Dispatch from San Juan County - No. 1

Note: Earlier this spring, Utah Senator Bob Bennett announced he would conduct a process directed at creating legislation that would determine management for public lands in the southeast corner of Utah- – including the Utah Wilderness Coalition’s proposed San Juan-Canyonlands wilderness. 

After submitting our prioritized list of lands in San Juan County that should be designated Wilderness, we received an invitation to a series of eight meetings to discuss values and conflicts in six different regions of the county.  The following was written based on the first two meetings, held April 21^st and 22^nd in Monticello, Utah.

In the weeks since receiving notice of Senator Bennett’s intent to begin a San Juan County Public Lands Discussion we’ve been eager for the chance to protect some of the biggest and wildest lands on the Colorado Plateau.  We’ve also hoped this would be a legitimate and constructive process- unlike the mess we suffered through in Washington County.  There, we had to kill a bill in 2006 before we were able to amend another bill introduced 2008.  Five years after the terrible Washington county process was initiated, the result - thanks to the work of redrock activists and congressional champions - was legislation that was a true step forward for wilderness, but left the issue unresolved in that region.

Now, after the first two days of dialogue in Monticello, what have we learned?

First, we’ve learned how great our partners are.  Representatives from Great Old Broads, the Sierra Club, the Utah Environmental Congress, and the Grand Canyon Trust have stepped up and delivered passionate and exciting information while expressing vigorous and unanimous support for America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act.  The photographs we saw and the stories we heard have been reminders of just how spectacular, unique, and important the 1.3 million acres (twice the size of Yellowstone) of San Juan County wilderness is.

Senator Bennett’s Aides had a very difficult job to do: conducting a multiple stakeholder dialogue about Wilderness with a minimal amount of tension.

We learned that the questions asked by normally quick-tempered and cantankerous stakeholders can be based on a quest for understanding and not always rhetorical or barbed.  We’ve learned that some people believe ORVs have actually helped protect Arch Canyon, that if “you reach a point where you just can’t go any further, you just keep going”.  We learned listening to Mark “we need a new ethic” Ward from the Utah Association of Counties that channeling Aldo Leopold is impossible; Brooke and Wayne are cousins (via Brigham Young), that Bluff is part of San Juan County, Monticello pizza is great, Liz Thomas is tough as nails, and when it comes to archeology, Bill Lipe is the benevolent king.  We learned that solitude is actually the product they’re selling at the Valley of the Gods Bed and Breakfast.  We learned that when a volcano erupts in Iceland, 500 motel rooms go vacant in San Juan County.

We’ve learned to be very nervous about where this is all going.  Is this a better process than what we suffered in Washington County?  Or are we merely going through the motions and is the relaxed tenor of these meetings because the stakes are so low, the main decisions having already been made?  Case in point:

·         It appears that no records are being kept.  There are no wall charts being created, no minutes are being taken, and we’ve been told nothing from these meetings will be distributed to the participants.  Our personal notes and observations will be the only way to connect the final product with the process.  

·         We can’t sit in a circle, but in rows talking to the back of the other participant’s heads and to Bennett’s people, who seem distracted at times—multitasking on their Blackberries. (What are they missing? Will they really read all the supplemental material we’ve provided?)

·         If these meetings are the beginning of this inquiry, what did the County Commissioner mean when he said that they’ve been working on this for months? Is one map and a list of general concepts (the county’s two presentations) all they’ve accomplished to date?

Hopefully Senator Bennett’s staff will listen to our suggestions and we’ll avoid problems similar to those we’ve seen in the past.  We’re game to do whatever it takes to make this process work.  Stay tuned, the next meetings are May 5^th and 6^th.

Brooke Williams
SUWA Field Advocate

Comments

[Selma Brown]

I thought we learned that Bluff ISN'T a part of San Juan County. Basically, the entire county is run for the benefit of two cities: Blanding and Monticello. Bluff, La Sal, Spanish Valley and the Rez pay their taxes and are largely left to fend for themselves as far as county government is concerned.

[Franklin]

Did you really expect something different?