Bears ear and Grand staircase are losing ground

[kerrlakeRoo]

Just saw on Fox News site that Trump has rolled back some of the lands that were converted in past years to National Park lands.
Supposedly Utah folks were asking for these lands to be reopened, and there were comments about increasing access.
From you folks out there that have been using these areas, and seen the effects of new designations, is there a benefit to this change?
Will new opportunities present themselves?

[c_traveler2]

Mortimer Brewster wrote:
Here’s an interesting article on Bears Ears
What you need to know about the Bears Ears controversy

Just finished reading the posted link, very good and balance article.

[Mortimer_Brewst]

Here’s an interesting article on Bears Ears
What you need to know about the Bears Ears controversy

[NMDriver]

pigman1 wrote:
64.9% of the state of Utah is Federal land. A bit much don't you think?
How much Utah is Public Land?

NO, I do not think it is a bit much, and poor Iowa has almost no federal land.

[Lwiddis]

Depends on which state you live. Depends on state’s admission requirements. Depends....Pigman.

[pigman1]

64.9% of the state of Utah is Federal land. A bit much don't you think?
How much Utah is Public Land?

[profdant139]

I have read that there are petrochemicals and other minerals, and I am pretty sure that I have boondocked in some of the affected areas.

[Lwiddis]

Not an unexpected decision. Very clear path during campaign.

[kerrlakeRoo]

2oldman wrote:

kerrlakeRoo wrote:
were they used often for recreational purposes?

I don't know. As for what this is about I guess you can choose your own news source and go from there.

NBC says this: "Bears Ears in particular, will be split into two separate sections where some of the 10,000 known religious ruins remain, and the rest will be opened up to use by the extraction industries."

I didn't see any news source claiming it's for recreational purposes.

Fox article talks about native Americans not having access because of Rules against non motorized transportation, and recreational uses. I dont know IF there are natural gas or oil deposits in the area. I was asking if these are areas of value to the guys with toyhaulers, or the boondockers, Thought it may be of interest to some to be able to access those areas again,
Was not interested in past politics.

[profdant139]

I think we will still be allowed to camp next to the drilling rigs, so no problem, right? 😉

And I hear they are going to change the name of the area to "Deaf Bear," since they just cut off the ears. 😉

Seriously, though, litigation is already pending, so who knows what will really happen in the end.

And as much as I wish that the monument would remain intact for non-industrial use, we have to remember that the local folks are overwhelmingly in favor of shrinking the size of the monument. Their wishes are not trivial. The counter-argument is that the monument belongs to the whole country, rather than the few thousand residents of Washington and Kane counties in Utah.

Finally, a perhaps-fruitless plea for civility: we can disagree with one another about the proper disposition of the land in Southern Utah without engaging in personal attacks. A robust political debate is a wonderful thing. Name-calling is much less likely to result in consensus.

[2oldman]

kerrlakeRoo wrote:
were they used often for recreational purposes?

I don't know. As for what this is about I guess you can choose your own news source and go from there.

NBC says this: "Bears Ears in particular, will be split into two separate sections where some of the 10,000 known religious ruins remain, and the rest will be opened up to use by the extraction industries."

I didn't see any news source claiming it's for recreational purposes.

[downtheroad]

kerrlakeRoo wrote:
Just saw on Fox News site that Trump has rolled back some of the lands that were converted in past years to National Park lands.

Not just "some." ...a lot more than, "some."

Bears Ears, designated by President Barack Obama, was significantly downsized, from about 1.3 million acres to about 220,000 acres of federally protected land. And Grand Staircase-Escalante, designated by the Clinton administration, will go from 1.9 million acres to a little over 1 million acres. .

Too bad this thread will get political and then nasty and will not last. I hope it stays open for discussion sake.

[kerrlakeRoo]

These areas were under BLM before, They apparently weren't used for drilling previously, were they used often for recreational purposes?

[2oldman]

Opportunities for drilling, mining and fracking. And rescinding anything Obama did. That's the CNN version anyway, and knowing Trump, that's what this is about.