Old Grand County Council Drives Moab & Greater Canyonlands Over an Environmental Cliff
In mid-October 2014, I had the pleasure of visiting Moab, Utah once again. While in Moab, I planned to visit some of my favorite haunts, see old friends and perhaps meet some new ones. I also planned to document some of the changes that are rapidly overtaking Grand County and Greater Canyonlands.
As some readers will recall, in the latter days of the second George W. Bush administration,
there was an all-out push to lease every square inch of public lands
for oil, gas and mineral extraction. The effort was so slipshod that
lands near the Moab Golf Club and some directly over the well fields
that supply Moab with its precious culinary water were included in the original auction proposals.
Through the good work of many in the community and with a change in
presidential administrations, the most egregious examples of mineral
exploitation were removed from the final auction process. Still, the
opening of Grand County to mineral exploitation soon went into full
swing. Grand plans like the Utah Recreational Land Exchange of 2009 (URLEA) expanded the template for oil and gas exploration in Grand County. The federal government, 
through
its Bureau of Land Management, divided Grand County into two
categories. Some public lands were to be protected, but the majority was
up for grabs as oil and gas fields.
Throughout this process, the Grand County Council
took every opportunity it could to tell the federal government to keep
out of what the council considered to be local issues. In October
2014, the council voted six to one to join six other Utah counties (Emery, Duchesne, Uintah, Daggett, Carbon and San Juan) in what they call the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition (SCIC). Infrastructure, in this case will include roads, pipelines and a rail network designed to accelerate oil, gas and mineral extraction from the member counties.
To
add insult to the injury of the mineral extraction projects that the
SCIC supports, the group plans to divert millions of dollars from
“community impact funds" to pursue their goals. Rather than helping
heal the land and the health of those affected by unbridled extraction
of chemicals and hydrocarbons, the coalition plans to use the community
impact funds to help build haul-roads, pipeline access and rail
facilities. All of their efforts will now go full speed ahead to
scrape, drill, pump and haul as much raw hydrocarbon as they can from
the affected lands.
When asked why the Grand County Council could not wait until after the
November 2014 election to join the SCIC or to put the matter to a
public vote, council member Lynn Jackson retorted, "The people voted
when the seven of 
us
were elected up here". Despite the overwhelming number of written
protests and the overwhelming number of citizens voicing their
opposition at the final Grand County Council meeting on the subject,
the Gang of Six extractionist boosters on the council voted to join
the anti-environmental cabal of counties. Jackson was subsequently
elected as Grand County's representative to the SCIC.
In the past, I have written about the “sense of entitlement”
that many residents of Southeastern Utah feel about the public lands
in the area. Some feel entitled to grow alfalfa with water diverted
from Ken’s Lake (Puddle).
Others feel it is acceptable to sell Moab’s culinary water to gas well
drillers at bargain prices. Still others feel it is their right to
search and remove artifacts 
of
ancient cultures that once lived in the area. For many residents of
the area, the predominant feeling seems to be, “This is our land and we
can do whatever we want with it”.
In the past several years, arches, spires
and even dinosaur tracks have crumbled, disappeared or been stolen by
local residents. Still, there has never been a study completed to
determine the health or even the size of the aquifer that supports all
human and other life in the Spanish Valley and Moab. To my knowledge,
no one has ever studied the potential seismic effects of oil, gas,
potash or tar sands exploration and extraction in Greater Canyonlands.
Through ignorance, greed or willful disregard for the greater good,
will the “entitled few” spoil the 
wonders that took nature eons to create?
On Tuesday, November 4, 2014, the registered voters of Grand County have
a choice between continuing to stack the Grand County Council with
extractionist sympathizers or to go in a new direction and bring environmental sanity back to that elected body. Soon enough, we shall see the results.
Author's Note: November 6, 2014 - Moab Times-Independent
- "Grand County voters buck national trend by electing moderates,
progressives to county council". By sizeable margins, Jaylyn Hawks, Mary
Mullen McGann and Chris Baird defeated their more conservative-leaning
opponents in an election in which 74.15 percent of active Grand County
voters cast ballots.
By James McGillis at 10:31 PM | | Comments (0) | Link
