Letter to the Editor: Actually, BLM’s plans for Grand Staircase-Escalante don’t favor mining, energy development

Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, date unspecified | Photo courtesy of Bureau of Land Management, St. George News

OPINION — You ought to check your facts before you reprint other news reports – even AP news reports.

Have you even read the Draft Resource Management Plans (RMPs) that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is proposing for the three monument units and the land that has been removed from monument status? Well, that is part of my job and I can tell you the RMPs DO NOT favor mining and energy development.

Read more: BLM proposal for Grand Staircase-Escalante favors energy, mining development

There are four alternatives from most restrictive to less restrictive, but even the less restrictive has a lot of restrictions.

For Kane County, where the majority of the monument units and the field office land is, I am truly worried that the land management plans do not do enough to promote rangeland health, allow for badly needed vegetation treatments, or allow for some economic development.

What the RMP constantly tries to do is put back into the monument the land that was removed from it by placing all sorts of restrictions on public access and usage. The RMPs try to re-convert the land removed from the monument into special management areas that are treated just like the monument where nothing is allowed.

The conservation groups that have commented on it so far haven’t read it or they would be jumping for joy and saying they could go for this noise. Instead, they are just doing their gerbil-on-a-treadmill sound bite and repeating the same thing over and over. It isn’t possible to do a “cursory reading” of a Plan and talk about it intelligently, but then, I have never credited those private interest groups (PIGs) to be real smart.

Submitted by MARY REYNOLDS, Fredonia, Ariz.

Letters to the Editor are not the product of St. George News, its editors, staff or news contributors. The matters stated and opinions given are the responsibility of the person submitting them. They do not reflect the product or opinion of St. George News and are given only light edit for technical style and formatting..

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Letters to the Editor are not the product of St. George News, its editors, staff or news contributors. The matters stated and opinions given are the responsibility of the person submitting them. They do not reflect the product or opinion of St. George News and are given only light edit for technical style and formatting.

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8 Comments

  • Chris August 22, 2018 at 4:12 pm

    Huh? Someone needs a basic course in writing.

  • Happy Commenter August 22, 2018 at 5:36 pm

    A refreshing dose of reality for all the panicking Henny Pennys out there!

  • Bender August 22, 2018 at 8:54 pm

    Disclosure that you are a Kane County employee is missing here.
    You don’t really lay out any evidence for your assertions so why should we believe your take over the conservation groups’ take?

    • Real Life August 23, 2018 at 12:18 am

      Was thinking the same thing. No evidence, employee driven, all assertion, and very poorly written I might add.

  • tazzman August 23, 2018 at 1:02 pm

    So your response to the AP report is that it lacks facts and evidence yet you don’t provide any facts and evidence of your own to counter that?

    • Happy Commenter August 23, 2018 at 1:51 pm

      Why don’t you bother to check that FACTS yourself? Or are you just satisfied with the media’s( AP=All Progressive/Left wing ) biased narrative. I guarantee the facts are going to destroy that media narrative. Look for yourself!

      • tazzman August 23, 2018 at 3:37 pm

        I have but I also didn’t write an op-ed complaining about an AP story lacking facts and evidence and then not putting any into my own op-ed.

        • Happy Commenter August 23, 2018 at 7:59 pm

          You apparently didn’t. the AP story was leaving out at least to thirds of the facts.. go look where the writer suggested you look.. duh, you clueless tree huggers are morons!

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