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Comment Time Running Out For Bears Ears National Monument

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Time runs out Friday to comment on the future of Bears Ears National Monument in Utah/BLM

Roughly 24 hours remains for you to comment on the future of Bears Ears National Monument in Utah, with the Interior Department set to shut down the comment period on Friday.

Back on April 26 President Trump signed an executive order directing the Interior Department to review national monuments designated by the last three presidents, going back to 1996 when President Clinton established the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah via his authority under the Antiquities Act.

At the time Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said the order wouldn't lead to the abolishment of any national monuments. But he did question the size of some.

"Let's be clear. The Antiquities Act grants the president the authority to declare historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest," the secretary said at the time. "To be sure, the Antiquities Act has been an effective tool for preserving some of our greatest treasures for our generations to come.

"The act also specifies, in law, the president to designate the smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects to be protected. Despite this clear directive, smallest area too often has become the exception rather than the rule."

While the Interior Department will continue to take comments on 26 other national monuments through July 10, the window that closes Friday for opinions on Bears Ears could be the most important, as no other state's politicians have lined up so staunchly against a national monument as Utah's have against Bears Ears.

As Friday dawned, more than 83,000 comments concerning Bears Ears had been filed with the online portal. A quick look at some of the comments showed strong support for keeping Bears Ears intact as President Obama designated it, with pro-monument views espoused by hunters, anglers, mountain bikers, hikers, and birders.

The process for establishing the Bears Ears National Monument was a long one in which the public spoke very clearly. We want to keep the Bears Ears National Monument designation that we worked so hard to achieve. The coalition of tribal nations in the Bears Ears region should have a place at the table in the management of the natural and cultural resources in the region. The national monument designation rightfully gave them a voice. Don't take it away.

Dear Secretary Ryan Zinke,

As an American citizen living in Canada and spending weeks of each year in the USA, I urge you to pay attention to this petition to save critical National Parks and Monuments.

As a supporter of bird conservation and our public lands, I strongly urge you to protect all national monuments under review, and to reject any changes to these iconic landscapes.

The national monuments created in the past twenty years have protected vital bird habitat, helped safeguard our heritage, and benefited communities across the country. Reversing any of these designations would be a tragic mistake with harmful consequences for all that depend on our magnificent public lands.

From the buttes of Bears Ears that support birds like the Golden Eagle, to the underwater canyons of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Monument that support a critical ecosystem for Atlantic Puffins, to the rocky peaks of the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument, the shrub-steppe habitat of Hanford Reach National Monument in Washington, and out to the pristine Pacific waters of the Papahanaumokuakea National Monument, all of these lands and waters are indispensable to birds and other wildlife.

These monuments are a legacy of Teddy Roosevelt. He and all fifteen subsequent presidents--of both parties--have recognized the need and value of protecting these public lands with the Antiquities Act. I urge you to uphold Roosevelt's legacy and maintain these monuments for current and future generations. -- Ellen Ryan

One who commented identified himself as a former Grand County, Utah, elected official:

I am a 40 year resident of Moab, Utah and a former Grand County elected official. I have also lived in San Juan County for several years. I have hiked, jeeped and camped extensively with my family in both the Bears Ears N.M. and the Grand Staircase-Escalante N.M. I believe that the Grand Staircase-Escalante N.M. has been an economic boon to the surrounding towns. Far from harming local economic interests, it has brought tourist dollars into the communites revitalizing their economies. The monument protects areas of amazing natural beauty, geological and scientific interest and Anasazi ruins. There continues to be good access to even very remote areas of the monument with suitable four wheel drive vehicles. Grazing is still allowed in the monument and the permit holders exhibit strong conservation stewardship that fits in well with the monument's purposes.

The Bears Ears are in my back yard and over the last 40 years I have watched the irreplaceable cultural resources being looted, illegal atv trails being created and rock art being defaced. I understand that the BLM has had only two law enforcement officers to patrol all of the BLM lands in SE Utah. I hope that the monument designation will provide more resources for the protection of these irreplaceable cultural resources. I would encourage the expansion of the monument boundaries to encompass all of the lands originally nominated by the tribes. The process leading to the designation included extensive public participation. While the San Juan County Commission has long had a burr under its saddle concerning control of federal lands in the county, the Grand County Commission has generally been supportive of the monument designation. Moab is reaping the economic benefits of international tourism and the monument will only add to this boom. I have camped with my friends and family-wife, daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter numerous times at many sites in the monument. The unique geology and fantastic cultural resources make this a world-class experience that must be protected. Even Congressman Rob Bishop's PLI proposal singled out the area now designated as a monument for special protection.

Please do not allow partisan politics to over ride protecting these unique lands and their scientific and cultural resources.

Among the many groups and organizations that have come out in support of national monuments was the Friends of Saguaro National Park, where the board of directors unanimously passed a resolution in support of Bears Ears.

... the Board of Directors for Friends of Saguaro National Park stands in solidarity with over 400 organizations nationwide, including Arizona organizations such as Archeology Southwest, Arizona Conservation Partners, Arizona Wilderness Coalition, Center for Biological Diversity, Coalition for Sonoran Desert Protection, Environment Arizona, Friends of Agua Fria National Monument, Friends of Ironwood Forest, Friends of the Cliffs, Friends of the Sonoran Desert, Grand Ca yon Trust, Grand Canyon Wildlands Council, and the Sky Island Alliance, and opposes any effort to undermine protections for America’s public lands by reducing or repealing any National Monument established through the Antiquities Act of 1906;

Some who commented quoted President Theodore Roosevelt, whom Secretary Zinke holds in high regard for his conservation practices.

Dear Secretary Ryan Zinke,

Please keep Bears Ears National Monument intact.

"We have become great because of the lavish use of our resources. But the time has come to inquire seriously what will happen when our forests are gone, when the coal, the iron, the oil, and the gas are exhausted, when the soils have still further impoverished and washed into the streams, polluting the rivers, denuding the fields and obstructing navigation." - Theodore Roosevelt

Please, please, please protect our national monument designations. Do not let them turn into places of the past for future generations to come.

Of course, not everyone has come out in support of the monuments.

I'm writing my comment in hopes that the land masses of Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bear Ears will receive some much needed adjustment. I will also add the area of Gold Butte in Nevada to this as well. I agree that there are areas that could use and deserve the National Monument status in these places, but the areas that have been set aside are quite large and encompass more then is necessary. I fear that the same regulations will be wrongfully enforced in the Bear Ears district as have been enforced in the GSENM. I understand that the land in still PUBLIC land and will remain public land, but National Monument recognition is not the key.

Living in this area for 40+ years, I have seen the change in land use and the effects it has had on locals. It is not all good, it is not all bad. I want our lands protected and used. I want to still have the wide openness that this area is know for. But I want those who ranch, to be able to use the land. I want those who hunt, fish, recreate, ATV, to still be able to do so. I do not want to see ranchers to be forced to abandon their way of life because of a regulation someone in DC came up with. We have managed and taken care of our lands here for many years, and we can continue.

Sometimes giving an area National/World attention is not all that great. Just look at the issues Arches NP has to deal with in defacement/graffiti every year. The Indian ruins in San Juan deserve to be preserved. It would be interesting to know how many % of the US population even knew about them prior to the push for NM status and how many people now know about them.

Please help us in preserving and protecting what is necessary, but not at the grand extent that it has been done. National Forest and BLM land are good things to have as well. Not everything needs to be a monument or park.

It's been said many times that public comment periods do not equate with a vote, but Secretary Zinke, when he arrived in Utah to tour the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, did say that the views of someone in Massachusetts hold weight equal to the views of someone in Montana.

Holding a unique position in the secretary's review is Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument in Maine, where the Trump administration questions whether proper public input was received and considered by the Obama administration. That monument was created not out of federal lands, but rather private property donated to the government so it could be included within the National Park System, so it's unclear just how the administration could alter it.

While the comment period for Bears Ears ends on Friday, comments on the other 26 monuments being reviewed by the Interior secretary will continue to be taken through July 10. You can comment at this site.

 

Comments

Dear Secretary Zinke;

I will keep it short. I am a hunter, a fisherman, and outdoors enthusiast who travels west of the Mississippi. I have most of my adventurers on public land and fully support more of it and more protections for it. The Bears Ears National Monument deserves the designation. Please don't mess with it and others.

I know that President Obama designated more than any other president. But when have public lands been under such an assault from mining, logging, oil drilling and unsustainable grazing practices? He was right to use this authority to preserve these lands as the birthright of present and future Americans.


I am a hiker, camper, photography buff who travels extensively in the West.  The most valuable experiences I have are in the Grand Staircase Escalante area.   The Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante deserve preservation both for recreation and Native American important sites.   They should not be mined, logged, drilled.  


Please, hands off OUR Crown Jewels, OUR National PArks and Monuments.

 

It is simply clear that while Utah desires to take our lands in order to turn them over to "Traditional Mormon families" in order to sustain a now dead and dying life style, it simply will not work.

 

Life and livings have changed and sadly tradition lifestyles of family logging operations, coal extraction and rasining a few head of cattle will ot be viable ant longer. There is more to make, from a capitalist sense, by people opening restuarants, out doors activity businesses, and other tourist related businesses than dying "traditional lifestyles". The smart people have jumped on that band wagon. Those who do not face a future like unemployed and unemployable Americans kanguishing in Applacia waiting for King Coal to return.

 

Leave our Federal Public lands alone and in OUR hands, unless you want to give our federal lands, parks and monuments a Yuge increase in the budget.


Please keep Bears Ears National Monument intact.

 

"We have become great because of the lavish use of our resources. But the time has come to inquire seriously what will happen when our forests are gone, when the coal, the iron, the oil, and the gas are exhausted, when the soils have still further impoverished and washed into the streams, polluting the rivers, denuding the fields and obstructing navigation." - Theodore Roosevelt

 

Please, please, please protect our national monument designations. These are sacred lands that need to be protected and preserved.

 


All national monuments should be preserved. Period. Please do not use them for mining or real estate development. Government can think of other ideas for boosting economy, for example train bottom 50% so that they can support themselves.


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