Clinton's Plan to Make Utah's Escalante Canyons a National Monument
9/10/96
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
/* Written 6:55 PM Sep 10, 1996 by gain in igc:gain.ecosystem */
/* ---------- "Utah Lands to become Natl Monument?" ---------- */
== GAIN ALERT: Utah's Escalante Canyons - National Monument? ==
Clinton's Plan to Protect 1.8 Million Acres
* * * GLOBAL ACTION AND INFORMATION NETWORK * * *
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phone: 408-457-0130 email: gain@gain.org
* * * September 10, 1996 * * *
One of the pieces of environmental legislation that saw the most action and
controversy this Congress involved Utah Wilderness. Both the Senate and
House proposals were bad. When they finally seemed to hit a deadend as
stand alone bills, the backdoor approach was attempted. Senator Hatch tried
attaching his bill to the Omnibus Parks bill. This effort failed as well.
Wilderness activists felt somewhat successful and relieved in stopping bad
legislation from going through this Congress while planning for a more
wilderness friendly group of Senators and Representatives for the next go
round in the 105th Congress.
Throughout, the Clinton Administration remained opposed to the two "bad"
Utah Public Lands bills. Even if they passed, Clinton was sure to veto the
legislation. In July, Interior Secretary Babbitt surprised some folks by
announcing that a new BLM lands study would be undertaken to help rectify a
long-standing debate about just how much acreage of potential BLM
wilderness lands actually exists in Utah. In yet another "surprise"
announcement, Clinton is thinking of declaring 1.8 million acres of
southern Utah -- known as the Escalante Canyons -- as a National Monument.
Perhaps this wasn't such a "surprise" as Clinton had the power to do this
all the time. Other presidents have used their authority to create National
Monuments. Such a designation could help safeguard lands until wilderness
or National Park status can be legislated. For example, many of Utah's
famous National Parks began as National Monuments. Death Valley was just
"upgraded" to a National Park at the end of last Congress.
IT'S OFFICIAL that Clinton will "decide in the next couple of weeks"
whether to create a "Canyons of the Escalante National Monument", according
to today's _Salt Lake Tribune_. The newspaper quoted an Interior Department
spokesperson as confirming that the Clinton administration is considering
monument status for "a large portion of land" in the area along the
Escalante and Kaiparowits Plateau that has "important environmental,
scientific, and cultural values".
Utah's Congressional delegation is not happy about this proposal. An aide
to Representative Hansen said he was surprised and disappointed. The
easiest way to combat it, according to the aide, would be to take away
money by striking a single line from the Interior appropriations bill which
is awaiting congressional approval.(_Salt Lake Tribune_, 9/10/96) This is
one of the key considerations the administration is still weighing in its
decision and timing on the issue. A senior White House official was quoted
in the _Washington Post_ (9/7/96) as saying that the monument designation
"is not done yet," and other officials cautioned that the administration
might decide not to go forward with the plan.
Therefore it's important that the Administration hear from the public.
Please read the following action alert and quick background snapshot from
the Southern Utah Wilderness Coalition (SUWA) and the Utah Wilderness
Coalition (UWC) -- groups dedicated to the preservation of Utah's redrock
wilderness.
For more information about the proposed "Canyons of the Escalante National
Monument", check out the following Web page -- thanks to Rich Warnick. The
URL is http://users.aol.com/utahplr/issues/natmon.htm
*************** UTAH WILDERNESS ACTION ALERT ***************
**** HIGHEST PRIORITY HIGHEST PRIORITY HIGHEST PRIORITY ****
BOTTOM LINE SUMMARY:
1. Please phone President Clinton RIGHT NOW and ask him to move ahead with
creating the Canyons of the Escalante National Monument. The number is 202-
456-1414. Your call will only cost about 50 cents.
2. Please forward this message to friends and family and ask personally
that they also contact the president in favor of the Canyons of the
Escalante proposal.
3. For those of you in Colorado, Arizona and California, President Clinton
is coming to your state in the next few days. If at all possible, turn out
with signs supporting 5.7 million acres of Utah wilderness and the Canyons
of the Escalante National Monument.
DETAILS:
1. The proposed CANYONS OF THE ESCALANTE NATIONAL MONUMENT is a real
possibility. It looks like this could happen soon. Your calls and e-mails
are extremely important RIGHT AT THIS MOMENT. With a single stroke of the
pen, President Clinton could designate the Kaiparowits Plateau, the
Escalante and the Grand Staircase regions to be a National Monument,
protecting them forever.
Please make your calls and send e-mails right now to President Clinton
(president@whitehouse.gov). It looks like he could decide in the next day
or two on this issue. So, call sooner rather than later.
Will you also please forward this message to your friends and family and
ask them personally to make calls to the Whitehouse? This is time to show
the President how many of us care about protecting Utah's redrock
wilderness and how strongly we support his proposal to establish this
National Monument.
2. President Clinton listens to some senators on key issues. It may be
important for those of you living in New Mexico, California and Montana to
phone Senators Bingaman, Feinstein and Baucus in support of Mr. Clinton's
proposal. Ask your senators to relay their support of this National
Monument to the president.
3. For those of you living in California, Colorado and Arizona you have a
chance to see the president "up close and personal" in the next few days.
Take this opportunity to talk directly to President Clinton about our
support for his National Monument. Big signs saying "5.7 Wild in Utah" and
"We support Canyons of the Escalante National Monument" will make a huge
impact on the "campaigner in chief." We'll overnight them to you just for
the asking.
4. Since our time frame on this issue has been short, many of you have sent
questions our way. Keep it up and we will get them all answered in the next
few days. In the meanwhile, the question asked the most is would the
proposed National Monument impact the 5.7 million acre of wilderness to be
protected as outlined in HR 1500. Yes it would, but the details can be
worked out later. National Monuments, for example, can contain lands
managed as wilderness.
All things considered, the Clinton proposal is excellent and deserves out
strongest support. Let's work on getting this National Monument and we can
continue to work on protecting the rest of Utah's redrock wilderness after
that.
CANYONS OF THE ESCALANTE NATIONAL MONUMENT
The Proposal
The Clinton Administration is considering a national monument spanning
across some of America's Redrock Wilderness. The Canyons of the Escalante
National Monument would include the Grand Staircase adjacent to Bryce
Canyon National Park, the Kaiparowits Plateau adjacent to Glen Canyon
National Recreation Area, and the Escalante basin adjacent to Capital
Reef National Park.
The Authority
The authority for the creation of national monuments comes from the
Antiquities Act of 1906. Inspired by the discovery of archaeological
treasures in the Southwest at the turn of the century, the Antiquities Act
has become a mechanism for presidents, with or without congressional
support, to preserve valuable public lands as national monuments when
those lands possess cultural, scientific, and/or scenic values warranting
protection.
The Precedent
To date, the Antiquities Act has been used sixty-six times by virtually
every President since Theodore Roosevelt, either to create a national
monument or expand the boundaries of a previously designated monument. In
Utah, examples include Mukuntuweap National Monument (predecessor to Zion
National Park), Arches National Monument and Capital Reef National Monument
(both of which later became national parks), as well as Natural Bridges,
Cedar Breaks, and Dinosaur national monuments.
The Clinton Administration's 1.8 million acre proposal is dwarfed by other
national monuments which have been created in the past. Glacier Bay
National Monument was 2.3 million acres and Katmai National Monument was
2.7 million acres. In 1978, President Carter withdrew 56 million acres, or
more than thirty times the amount of land being considered in the current
proposal, in Alaska under the Antiquities Act.
The Land
The lands being considered for protection under the Clinton Administration
proposal clearly have outstanding values which are compatible with the
statutory criteria laid out in the Antiquities Act.
The Grand Staircase is Utah's "Panorama-land." Kodachrome State Park lies
within this physiographic region, which is marked by a series of benches
and cliffs exposing nearly ten thousand feet of strata, including the Pink
Cliffs, Grey Cliffs, White Cliffs, Vermillion Cliffs, and Chocolate Cliffs.
These colorful rock formations contain some four billion years of geologic
history, and its fossils are a biography of life on earth. Relict plant
communities found within the Grand Staircase contain pristine plant
ecosystems found no where else in Utah, and are considered by botanists
as an important scientific resource.
The Kaiparowits Plateau spans nearly a million acres from its west edge
along the Cockscomb Ridge to the Straight Cliffs bordering the Canyons of
the Escalante. The Kaiparowits is famous for scenic beauty displayed in its
colorful rock formations and other geologic features such as faults, folds,
arches, monoclines, crossbeds, cliffs, lava fields and complex canyon
systems. Habitat for 59 species of mammals, 200 species of birds, 46
reptiles and amphibians and 22 species of raptors has been preserved
chiefly by the remoteness of this region. The Kaiparowits was also home to
the largest pre-Columbian Indian population in the region, and included
such peoples as the Anasazi, Fremont and Paiute, whose presence was marked
by hundreds of recorded archaeological sites throughout the area. Finally,
the Kaiparowits Plateau has been found by paleontologists to contain the
most complete record of land life known in the world, including some
globally unique and as yet, undescribed fossil mammals.
The Escalante Canyons are world-renowned for their sinuous, serpentine
beauty. There are slot canyons 100 feet deep, narrowing down to 10 inches
in width. It contains cliff walls honeycombed with grottoes, alcoves, and
caves. Its smooth-walled amphitheaters are muraled with desert varnish and
patterned with conchoidal fractures, swirls of crossbedding, and
prehistoric rock art. There are rincons, natural bridges, arches, fins,
domes, pinnacles, sinkholes, solitary monoliths of sculptured stone. Its
canyon bottoms are blessed with clear springs, and groves of whispering
cottonwood. It was here, in 1936, that then-Secretary of Interior Harold
Ickies proposed a four and a half million acre national monument, which
would have included much of the lands slated for protection in the current
proposal.
The Threats
This region's outstanding beauty is, however, deeply threatened by a rash
of proposals which would transform its wild character to one of an
industrialized zone. The greatest threat is by a huge coal mine which would
scatter roads, powerlines, and other infrastructure throughout the heart of
the now-wild Kaiparowits region. The coal from the thirty-year-old coal
leases held by the Dutch coal mining firm would be exported to Pacific Rim
nations. Oil and tar sands exploration and development threatens the
eastern Escalante alongside Capital Reef National Park. Oil exploration,
off-road vehicle abuse, and pinyon-juniper forest clearcutting
proposals threaten the Grand Staircase region.
*******************Learn more about SUWA from its web site at:
http://www.xmission.com/~suwa/
Visit the Utah Wilderness web site at:
http://acs1.byu.edu/~wildweb/welcome.html
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