers… and even a few Jeep owners, such as myself. If you care about the future of Moab, and are a “citizen” of this world, let the officials listed above know how you feel. Otherwise, do not be surprised when the industrial desert drowns out any serenity still present in Grand County, Utah.

Email James McGillis

 

 

By James McGillis at 04:54 PM | | Comments (0) | Link

Will the Salt Valley Drill Rig Topple Landscape Arch - A Symbol of Moab, Utah? - 2011

 

Will the Salt Valley Drill Rig Topple Landscape Arch - A Symbol of Moab, Utah?

   

In July 1965, my father and I visited the old Arches National Monument. Dutifully, we drove the newly paved road, which ended in a circle at the Devil’s Garden. My DeLorme Utah Atlas & Gazetteer says of the place, “Area containing most of the park’s rock formations. Landscape Arch, at over 300 feet, one of the world’s longest known natural spans…” Although there are plenty of other rock formations in the park, including the grand Courthouse area, the Devil’s Garden does have a high concentration of the rock fins and arches that visitors like to see.

Saving his valuable Ektachrome film for the important vistas, that day my father splurged and took three shots of Landscape Arch. With an reflex camera, judging the light was always an issue. After development, only one of three slides “came out”. Since it predates massive rock falls in 1991 and 1995, that 35-MM slide is now an historical artifact. Viewing the first image of the arch on this page, you will see the famed arch in 1965. In the second image, you will see evidence of water seepage on the fresh rock face. This may be an indication that the freeze-thaw cycle had loosened a layer of stone, which fell from the right-underside of the arch.

Forty-three years later, in May 2008, I made my second pilgrimage to Landscape Arch. Ironically, the afternoon light that day again made it difficult to get a good picture of the arch. The western sky was so bright, that that it overwhelmed the contrast ratios available to my Sony digital camera. Of my many Landscape Arch photos that day, only one “came out”.

Until the 1991 rock fall, access for hikers below the arch was unfettered. During the rock fall itself, an amateur videographer caught scenes of picnickers scrambling to avoid burial under tons of rock. Since that time, we have learned that sound waves generated by normal human activity may contribute to spontaneous destruction of both natural arches and ancient Indian structures. Anywhere that there is a stone amphitheater large enough to concentrate sound waves, there is potential for destruction. According to the Old Testament, during the Israelites’ conquest of Canaan, the trumpeters in Joshua’s army alone brought down the walls of Jericho.

In the waning days of 2008, the George W. Bush administrations announced the largest ever auction of oil and gas leases on federal government land. Around Moab, Utah, many people were incensed. Through a series of gaffs and blunders, the land above the Spanish Valley Aquifer was included in the proposed sale. Residents just outside the city limits discovered that the federal government owned their mineral rights and was about to sell them to the highest bidder.

For several years, the G.W. Bush Administration had granted near-unrestricted drilling rights throughout the West. However, their inclusion of BLM land within view of Arches National Park was the Coup de Grace. Doing so put every remaining arch at Devil’s Garden in jeopardy. Disturbed by the administration’s cavalier proposal, I created a YouTube video titled, “Drilling Rigs Could Topple Landscape Arch”.

Soon after the November 2008 elections, President Obama appointed Ken Salazar, formerly a Senator from Colorado to be his Secretary of Interior. Initially, environmentalists were skeptical of Salazar. Almost immediately, he blocked the most egregious of the Bush oil and gas leases, including any within sight of Arches National Park.  “Case closed”, I thought. The arches at Arches were safe.

In October 2011, I again visited Arches National Park, accessing the Devil’s Garden area via the dirt and gravel of the Salt Valley Road. From U.S. Highway 191, north of Canyonlands Field, I exited on to the unmarked “Valley City Road”. Although there is no "Valley City", I soon saw an industrial drilling rig big enough to qualify. Although the drilling location is not within view of Arches National Park, it is clearly visible from U.S. 191. According to my map, the new drilling operation is less than twelve miles from Landscape Arch. Upon seeing the rig, its size and scale reminded me of huge exploration rigs used on the North Slope in Alaska. Standing alone near the entrance to the Salt Valley, the rig dominated the view of the Book Cliffs to the north. Immediately, I felt the implied threat to Landscape Arch.

Upon returning home from Moab, I was amazed to read about a swarm of earthquakes in Oklahoma. After the devastating Long Beach Earthquake of 1933, California outlawed unreinforced masonry buildings. During the intervening years, Oklahoma was so geologically stable that new brick buildings were common. In November 2011, with twenty-three earthquakes occurring over a two-day period, it looked like more than a swarm. After thirty years without any significant seismic activity, why was Oklahoma fracturing like a dry biscuit? It may be instructive to remember that in 1933, the Signal Hill oilfield, near Long Beach was at the height of an oil boom.

As of this writing, there is no definitive answer to the earthquake issue in Oklahoma. Anecdotal evidence points at increased exploration and production of oil and gas throughout the state. Oil and gas companies immediately issued denials that their activity could or had caused the series of seismic events. It would be nice if there was scientific evidence to corroborate their claims, but such evidence is lacking. In the search for new deposits of oil and gas, the extractors have perfected the art of hydraulic fracturing (fracking), or so they say. A recent documentary showed fracking-caused water well contamination in Pennsylvania. In some places, it was so bad that that affected residents could ignite the gas emanating from their water taps.

While I was living in Denver in the late 1980s, the Rocky Mountain Arsenal used water-injection to dispose of plutonium-contaminated fluids. After a few years, earthquakes in and around the nearby city of Broomfield showed a marked increase. Whether it was spontaneous nuclear fission or simple lubrication of the underlying rock structures, no one knows. Suffice to say that when large-scale water injection at that site ended, so too did the earthquakes. Since hydraulic fracturing includes both injection and extraction of various fluids, it is audacious for extractors to deny any responsibility for the consequences of their actions.

Here is what I do not know. I do not know the owner of the Salt Valley rig. I do not know if their slant drilling extends to the border of Arches National Park or beyond. I do not know if vibrations from exploratory drilling will affect the national park. I do not know if any future hydraulic fracturing or gas extraction could cause earthquakes within Arches National Park.

Here is what I do know. Scientists usually discount any hypothesis until it is proven, one way or the other. Therefore, proof that my “drilling, fracking and earthquake hypothesis” is true will have to wait until the arches start to fall. On the other hand, maybe they already have. On August 5, 2008, Wall Arch fell at Devil’s Garden. At the time, smaller, mobile exploration rigs were at work in the Salt Valley.  Until we know all of the facts, I shall rest my case on the evidence at hand.

Email James McGillis

By James McGillis at 11:06 PM | Environment | Comments (0) | Link