W I L D E R N E S S

REDROCKW I L D E R N E S S

REDROCKThe Newsletter of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance

Volume 27, Number 2 • Summer 2010

Secretary Salazar and theFate of Utah Wilderness

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The mission of the Southern Utah WildernessAlliance (SUWA) is the preservation of the out-standing wilderness at the heart of the ColoradoPlateau, and the management of these lands intheir natural state for the benefit of all Americans.

SUWA promotes local and national recognition ofthe region’s unique character through research andpublic education; supports both administrative andlegislative initiatives to permanently protect ColoradoPlateau wild places within the National Park andNational Wilderness Preservation Systems or byother protective designations where appropriate;builds support for such initiatives on both the localand national level; and provides leadership within theconservation movement through uncompromisingadvocacy for wilderness preservation.

SUWA is qualified as a non-profit organizationunder section 501(c)(3) of the federal tax code.Therefore, all contributions to SUWA are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.

Staff

Board of Directors

Kathlene Audette, Membership Coordinator

Tiffany Bartz, Field Attorney

Jen Beasley, Legislative Advocate

Steve Bloch, Conservation Director

Ray Bloxham, Field Inventory Specialist

Scott Braden, Associate DirectorClayton Daughenbaugh, Midwest Field OrganizerJackie Feinberg, National Grassroots Organizer

David Garbett, Staff Attorney

Scott Groene, Executive Director

Mathew Gross, Media Director

Diane Kelly, Communications SpecialistTerri Martin, Western Regional Organizer

Heidi McIntosh, Associate Director

Richard Peterson-Cremer, Legislative Director

Gina Riggs, Administrative Associate

Deeda Seed, Grassroots Outreach Director

Liz Thomas, Field Attorney

Anne Williams, Administrative Director

Brooke Williams, Field Advocate

Darrell Knuffke, ChairMancos, CO

Richard Ingebretsen,Vice-Chair & SecretaryEmigration Canyon, UT

Rusty Schmit, TreasurerSandia Park, NM

Jim BacaAlbuquerque, NM

Bill HeddenCastle Valley, UT

Cover Photo: A canyoneer explores the White Canyonproposed wilderness, an elaborate maze of sculptedcanyons adjacent to Natural Bridges National Monumentin Utah’s San Juan County. Copyright James Kay(www.jameskay.com).

Guy SapersteinPiedmont, CA

Cindy ShoganSilver Spring, MD

Johanna WaldSan Francisco, CA

Terry Tempest WilliamsCastle Valley, UT

Hansjorg WyssMalvern, PA

Advisory CommitteeSteve Allen (Boulder, CO), Bruce Berger (Aspen, CO),Harvey Halpern (Cambridge, MA), Ginger Harmon (Carmel,CA), Dale and Frandee Johnson (Boulder, CO), BillLockhart (Salt Lake City, UT), Roderick Nash (SantaBarbara, CA), Ed Norton Jr. (Washington, DC), Ken Sleight(Moab, UT), Susan Tixier (Santa Fe, NM), James Udall(Carbondale, CO)

Email: info@suwa.orgWebsite: www.suwa.org

Internet services donated by XMission

Main Office425 East 100 South

Salt Lake City, UT 84111(801) 486-3161

Washington, DC122 C Street NW

Suite 240Washington, DC 20001

(202) 546-2215

MoabP.O. Box 968

Moab, UT 84532(435) 259-5440

Offices

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In this issue:

Wilderness Notes....................................................................................................................................................................4

Features:

The Man With the White Hat ..............................................................................................................................6

DC News ......................................................................................................................................................................................9

Cosponsors of America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act....................................................................................11

Canyon Country Updates................................................................................................................................................12

“Wild About Utah” Photo Contest Winners ............................................................................................14-15

Inside SUWA..............................................................................................................................................................................19

America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act Reference Map ..................................................................................27

This issue of Redrock Wilderness was writtenby the following staff and outside contributors:Tiffany Bartz, Steve Bloch, Scott Braden,Clayton Daughenbaugh, Jackie Feinberg,David Garbett, Scott Groene, Terri Martin,Heidi McIntosh, Richard Peterson-Cremer,Deeda Seed, Hannah Smith, Liz Thomas, AnneWilliams, Brooke Williams, and Terry TempestWilliams. It was edited by Darrell Knuffkeand laid out by Diane Kelly.

Newsletter design by Leslie Scopes Garcia.

Redrock Wilderness • Volume 27, Number 2 • Summer 2010

Moving? Please send your change of address to:SUWA, 425 East 100 South, Salt Lake City, UT 84111

Contributions of photographs (especially of areaswithin the citizens’ proposal for Utah wilderness)and original art (such as pen-and-ink sketches)are greatly appreciated! Please send with SASEto Editor, SUWA, 425 East 100 South, SaltLake City, UT 84111.

Redrock Wilderness is published three times ayear. Articles may be reprinted with creditgiven both to the author(s) and to the SouthernUtah Wilderness Alliance.

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Political Life Is Short, Unpredictable; the Redrock MovementEndures

A political flashflood ripped through Utah in early May and swept away U.S. Sen. Robert Bennett. Hefaced no scandal and remained popular with the general public, yet he ran third at the Utah RepublicanConvention, ending his candidacy for a fourth term.

Bennett sponsored the Washington County wilderness legislation that passsed in 2009 and had initiated asimilar process for San Juan County, so his political demise raises questions about the future of the regionalwilderness approach he championed. A factor in divining that future, though, is this: Utah’s rural countycommissioners are themselves seeking regional wilderness bills. That is likely to continue, regardless of thenames of our senators.

There has been a seismic shift in how county politicians view the wilderness issue. Commissioners whorepresent rural counties—and they are the merest handful—have historically been the major obstacle toBLM wilderness protection in Utah. These small-town politicians view nearby public land as theirs, claim-ing that the dastards in DC unfairly snatched it from them. But that, they pronounce, is only temporary:they mean to have it back.

An old political adage asserts that if people think you are powerful, you are. That has played out here. Asuccession of Utah congressional delegations and governors has bowed to the county commissioners, neverdaring to challenge them and accepting as given that the counties are the rightful owners of the state’s feder-al public lands. Accordingly, they have bent to commissioners’ relentless efforts to block wilderness andmost other reasonable public land management.

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“The River’s Edge,” watercolor of the Dirty Devil River by Bessann Swanson (bessannswansonart@hotmail.com)

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To their credit, some counties—like Emery and Grand—have decided the fight is stupid, and that they couldbetter serve their constituents by working with the federal agencies.

Other counties—Kane is one of them—continue their quixotic, often illegal actions, including bulldozingroutes into wilderness and tearing federal signs both up and down. We’ve publicized these actions. Thatunflattering light has diminished the counties’ credibility with many Utahns and certainly with mostAmericans. (It is an attribute of madness that ridicule is no deterrent.)

But Gov. Jon Huntsman broke with that deferential tradition. When he took office in 2004, he clearly sig-naled that he would not support the rural counties in whatever harebrained litigation schemes commissionersmight cook up. (Current Gov. Gary Herbert has yet to show such leadership.)

The real breaking point was the Washington County wilderness and public lands legislation. As drafted, thelegislation was loaded with largesse to appease county commissioners. But when Sen. Bennett couldn’t gethis flawed legislation past Sen. Jeff Bingaman, Senate Energy Committee Chairman, Bennett split with thecounty commissioners and amended the bill to Bingaman’s satisfaction. As it was finally signed into law,the measure was a plus for wilderness. That was the first time Utah commissioners had to accept wildernesslegislation they didn’t like that was introduced by a Utah senator.

Some commissioners recognize they are losing the wilderness fight. They’ve spent millions fighting us onRS 2477 and have yet to gain a single right-of-way. Since 1994, there have been 13 congressional fightsinvolving Utah wilderness. We have won and they have lost every last one.

They recognize SUWA’s ability to defend our wilderness proposal and the steady progress we’ve made ingaining protection. The prospect that the Obama administration might proclaim national monuments inUtah—despite Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s soothing assurances to the contrary—scares the daylights outof them. So does congressional movement on America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act (see page 9).

Their unease prompts many county commissioners to look for ways to resolve the wilderness issue, onceand for all. But if the commissioners want to do that, and also want to resolve SUWA’s continuing litigationover the Bush resource management plans, prevent potential national monuments, and stop us from march-ing forward with the redrock bill, then they must negotiate with us. Many balk at that.

Will this dynamic result in legislation that truly protects the redrock? That’s unclear. It should, certainly,but we’ve seen ample evidence that county commissioners would sometimes rather propound their strangeideology than to act sensibly for the citizens they claim to represent.

This much we can say: the movement we’ve built to protect the redrock, nationally and in Utah, is largerthan any single politician. And some counties recognize it.

For the Redrock,

Scott GroeneExecutive Director

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OnApril 16, 2010, the White House Conferenceon the Great Outdoors convened at the

Department of Interior in Washington, D.C. Closeto 500 individuals from the conservation communityacross the United States attended. It was a diversecrowd for an environmental gathering: Joe Shirley,Jr., president of the Navajo Nation, was there; KarinSheldon from Western Resource Advocates inColorado; Cory Booker, mayor of Newark, NewJersey; Bill Hedden from the Grand Canyon Trust(and a SUWA board member) was present alongsideranchers, city planners, and bureaucrats.

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar stood before theaudience and said, “102 years ago, Teddy Rooseveltheld the first conference on conservation in 1908.102 years later, we are hosting the first conference onconservation in the 21st century. . . . 50 million peo-ple are represented here today: hunters, ranchers,farmers, anglers, local, state, and tribal governments,cultural preservationists, the National RifleAssociation, Ducks Unlimited, Natural ResourcesDefense Council, the Sierra Club. . . . We have calledyou all here to find a unity agenda for conservation.”

The language throughout the event was soft, bland,and designed to offend no one. Frustrated by the

lack of specifics and phrases like “open spaces”replacing “wilderness,” which would be too inflam-matory, I turned to one of the organizers saying, “Ithink third graders would be offended by the dumb-ing down of this rhetoric.” Her response, “It pollswell.”

At lunch, I met Secretary Salazar. He is a thought-ful man. And I believe his intention to create abroad, inclusive constituency for conservation issincere. I thanked him for withdrawing 77 leases inUtah from the oil and gas sales set in place by theBush-Cheney administration in October, 2008.Most of these leases set to be auctioned to oil andgas companies were parcels of land adjacent toArches and Canyonlands National Parks, with otherparcels located near Desolation Canyon, DinosaurNational Monument, and wilderness study areasinside Nine Mile Canyon, where miles of galleriesof ancient rock art appear on canyon walls. It was acrucial gesture to protect hundreds of thousands ofacres of wild lands with wilderness characteragainst development.

“You mean I have a friend in Utah?” he said, smil-ing. Salazar’s office has been bombarded with callsfrom rural county commissioners and state legisla-tors, as well as Sen. Robert Bennett and Gov. GaryHerbert, who are not pleased by these actions andthe threat of new national monuments.

But actions speak louder than the soft, pleasant rhet-oric that celebrates “unity in community.” And it ishere that I will enlist my loyal opposition.

On Monday, April 26, 10 days after ‘The WhiteHouse Conference on the Great Outdoors,”Secretary Ken Salazar, sans his white cowboy hat,came to Utah, making Salt Lake City the first stopon his national listening tour. The first question tobe asked is who is the Secretary listening to? Hemet with Gov. Herbert and his Balanced ResourceCouncil at the state capitol building. It could beargued that this council is anything but balancedwith no environmentalist sitting at the table. TheSecretary announced that he is listening to Utahns’complaints and “eager to work out compromises on

The Man With the White Hatby Terry Tempest Williams

© Topher Simon photography (www.tophersimon.com)

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roads, national monuments, endangered species”and other controversial and contentious issues.

While refusing to reverse the “No Wild Settlement”policy set in motion by former Utah Gov. MichaelLeavitt and former Secretary Gale Norton in 2003,behind closed doors, Salazar now supports under-cutting the authority of the Interior Department toreassess and reinventory those wildlands withwilderness character to be placed under interim pro-tection until a wilderness designation can be made.

As Chip Ward wrote in 2004, “In a single momentNorton rewrote federal law, ignored fifteen years ofagency practice, and pronounced illegal her depart-

ment's most popular and important mission. . . .Under this settlement, America’s rarest and mostrobust lands can now be managed to allow for oildrilling, off-road vehicle abuse, resort development,and mining. In fact, every use is on the table exceptmanagement for preserving wilderness.”

Secretary Salazar had the opportunity to change thisanti-wilderness policy. He has chosen to let itstand.

Secondly, Salazar stated to Gov. Herbert thatPresident Obama would not use his authority underthe Antiquities Act to establish any national monu-ments without local permission (which means therewill not be any). Two wild areas void of protectionin Utah are under consideration: the San RafaelSwell National Monument and the Cedar MesaNational Monument. This means that basically,Salazar gave Utah’s governor veto power over thePresident’s discretion to create new national monu-ments, which almost every president has done sinceits inception. Nobody looking back through the lensof history has ever said making a national monu-ment was a bad idea including those who organizeda cattle run through Grand Teton NationalMonument should it be expanded to a national park.Former Gov. Cliff Hansen of Wyoming who led thebrigade admitted years later that he had been wrong.

The irony here is that Gov. Herbert just signed leg-islation declaring that Utah, under eminent domain,can take control of federal lands now under theInterior Department’s jurisdiction. It is craziness.These are public lands, America’s commons, nowgiven over to the right fringe, the loud-mouth teapartiers who have managed to intimidate a man whowears a white cowboy hat and with an ear opentoward unity.

And that’s not all. The Obama administration,under the leadership of Ken Salazar, has defendedand implemented the atrocious Bush land manage-ment plans affecting 11 million acres that openedvast portions of southern Utah to off-road vehicles

and energy development. They have denied legalauthority to establish and protect new wildernessstudy areas, authority that had been recognized andutilized by Republican and Democratic administra-tions until George Bush and Dick Cheney’sregime.

Lastly, on day one of his national listening tour tocreate “The Great Outdoors Initiative,” SecretarySalazar disavowed America’s Red Rock WildernessAct that would protect over 9 million acres ofUtah’s wildlands. This act is now before Congress.It has over 160 sponsors in both the House and theSenate, led by Rep. Maurice Hinchey and Sen.Richard Durbin. Secretary Salazar said, “I do notplan on making any wilderness or monument with-out local support. . . . America’s Red RockWilderness Act is the wrong way to go. . . . I preferthe county by county approach.”

In a few short hours in Salt Lake City, Utah,Secretary Salazar blew new life into the SagebrushRebellion of the 1970’s. Why now would countycommissioners even come to the table to talk toconservationists about a collaborative approach towilderness? The power has just been given over tothem. Without local control, there will be nowilderness or any monument designation. SecretarySalazar may have forgotten that while local support

I want to support Secretary Salazar. I want to believe in his intentions to create abroad based constituency for America’s Treasured Landscapes. But listening to onlythe radical right and compromising the core values inherent in public lands is not asign of strength but weakness when it comes to visionary leadership.

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this country managed to fight off, bad public landspolicies initiated within George W. Bush’s adminis-tration, Secretary Salazar gave away all by himself.If this is the kind of public lands policy that isbeing established by our own “progressive” admin-istration, friendly to environmental concerns, we arein trouble. If I was a grizzly bear or coyote or aUtah prairie dog, I would take cover. The onlyunity I see in Salazar’s vision of community isretreat from protection of our public lands.

And now, the man with the white hat is up to hisknees in Louisiana trying to clean up the oil spill inthe Gulf of Mexico, as brown pelicans drenched inblack crude are unable to fly.

is important, these are not just Utah’s lands, theseare America’s lands.

One of the environmental activists at the gatheringwith Secretary Salazar said, “I was spoken at, notspoken to. So much for a listening tour.”

This saddens me. I want to support SecretarySalazar. I want to believe in his intentions to createa broad based constituency for America’s TreasuredLandscapes. But listening to only the radical rightand compromising the core values inherent in publiclands is not a sign of strength but weakness when itcomes to visionary leadership. It is a short-termhand-off to a vocal few at the expense of both theland and its rightful stewards, all American citizensfor whom wilderness is a deeply held value, as weheard at the first conservation gathering at the WhiteHouse in the 21st century.

There is much talk in the American West about “theradical center.” And this is where I saw SecretarySalazar taking his stand. In theory, it sounds good,but how it plays out on the land is another story.How sad that what the conservation community in

Terry Tempest Williams is a writer living in CastleValley, Utah, and is on the SUWA Board ofDirectors. Her most recent book is “FindingBeauty in a Broken World.” This article appears inan abridged form, originally published in TheProgressive, June, 2010. Reprinted with permis-sion from the author.

Even though the Bush Administration left Washington over a year ago, one of its most destructivepublic lands policies remains on the books: the tactic of opening wilderness-quality lands to min-ing, drilling, and off-road vehicles.

Because this policy lives on, spectacular Western landscapes like Utah's redrock canyon countryand Colorado's Vermillion Basin could be despoiled for the benefit of a few private companies.

. . . We could be the generation that decides to protect places like the Valley of the Gods in Utah.Locals call it a quieter Monument Valley because you can enjoy its equally beautiful redrock mono-liths far from the crowds and tour buses. But with the "No New Wilderness" policy still in effect,loud generators or noisy natural gas compressor stations could move in and shatter that stillness.

To protect places like the Valley of the Gods, we must return to the more balanced approach thatguided previous administrations.

This doesn't mean companies will be locked out of public lands. On the contrary, the vast majorityof our lands remain open to oil and gas drilling. But none of the development should occur inwilderness-quality lands.

Join me in asking Interior Secretary Salazar to issue a Secretarial Order to preserve wilderness-quality lands while they are being considered for permanent preservation.

—Excerpted from a guest column by Robert Redford on DenverPost.com, May 26, 2010.

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Richard Durbin Is Senate’sLeading Redrock ChampionSen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) first brought the pro-tection of Utah wilderness to the floor of the UnitedStates Senate in May of 1997, when he introducedAmerica’s Red Rock Wilderness Act. He has beenthe Senate’s most stalwart supporter of this nationaltreasure ever since.

Sen. Durbin did not undertake this commitmentlightly. From the beginning, he was clear that suc-cess would require a long-term investment. Like themany thousands of Utah wilderness advocatesacross the country, he has remained true to his word.

In the early days, Sen. Durbin engaged withIllinoisans who have redrock in their hearts.Thousands asked him to step forward and a halfdozen meetings with the senator provided opportu-nities for conversation. Organizations such as theIllinois Task Force for Utah Wilderness and theSierra Club’s Illinois Chapter have been and remainactively engaged. After a week visiting the land,talking with Bureau of Land Management staff, andmeeting with Utahns who asked that he lead theway, Sen. Durbin became convinced that protectingthese special places was in America’s interest.

This year, 13 years since Sen. Durbin first intro-duced it, America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act hasattracted 22 Senate cosponsors—a record. Sen.Durbin’s leadership has not only drawn his col-leagues to support the bill, it has brought wildernessopponents to the table. He was instrumental inreshaping the Washington County Growth andConservation Act by insisting that the measureproperly reflect the nation’s conservation values.His intervention made the bill one we could cele-brate. And he is ready to do so again, if necessary.His close relationship with President Obama willremain vital to the job of undoing the damagingpolicies of President Bush.

Americans in Utah, Illinois, and across the land aregrateful to Sen. Durbin for embracing the redrock.We count on his leadership for years to come. Andwe thank him sincerely!

—Clayton Daughenbaugh

Congressional Support forARRWAContinues to GrowNine members of the House of Representativeshave cosponsored America’s Red Rock WildernessAct this spring, bringing the total of House cospon-sors to 165—just 3 shy of another record—showingthat support for redrock wilderness continues togrow in Congress. (See www.suwa.org/ARRWA.)

Reps Judy Chu (D-CA), Doris Matsui (D-CA), JohnGaramendi (D-CA), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX,),Edolphus Towns (D- NY), Joe Crowley (D-NY),Tim Bishop (D-NY), Ted Deutch (D-FL) and AlanGrayson (D- FL) have all cosponsored the bill thatwould protect 9.5 million acres of deserving Bureauof Land Management lands in Utah as wilderness.Reps. Towns, Matsui, Bishop, Crowley and JacksonLee have supported the bill in the past. Reps.Grayson, Garamendi, Deutch and Chu are all first-time cosponsors.

If you live in any of these representatives’ districts,please write to thank your House member forcosponsoring America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act.Their support is critital to the work ahead.

—Hannah Smith, DC Intern

Sen. Richard Durbin (far left) stands with SUWA organizer ClaytonDaughenbaugh, Utah wilderness activist Joshua Houdek, and then-SenatorBarack Obama during Wilderness Week 2007 in Washington, DC.

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Write to:Nancy Sutley, Chair

Council on Environmental Quality722 Jackson Place, N.W.Washington, DC 20503Email: chair@ceq.eop.gov

Help Us Build Congressional Support forAmerica’s Red Rock Wilderness Act!

Write Your Legislators at:

even as it continues to approve oil and gas drilling,off-road vehicle events and other activities.

As we wrote to the CEQ, “BLM’s neglect of theclimate issue in its [plans] is confounding given thatthe affects of climate change on the ColoradoPlateau are expected to be sweeping and significant.They include shrinking water resources; drought;dust-covered snowpack causing earlier, fastersnowmelt; invasion of more flammable non-nativeplant species; insect outbreaks; soil erosion; loss ofwildlife habitat; and larger, hotter wildfires.” TheBLM needs to understand and address the issue.That’s obvious. But it repeatedly fails to do thework.

This all leads us to conclude that a bigger hammeris called for. The CEQ should clearly include landuse planning and other significant decisions by theBLM when it releases its new regulations. Pleasewrite Council Chair Nancy Sutley and tell her so.

—Heidi McIntosh

No Change at BLM onClimate, YetThis spring, President Obama’s Council onEnvironmental Quality (CEQ) announced that itwould draft new regulations addressing how federalagencies should address climate change in theirdecision making. That’s good news. But the CEQindicated that the new regulations would notaddress land use planning on public lands. That’sbad news, because the Bureau of Land Management(BLM) certainly needs a serious nudge in the rightdirection.

In 2001, then-Interior Secretary Bruce Babbittissued Secretarial Order 3226 which required landmanagers to “consider and analyze potential climatechange impacts when undertaking long-range plan-ning exercises.” The Bush administration didn’trevoke the order, but didn’t follow it either. Noneof the six Utah land use plans the BLM issued atthe end of the Bush administration had an analysisof climate change, its impacts on public lands, orsensitive management responses.

A year and a half into the Obama administration,with its oft-stated commitment to addressingclimate change, not a lot has changed. InteriorSecretary Ken Salazar reaffirmed the Babbitt sec-retarial order and issued his own last September.But the BLM land use plans remain unchanged,the agency’s head deep in the sand on the issue

The Honorable [Representative’s name]United States House of Representatives

Washington, DC 20515

The Honorable [Senator’s name]United States SenateWashington, DC 20510

You can also call your legislators at (202) 224-3121 (ask to be connected to the appropriateoffice) or send an email from our website at: www.suwa.org/SponsorARRWA

See next page for a list of current cosponsors

Allyson Schwartz, D-13Mike Doyle, D-14

Puerto RicoPedro Pierluisi, D-PR

Rhode IslandPatrick Kennedy, D-01James Langevin, D-02

South CarolinaJohn Spratt, D-05

TennesseeSteve Cohen, D-09

TexasAl Green, D-09Sheila Jackson-Lee, D-18Charlie Gonzalez, D-20Lloyd Doggett, D-25Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-30

VermontPeter Welch, D-VT

VirginiaJim Moran, D-08Gerry Connolly, D-11

Virgin IslandsDonna Christensen, D-VI

WashingtonJay Inslee, D-01Rick Larsen, D-02Brian Baird, D-03Norm Dicks, D-06Jim McDermott, D-07Adam Smith, D-09

WisconsinTammy Baldwin, D-02Gwen Moore, D-04

S. 799, Sponsored bySen. Richard Durbin22 Senate Cosponsors

Barbara Boxer, D-CAMark Udall, D-COMichael Bennet, D-COJoseph Lieberman, D-CTTed Kaufman, D-DERichard Durbin, D-ILRoland Burris, D-ILTom Harkin, D-IABenjamin Cardin, D-MDEdward Kennedy, D-MAJohn Kerry, D-MADeborah Stabenow, D-MIFrank Lautenberg, D-NJRobert Menendez, D-NJKristen Gillibrand, D-NYChuck Schumer, D-NYJeff Merkley, D-ORJack Reed, D-RISheldon Whitehouse, D-RIPatrick Leahy, D-VTBernie Sanders, D-VTMaria Cantwell, D-WARussell Feingold, D-WI

H.R. 1925, Sponsored byRep. Maurice Hinchey165 House Cosponsors

ArizonaRaul Grijalva, D-07

CaliforniaMike Thompson, D-01Doris Matsui, D-05Lynn Woolsey, D-06George Miller, D-07Barbara Lee, D-09John Garamendi, D-10Jerry McNerney, D-11Jackie Speier, D-12Pete Stark, D-13Anna Eshoo, D-14Mike Honda, D-15Zoe Lofgren, D-16Sam Farr, D-17Lois Capps, D-23Brad Sherman, D-27Howard Berman, D-28Adam Schiff, D-29Henry Waxman, D-30Judy Chu, D-32Lucille Roybal-Allard, D-34Jane Harman, D-36Laura Richardson, D-37Grace Napolitano, D-38Loretta Sanchez, D-47Bob Filner, D-51Susan Davis, D-53

ColoradoDiana DeGette, D-01Jared Polis, D-02

ConnecticutJohn Larson, D-01Joe Courtney, D-02Rosa DeLauro, D-03Jim Himes, D-04Chris Murphy, D-05

District of ColumbiaEleanor Holmes Norton, D-DC

FloridaCorrine Brown, D-03Alan Grayson, D-08Kendrick Meek, D-17Ted Deutch, D-19Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, D-20Alcee Hastings, D-23

GeorgiaHank Johnson, D-04John Lewis, D-05John Barrow, D-12David Scott, D-13

HawaiiMazie Hirono, D-02

IllinoisBobby Rush, D-01Jesse Jackson, Jr, D-02Dan Lipinski, D-03Luis Gutierrez, D-04Mike Quigley, D-05

New HampshireCarol Shea-Porter, D-01Paul Hodes, D-02

New JerseyRob Andrews, D-01Frank LoBiondo, R-02John Adler, D-03Chris Smith, R-04Frank Pallone, D-06Leonard Lance, R-07Bill Pascrell, D-08Steven Rothman, D-09Donald Payne, D-10Rush Holt, D-12Albio Sires, D-13

New MexicoMartin Heinrich, D-01

New YorkTim Bishop, D-01Steve Israel, D-02Gary Ackerman, D-05Joseph Crowley, D-07Jerrold Nadler, D-08Anthony Weiner, D-09Edolphus Towns, D-10Nydia Velazquez, D-12Carolyn Maloney, D-14Charlie Rangel, D-15Jose Serrano, D-16Eliot Engel, D-17Nita Lowey, D-18John Hall, D-19Paul Tonko, D-21Maurice Hinchey, D-22Dan Maffei, D-25Brian Higgins, D-27Louise McIntosh Slaughter, D-28Eric Massa, D-29

North CarolinaDavid Price, D-04Melvin Watt, D-12Brad Miller, D-13

OhioMarcy Kaptur, D-09Dennis Kucinich, D-10Betty Sutton, D-13Tim Ryan, D-17

OregonDavid Wu, D-01Earl Blumenauer, D-03Peter DeFazio, D-04

PennsylvaniaRobert Brady, D-01Chaka Fattah, D-02Joe Sestak, D-07Patrick Murphy, D-08

Danny Davis, D-07Jan Schakowsky, D-09Mark Kirk, R-10Debbie Halvorson, D-11Jerry Costello, D-12Judy Biggert, R-13Tim Johnson, R-15Phil Hare, D-17

IndianaAndre Carson, D-07Baron Hill, D-09

IowaBruce Braley, D-01Dave Loebsack, D-02Leonard Boswell, D-03

KentuckyJohn Yarmuth, D-03Ben Chandler, D-06

MaineChellie Pingree, D-01Michael Michaud, D-02

Mariana IslandsGregorio Sablan, I-MP

MarylandDonna Edwards, D-04Elijah Cummings, D-07

MassachusettsJohn Olver, D-01Richard Neal, D-02Jim McGovern, D-03Barney Frank, D-04Niki Tsongas, D-05John Tierney, D-06Ed Markey, D-07Mike Capuano, D-08Stephen Lynch, D-09Bill Delahunt, D-10

MichiganVernon Ehlers, R-03Dale Kildee, D-05Gary Peters, D-09Sander Levin, D-12Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, D-13John Conyers, D-14

MinnesotaTim Walz, D-01Betty McCollum, D-04Keith Ellison, D-05Collin Peterson, D-07

MissouriWilliam Lacy Clay, D-01Emanuel Cleaver, D-05

NevadaShelley Berkley, D-01

America’s Red Rock Wilderness ActCosponsors in the 111th Congress

(as of June 18, 2010)

c a n y o n c o u n t r y u p d a t e s

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The passage of wilderness legislation for the Zion-Mojave region of Washington County sparked inter-est among a number of county leaders across Utah todevelop their own land bills to, as they invariably putit, “resolve the wilderness issue” in their counties.

SUWAwill never ignore an opportunity to protectwilderness, so we enthusiastically engaged in wilder-ness processes in Emery, San Juan, Beaver and Piutecounties. We were optimistic, if guardedly so, thatperhaps one or two would result in legislation thatincreases protections for the redrock country.

Beaver and Piute CountiesThe first of these country-driven processes to emergewas in adjacent Beaver and Piute counties. Thesecounties span the West Desert’s basin and rangecountry from the Nevada border eastward for 200miles. Wilderness in the two counties is not just theBLM land SUWA usually works to protect, butincludes some of the most scenic unprotected ForestService lands in the state, among them the Tusharand Monroe Mountains.

We had productive meetings over the past year withcounty commissioners, Utah congressional delega-tion staff, and our partners in the Utah conservationcommunity. Field trips into this unusual and some-what lesser-known wilderness landscape taught usall a good deal.

We made some progress. But the county avoideddirect negotiations with the Utah WildernessCoalition (of which SUWA is a part) over any des-ignations. We believe that was a mistake. Withoutnegotiations and agreement with conservationists,none of these county or regional bills has any hopeof resolving the wilderness issue as counties soeagerly seek to do. The Washington County wilder-ness bill ought to have taught us all that much. Thatlegislation reflected no such agreement with theUtah Wilderness Coalition. As a result, the wilder-ness question there is far from settled.

Beaver and Piute County residents learned of thecommissioners’ plan only days before legislationwas to have been introduced. That provoked the

County-by-County Wilderness Efforts Hit Tough Sledding

SUWA Field Advocate Brooke Williams listens to a member of the Emery County Public Lands Council during a fieldtrip to the Mexican Mountain proposed wilderness.

© Ray Bloxham/SUWA

Summer 2010 Page 13

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typical anti-wilderness fulminations. But it alsoincited outrage over what some citizens called“secret meetings.” Stung, the county commission-ers withdrew their proposal almost immediately.They now say they have shelved the effort for atleast a year.

San Juan CountyIn March, Sen. Robert Bennett announced that hewould convene a process to determine the future ofpublic lands in San Juan County, home of some ofthe state’s most important wilderness, includingCedar Mesa with its splendid canyons and archaeo-logical treasures.

Bennett asked SUWA and other interested parties tosubmit a prioritized list of areas they think areimportant to protect. The process the senator laid outwould include a series of meetings in Monticello,Utah, and several field trips to disputed areas. InApril, Bennett’s staff began facilitated discussionsdealing with five different regions of the county. Wewere there, along with other conservationists, federalland managers and county representatives.

From the beginning, we were concerned about thehasty nature of the process. We feared that manyimportant decisions had already been made, reducingthe public part of the process to window dressing.

Sen. Bennett’s surprise defeat at the UtahRepublican Convention in early May puts the futureof the San Juan County effort in doubt. There areseveral possibilities. Bennett may decide to drop theprocess in order to focus on other issues for theremainder of his term. He might use the informa-tion he already has and move forward with legisla-tion, hoping to create a legacy. Or, he could chooseto hand off the process to another member of theUtah delegation. The latter route might offer thebest chance of sufficient time to craft a thorough andresponsible public lands bill for the county.

Despite some misgivings, SUWA has taken the SanJuan County effort very seriously and hopes to seeit through to a wilderness bill we can support. Butif an unacceptable bill is rushed to introduction, wewill be ready to act.

Emery CountyEmery County officials have been working on theirpublic lands legislation for over a year, and SUWA

has been present at monthly meetings of the coun-ty’s Public Lands Council. Six months ago, webegan touring areas where county concerns seemedto conflict with America’s Red Rock WildernessAct.

For a time, we all believed we were makingprogress. As we walked the land together, we gen-erated ideas for improving wilderness legislationthat neither side alone might have envisioned. Butlast summer, the county began holding public meet-ings on a lands bill, meetings that soon demonstrat-ed just how difficult the process would be.

SUWA offered to pay half the cost of hiring afacilitator to help us move toward resolution. Ouroffer produced a huge outcry from the off-roadvehicle community, which accused county com-missioners of dealing with SUWA behind closeddoors.

The Emery County commissioners have decided toprepare their own proposal as a next step. We havelet them know that we remain interested in dis-cussing any differences between their proposal andours once they have completed it.

—Brooke Williams and Richard Peterson-Cremer

Success in Nine MileCanyon Lawsuit

We are happy to report a recent victory on the legalfront. At the end of March, SUWA—with the NineMile Canyon Coalition and The WildernessSociety—settled a lawsuit with the Bureau of LandManagement (BLM) related to natural gas develop-ment that was impacting Utah’s incomparable NineMile Canyon. The area is well-known for its innu-merable cultural artifacts, including what the BLMitself describes as the “greatest abundance of well-preserved rock art” in the West.

This lawsuit originated in 2008 as a challenge tothe BLM’s approval of thirty oil and gas wells inthe Nine Mile Canyon region. The lawsuit allegedthat the BLM failed to analyze the environmentalimpacts of this development on rock art in NineMile Canyon from dust created by truck trips, andthe impacts on air quality. The BLM relied

GoodNews!

(Continued on page 16)

CCoonnggrraattuullaattiioonnss ttoo OOuurr ““WWiilldd AAbboout Utah” Photo Contest Winners!

Category: People’s Choice/Most Creative

Category: Best in UtahBy design, our bright yellow“Protect Wild Utah” buttons and

stickers are easy to spot from faraway. In the spring newsletter, we asked

you, our members and activists, to show us where youhave displayed your passion for protecting Utah wilder-ness or where you have found a “Protect Wild Utah”button or sticker during your travels for a chance to winsome fantastic prizes. We received entries from aroundUtah, throughout the United States, and from places onfive different continents. Thank you to all who enteredand to our prize donors, Ultralight AdventureEquipment, Black Diamond Equipment, and Joby!

Dance Hall Rock, Grand Staircase-Escalante NationalMonument, UT. Entry by David Mowry.

Historic Pioneer Lodge, Springdale, UT. Entry by Greta Hyland.

Meadow, UT. Entry by James Ruda.

Four Corners Monument. Entry by Vicki Allen.

PPeeooppllee’’ss CChhooiiccee FFiinnaalliissttss::Bruce Taterka, Chris Schiller, Eric Kuhn, Dave Rubin,Heather Carter-Young, James Ruda, Sarah Grant, GaryWarren, Greta Hyland.

Congratulations to Our “Wild Abboouutt UUttaahh”” PPhhoottoo CCoonntteesstt WWiinnnneerrss!!

Category: Furthest from Utah

SUWA would like to express its sincere appreciation to each of our “Wild About Utah” photo contest prize donors. Inparticular, thank you to Black Diamond Equipment for contributing their Sphynx backpacks, Demon Duffel backpacks andCosmo headlamps; to Ultralight Adventure Equipment for their gift of a prizewinner-selected ultralight backpack; and to Joby,for their donation of Gorillatorches for our People’s Choice finalists. Our staff and board, supporters, and contest prize win-ners all appreciate your support for Utah wilderness!

Wangdue Dzong, in Wangdue, Bhutan. Entry by Dave Rubin.

Adelaide, Australia. Entry by Julio Cesar Facelli.

Portala dining hall, Danaque, Nepal. Entry by Mike andJean Binyon.

To view all the contest entries, visitwww.suwa.org/photocontestentries.

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improperly on a categorical exclusion—somethinglike a free pass not to prepare an environmentalanalysis or environmental impact statement. TheCongress created these categorical exclusions inthe Energy Policy Act of 2005, but never intendedthem to be applied in special cases. And Nine MileCanyon is a special case, indeed.

Realizing its error, the BLM settled the case. Inexchange for SUWA dropping its claims, the BLMnot only agreed to stop issuing these categoricalexclusions improperly in Nine Mile Canyon, italso promised to change national policy, amongother things. This new national policy restorescategorical exclusions to the role the Congressintended. They are not to be used in special cases(or “extraordinary circumstances” in the parlanceof BLM).

This settlement helps protect an area frequentlyreferred to as “the world’s longest art gallery.”Furthermore, it helps ensure that other specialplaces the BLM manages throughout the UnitedStates will not be imperiled by a similar threat fromimproperly issued categorical exclusions.

—David Garbett

New Utah BLM StateDirector Chosen

Finally! Nearly 18 months after President Obamatook office and Ken Salazar was installed as hisInterior Secretary, Utah State Director Selma Sierrahas been “reassigned” to head the Bureau of LandManagement’s (BLM) Eastern States office. Thisannouncement has been a long time coming and is awelcome one to supporters of America’s Red RockWilderness Act.

In her nearly four years at the helm in Utah, Sierraeffectively carried out the Bush administration’smission to prioritize oil and gas development andoff-road vehicle use over all other uses of the pub-lic lands. Her most damning legacy is withoutquestion the completion of six devastatingly unbal-anced resource management plans and off-roadvehicle travel plans. These plans, rushed to com-pletion in October and November 2008, attempted

to cement the Bush legacy for decades to come.We are now litigating three of these plans andintend to challenge all six eventually. They simplydo not reflect Congress’s mandate that BLM man-age the public lands for a variety of uses, includingwilderness and the protection of cultural resourcesand wildlife.

Sierra was also responsible for the Utah BLM’s“Christmas/We’re Going Out of Business” oil andgas lease sale in December 2008. This sale drewnationwide attention and rebuke for its attempt toauction off leases on the doorstep of national parks,amazing wilderness and culturally significant areas,all over the objections of the National Park Serviceand others. The upside of that particular debacle isthat agency reports following the sale provided thefoundation for Secretary Salazar’s onshore oil andgas leasing reforms that—if implemented—willprovide a more balanced approach to how theagency sells leases. Throughout it all, Sierra wasunrepentant and insisted she had done nothingwrong.

Finally, Sierra was the darling of state and countyofficials. She considered them her ‘partners’ in landmanagement, along with the oil and gas industry andoff-road vehicle enthusiasts. Sierra met early andoften with these interests, though rarely with us orother conservation organizations. State and localpoliticians have praised Sierra and now wring theirhands over the likelihood that (for now) they havelost their insider access at the BLM state office.

Replacing Sierra is Juan Palma, a land managerhailing from Nevada and Oregon. Palma hasserved as field office manager of BLM’s Las Vegasand Vale, Oregon, offices, as well as executivedirector of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency.Most recently, Palma served as the BLM’s EasternStates Director. He also attended Brigham YoungUniversity and has family in Utah.

We look forward to meeting and working with Palmato tackle some of the state’s most pressing publicland issues, including: reigning in off-road vehicleuse, actively addressing climate change and, mostbroadly, bringing balance back to how public landsare managed in Utah. This is a tall order but thelands that we are working to protect demand no lessthan a full court press throughout Palma’s tenure.

—Steve Bloch

(Continued from page 13)

GoodNews!

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Fight against Coal MineOutside Bryce CanyonNational Park Ramps UpIn our last newsletter, we told you a familiar storyabout how bad ideas never seem to disappear. Inthis case, the bad idea is particularly rotten: openinga coal strip mine just 10 miles outside of BryceCanyon National Park.

SUWA, the Utah Chapter of the Sierra Club, theNatural Resources Defense Council, and theNational Parks Conservation Association are tryingto kill the idea for good. After the state grantedAlton Coal Development LLC a permit to mine thearea last November, we filed a petition to block themine. We are now engaged in litigation before theUtah Board of Oil, Gas and Mining. An appeal tothe Utah Supreme Court is likely.

The mining operations would have disastrous effectsin southwestern Utah. The mine and associated trucktraffic would degrade the air quality and pristinenight skies around Bryce Canyon. They wouldlaunch a stream of coal trucks—one every five min-utes—along State Highway 89 through the historictown of Panguitch. Some area residents wisely fearfor their health and livelihoods. “Ninety-five per-cent of my customers are tourists and I don’t wantthe truck traffic to drive them away or the mine topollute the clean air and water we enjoy here,” saysBobbi Bryant, a small business owner.

The existing proposal is to mine privately-ownedcoal on private land. That may be just the begin-ning: the Bureau of Land Management is analyzinganother proposal by Alton Coal to lease a muchlarger area of surrounding public land for develop-ment, compounding the environmental and humanimpacts and further contributing to climate change.

There is one more official opportunity for you toexpress your opinion about the proposed mine. TheUtah Division of Air Quality is evaluating the coalcompany’s air pollution permit now and we’ll let youknow when the public comment period opens. Atwww.suwa.org, we’ll also keep you updated on thelitigation, the proposal to expand mining onto BLMland, and how you can make your voice heard.

—Tiffany Bartz

© Tiffany Bartz/SUWA

Expert hydrologist, Elliott Lips, examines a stretch of Lower Robinson Creek.Alton Coal Development proposes to re-route a portion of this creek to conduct itscoal strip mining operation.

RS 2477 Update: The KaneCounty Case Ad InfinitumIn early May, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals inDenver heard oral arguments—again—in the casewe brought against Utah’s Kane County to put astop to its RS 2477 shenanigans.

You’ll recall that in 2003, Kane County officialsripped out signs the Bureau of Land Management(BLM) had posted in the Grand Staircase-EscalanteNational Monument to keep off-road vehicles(ORVs) out of sensitive areas. Later, the countyposted its own signs inviting ORV use in the sameplaces BLM had banned it, and then for goodmeasure passed a county ordinance that allowedORVs to roam on the county’s spider web ofclaimed RS 2477 routes. We’re talking faint tracksand paths here, not formal trails or roads. TheBLM sat on its hands and did nothing but write acouple of stern-ish letters.

So we joined forces with The Wilderness Societyand Earthjustice and sued the county, arguing thatfederal law trumps local ordinances on federal pub-

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Deadline Looms for Comments onWashington County Wilderness, NCAPlansJust over a year ago the Congress passed legislation to protectprecious public lands in Washington County as wilderness andNational Conservation Areas. The measure was a huge steptoward protecting the sensitive and spectacular Mojave Desert inUtah, a place of mystical Joshua trees and threatened desert tor-toises. But it was just the first step.

Now the BLM is developing a plan to manage these places—some of the very first BLM-managed wilderness areas andNational Conservation Areas (NCAs) in the state—and you canhelp ensure that the agency does the job right.

It is crucial that the BLM’s off-road vehicle travel plans, wilderness plans, and NCA plans actu-ally protect the extraordinary places and resources that the legislation intended to preserve.Beyond the new wilderness areas and NCAs, there remain other lands proposed for wilderness inAmerica’s Red Rock Wilderness Act that have yet to receive the legislative protection theydeserve. How they are managed today will determine whether they remain candidates for wilder-ness designation in the years to come.

We need your help to make sure that these plans reduce the miles of designated off-road vehicleroutes, restrict development, and otherwise do what they need to do. But time is short! We urgeyou to submit your written comments to the agency by July 19, 2010.

If the BLM’s St. George field office crafts strong plans worthy of the lands and resources theagency is charged with protecting, it will set an important precedent for BLM offices throughoutthe state as more wilderness bills become law. Let’s make it happen!

To learn more about the planning processes, visit: www.blm.gov/ut/st/en/fo/st__george.html. Asample comment letter will be posted at www.suwa.org.

lic lands. (We’re hearing a lot in this election yearabout what the “Founding Fathers” wanted for thiscountry. Well, they were pretty clear about this one:Federal law trumps local ordinances. It’s part of theSupremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution.)

A federal judge sitting in Salt Lake City ruled in ourfavor. After Kane County appealed the decision, theusual three-judge panel also ruled in our favor.Undeterred, the county convinced the full 12-judgeappellate court to hear the case, which it did in May. With 12 judges of every stripe on the bench firingquestions at counsel, it was hard to discern a com-

mon theme or direction. Suffice it to say, a varietyof opinions were represented on the court. Somejudges were concerned about RS 2477 law, andsome were concerned about whether we conserva-tionists were the right parties to bring the suit.

It could take some time before the court issues anopinion. We’ll keep you posted. Many thanks toco-counsel Jim Angell, Ted Zukoski and McChristieAdams at Earthjustice for the countless hours ofwork they put into this case.

—Heidi McIntosh

© Scott T. Smith

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Midway through the event, State Rep. Mike Noel—well-known for his vocal antipathy toward wilder-ness protection—bustled down the stairs from theHouse of Representatives to watch. After the pres-entation he approached the members of the diversefaith communities and they had a lively, but respect-ful, exchange.

The event, covered by an array of media, sent apowerful message and reflects the impact that peo-ple of faith can have when they translate a sharedbelief into action.

The event at the capitol was an outgrowth of theFaith and the Land Project’s development of an inter-faith statement on the importance of Utah’s wildlands. The statement was distilled from conversa-tions about the relationship between spirituality andwilderness within each of the participating faithcommunities. It demonstrates that even though par-ticipants’ religious practices vary, they stand on com-mon ground with respect for the care of creation.

To see photos and media coverage of the “Call forWilderness Stewardship” event at the capitol, go to:www.suwa.org/faithandtheland.

Utahns from 11 different faith traditions stoodtogether in the rotunda of the Utah State Capitolduring this year’s legislative session and called onstate lawmakers to recognize the spiritual impor-tance of Utah wilderness and to support its mean-ingful protection.

Present were members of the Roman Catholic,Episcopal, Islamic, Jewish, Latter-day Saint,Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, Quaker,Unitarian Universalist and United Church of Christfaith communities. This event marks the first timeUtah’s diverse faith communities have ever con-verged on the Utah Legislature to advocate for pro-tection of Utah’s wild land heritage.

Reinforcing the speakers’ call was an exhibit of 24posters featuring over 250 handwritten personalstatements about why Utah’s wild lands are impor-tant spiritually. The personal statements and postersfeatured pictures of Utah’s wild lands. Utah faithcommunities created them last fall and winter at“Wilderness Stewardship Days” events. The recur-ring theme is that Utah’s wild lands are places ofprofound spiritual importance to people of manydifferent faith traditions and deserve protection.

People of Faith Urge State Lawmakers to Protect Wild Places

Utahns from 11 different faith traditions call on state lawmakers to support the protection of Utah wilderness. © Terri Martin/SUWA

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SUWA Welcomes NewMembership CoordinatorThe newest addition to SUWA’s fundraising team isKathlene Audette (Kat for short), who hit theground running as our membership coordinator.She has already impressed us with her precision andaffinity for detail, her quick mastery of our compli-cated membership database, and her personal touch.

Before coming to SUWA, Kathlene’s experience inmedia and fundraising took her to an AmeriCorpsVISTA position with Wasatch Community Gardens,a local nonprofit for which she still volunteers. It’sour good fortune that AmeriCorps positions lastonly a year because she was looking for a new jobwhen the SUWA position became available. Shehad a leg up on the competition as she had alreadyproven to be a stellar volunteer, helping tremen-dously with our Faith and the Land project.

When she’s not relaxing with her two cats, Drewand Ollie, Kathlene enjoys getting outside as muchas possible to explore and photograph Utah’s mag-nificent redrock landscapes (especially areas suchas Valley of the Gods in San Juan County). Shealso loves gardening and cooking and is an accom-plished knitter.

Please stop by and say hello to Kathlene whenyou’re in our Salt Lake City neighborhood. And ifyou have any questions about your membership,don’t hesitate to contact her at (801) 236-3763 orkathlene@suwa.org.

Utahn Joins SUWA’s DCTeamJen Beasley, our new legislative advocate, brings along familiarity with the redrock to our Washington,DC shop: she was raised in Ogden and graduatedfrom Utah State University, where she studied jour-nalism.

Jen came to Washington to pursue her journalismcareer, but after writing for local media outlets, shedecided she wanted to work in a field where shecould make more of a difference. As someone wholoves hiking and being outdoors, and who has trav-eled through Utah’s redrock country as a child onfamily trips and in her college years, she was drawnto SUWA. She replaces Scott Braden, who is nowSUWA’s associate director in Salt Lake City.

Jen‘s journalism background and solid writing skillshave already proven valuable to our advocacy work.She has used them to report on congressional hear-

Membership Coordinator Kathlene Audette can’t getenough of Utah’s redrock country.

Ogden girl Jen Beasley fights for Utah wilderness fromSUWA’s DC office.

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ings and other DC events. Already, she has helpedus move even closer to reaching a record number ofHouse cosponsors for America’s Red RockWilderness Act and has delivered breaking news onour “Redrock Headlines” blog.

Jen’s initiation into SUWA came at a staff retreatthat involved intense winds at a sandy campground,hail and snow while floating down the Colorado,and standing in the pouring rain at night around thecampfire—a rousing welcome to our organization.We are glad to have her with us.

Mathew Gross Is SUWA’sNew Media DirectorMatt Gross is the newest addition to our Moaboffice. As media director, he will oversee a newUtah media campaign that SUWA will launch in thefall.

A member of SUWA since 1996, Matt is creditedwith revolutionizing presidential politics when helaunched the first presidential campaign blog forVermont Gov. Howard Dean.

As director of internet communications for theDean campaign, Matt helped to develop and imple-ment the online strategy that raised more than $25million online and built Blog for America into oneof the top blogs in the world, attracting more than100,000 readers per day at the height of the primaryseason.

Since the Dean campaign, Matt has served as apolitical and internet consultant for a wide rangeof candidates and nonprofit organizations, includ-ing UNICEF and American Rivers. In 2006, hehelped strengthen SUWA’s campaign to winwilderness designation in Utah’s WashingtonCounty. Also in 2006, he served as chief onlinestrategist for John Tester’s successful primary andgeneral election campaigns for the U.S. Senateseat in Montana.

With the kind of knowledge and experience thatmake him as comfortable in cyberspace as he is inthe great outdoors, Matt is the perfect person toexpand SUWA’s media presence and help us protectmore wilderness. We’re thrilled to have him onboard!

Thanks to Legal Interns GregOsborne and Jason HardyWe could not begin to meet the challenge ofdefending the redrock without the wonderful suc-cession of interns who have come to SUWA. Wewant to thank two recent ones: legal interns GregOsborne and Jason Hardy, both of whom made sig-nificant contributions to our work.

Last spring, Greg—who grew up in CottonwoodHeights, Utah—interned with the legal team for thesecond time. Among other things, he helped trackdown values for oil and gas leases, prepare docu-ments for our San Juan County meetings, andresearch deforestation projects. Greg is committedto protecting the redrock. He is also engaging andjovial, and his presence in our Salt Lake City officewas a boost for all of us. A 2009 graduate of theUniversity of Utah in Environmental Studies, heenjoys climbing, snowboarding (at which he isaccomplished enough to have appeared in videos),backpacking, and fly fishing. He will start his firstyear at the Duke University School of Law this fall.

We also had the good fortune of working withJason, who is from Salt Lake City. He got a crashcourse in the potential effects of greenhouse gasemissions from Bureau of Land Management

Matt Gross is excited to put his years of outreach experience to work for theUtah landscapes he loves.

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(BLM) deforestation projects. His research on thesubject resulted in excellent comments SUWA sub-mitted on several deforestation projects in theBLM’s Vernal district. Jason also provided helpfulresearch on a number of other topics. We appreci-ated his enthusiasm for this work and his passionfor protecting the environment. His undergraduatedegree is from the University of Utah and he gradu-ates this summer from the University ofWashington School of Law. He is interested inpotentially pursuing a career in environmental law.

We wish both of our legal interns the best of luck:Greg, that he will survive three years of law schooland Jason, that he will find fulfilling environmentalwork after graduation.

Emily Jencso: Another InternWho Made a DifferenceWe offer our thanks to Emily Jencso, the wonderfulspring 2010 intern who worked with our organizingand outreach team. Emily helped us with ourWomen Protecting Wilderness (WPW) project,working with WPW members to interview Utahwomen who are leaders in the arts, small business,faith, and political communities, regarding whatUtah’s wild lands mean to them.

She also assisted with our Faith and the Land proj-ect, helping to organize our “Call for WildernessStewardship” event at the State Capitol in February(see story on page 19). We wish Emily well andknow that her intelligence, good humor and passionfor wild places will serve her well in her chosenfield as an environmental educator. Thanks again,Emily!

Join Us for the SUWARoundup this FallMark your calendar for SUWA’s 2010 membershipgathering at Hidden Splendor, September 24-26.

Held in the heart of the San Rafael Swell, theSUWA Roundup offers our members and SUWAstaff the opportunity to meet one another and toenjoy the beautiful Indian summer of redrock coun-try with fellow desert rats from Utah and otherstates. Activities include a discussion of Utahwilderness issues with SUWA staff and board mem-bers, a potluck dinner, evening music around thecampfire, and—best of all—guided day hikes in ourMuddy Creek proposed wilderness area. Sundaymorning you’ll awake to freshly brewed coffee fol-lowed by a deluxe continental breakfast prepared bythe SUWA staff in thanks for all your support anddedication.

If you plan to attend this year’s Roundup, here’swhat you should bring: a potluck dish serving fivepeople for Saturday evening (if you plan to eat withthe group), your own food for Friday evening andSaturday breakfast and lunch, camping gear, plentyof drinking water (none is available on site), uten-sils, folding chairs, and, if you have them, lanternsand tables to share with the crowd. Feel free tobring your own musical instruments and favoritelibations, too.

For more information or to RSVP and sign up forSaturday’s guided hikes, contact Deeda Seed at(801) 428-3971 or deeda@suwa.org. Informationand driving instructions are posted at:www.suwa.org/roundup2010.

Jason Hardy Greg Osborne Emily Jencso (with Cooper)

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SUWA Welcomes Summer Legal ClerksUtah is home for Spencer Critchett and he returns for the summer after com-pleting his first year at the University of Michigan Law School. We arepleased to have him as an intern. A Utahn since he was six, he has taken fulladvantage of all our state has to offer. He looks forward to working withSUWA to help protect wild Utah, ensuring that othershave the same opportunity he had to experience thestate’s natural wonders.

Elise Aiken is excited to be working with SUWA thissummer after completing her second year at theUniversity of Colorado Law School. A Colorado

native, Elise is passionate about protecting public lands. Growing up, herfamily hiked and camped often in Utah. She is delighted to have thechance to help protect those lands for future generations. And we aredelighted to have her!

Planned Giving: A Legacy ofSupportSUWA has always valued the strength and commitment of ourgreatest asset: our members. The majority of our fundingcomes from individual supporters, many of whom have beenwith us since SUWA was founded in 1983. Year after year,SUWA members—people like you—have continued to puttheir hearts and financial resources into the effort to perma-nently protect America’s redrock wilderness.

A number of our supporters have made an enduring commit-ment to SUWA by including SUWA in their estate plans. Thistype of commitment, known as “planned giving,” refers to thedesignation of assets given upon death to a charitable organi-zation of one’s choice.

Legacy gifts from our members help to ensure sound financialfooting and stability as our work moves forward from one gen-eration to the next. Securing permanent protection for all of Utah’s remaining wilderness will take time andresources. Planned giving is an important part of this long-term financial picture.

For more information on planned giving, please visit our website at www.suwa.org and click on Join orGive, then select Planned Giving. Planned gifts can be a great vehicle to gain tax advantages for your estateand heirs. We recommend that you meet with your estate attorney or financial advisor to decide which planis best for you and your family.

If you are interested in making a planned gift to SUWA or have already included SUWA in your will ornamed our organization as a beneficiary of your trust, retirement plan, life insurance policy, or other estategift, please contact Scott Braden at braden@suwa.org or (801) 428-3970.

© Stephen Trimble

Spencer Critchett

Elise Aiken

Page 24 Redrock Wilderness

Platinum Business Members($5,000+)Backcountry.com, UTTreasure Mountain Inn, UT

Gold Business Members($1,000-$4,999)Black Diamond Equipment, UTInjoy Productions, COLaw Offices of Robert L. Miller, AZLlama, LLC, UTOsprey Packs, Inc, COPolar Equipment, CAStone Forest Inc, NM

Silver Business Members($500-$999)A Wanderlust Adventure, COBluehouse Ski Company, UTCommunity Builders Cooperative, MADammeron Corporation, UTGregory Mountain Products, CAJC Financial Inc, UTPage Speiser LCSW, UTPowderhound Marketing, UTRocking V Cafe, UTStreamline Industries Inc., UT

Standard Business Members ($150-$499)Alta Lodge, UTAvalanche Properties, UTBaked In Telluride, COBoulder Mountain Lodge, UTBrown Bag Farms, CACanyon Voyages Adventure Co., UTCapitola Book Cafe, CA

SUWA's Business Membership Program is a great way for your small business or company to support the protection of Utah’sredrock country. If you own a business and care deeply about protecting Utah’s magnificent wilderness lands for future genera-tions, please consider joining today. For a donation of $150 or more, we’ll send you a business member window decal and printyour company’s name in our newsletter (once a year) and on our website (with a link) at www.suwa.org/businessmembers. Athigher levels of support we offer additional benefits, such as a featured spot in our monthly e-newsletter. For more information,please contact Kathlene Audette at (801) 236-3763 or kathlene@suwa.org.

Listed below are businesses that currently support Utah wilderness through SUWA’s business member program. We encourageSUWA members across the country to reward these businesses with their patronage.

Charles Cramer Photography, CACharles Wood Photography, UTChristine Lee Carver P.C., UTConsulting Psychologists, AZCucina Deli, UTDabney & Dabney PC, UTDavid Gibans Law Offices, CODeanna Rosen LCSW, UTDeer Hill Expeditions, CODennis Chavez Development Corp, NM

Desert Highlights, UTEarth Goods General Store, UTFaceplant, UTGithens Properties, LLC, COGlenn Randall Writing and Photography, CO

Gospel Flat Farm, CAHaymaker Construction, CAHigh Country Appraisal, COHyperspud Sports, IDImlay Canyon Gear, UTInkling Design, COInstitute of Taoist Education and Acupuncture, Inc, CO

J Edward Hansford DDS, COJ Groene Construction Inc, KSKeen Inc, ORKind Coffee, LLC, COKuru Footwear, UTLaw Office Of Don Lipmanson, CALazy Lizard International Hostel, UTLucky Dog Communications, UTMatheson Design, ORMaui Mountain Environmentally Friendly Coffee, HI

Michael Gordon Photography, CA

Thank You SUWA Business Members!

Michael Kutten DMD, MOMomentum, LLC, UTMountain Chalet, COMountain Gear, Inc, WAMuench Photography Inc, NMOdeus Apparel, CAOdy Brook Enterprises, MIPack Rat Outdoor Center, ARPassage to Utah, UTPetzl America, UTPinnacle Peak Eye Care, AZPowderwhore Productions, UTRed Rock 'n Llamas, UTRichard Farrell CPA, CORocky Collins Construction, UTRTA Associates, CTScott T Smith Photography, UTSelect Stone, Inc, MTSelinda Research Associates, ILSouthwest Planning & Marketing, NMSteven L. Gilsdorf, CPA, AZStreamline Bodyworks, LLC, UTTesch Law Offices PC, UTTom Till Gallery, UTUnderwood Environmental, Inc, UTVortex Outdoors, UTWaterwise Design & Landscapes, LC, UT

William Stone Photography, NMWilliams Tree Farm, IDWords and Photographs by Stephen Trimble, UT

Workspace Installations LLC, CTWydah Corporation, UTZAK Construction, OR

SUWA also thanks the following businesses for their generous donations of goods or services:Ultralight Adventure Equipment (UT), Rockreation Sport Climbing Center (UT), Joby (CA), The Naked Binder (IA), and Voile Equipment, Inc (UT).

Summer 2010 Page 25

Get a Copy of SUWA’s Wild Utah Video on DVDSUWA’s popular multi-media slideshow, Wild Utah! America’s Redrock Wilderness includes video interviews,stunning photos, and compelling narration by longtime wilderness activist Robert Redford. These DVDsmake great gifts and educational tools!

Please send_____copies of the Wild Utah DVD at $10each (includes shipping).

Name:__________________________________

Address:________________________________

City:_____________State:_____Zip:_________

Please make your check payable to SUWA or includecredit card information (VISA, MC, AMEX, DISC):

CC#:________________________CVC#______Exp. date:_____ Amount: $________________

Mail form with payment to:SUWA, 425 E. 100 S. Salt Lake City, UT 84111 Wild Utah DVDs can also be ordered online

at www.suwa.org/goodies.

Gift Membership #1

From:______________________________(your name)

To:Name:______________________________

Address:____________________________

City:__________________State:_____Zip:________

Give Two Gift Memberships and Save $10!

Gift Membership #2

From:______________________________(your name)

To:Name:______________________________

Address:____________________________

City:__________________State:_____Zip:________

If you share a love of the outdoors with your friends, why not share your activism too? Gift mem-berships make wonderful gifts for birthdays and holidays. Simply mail in this order form with $50for two memberships (a $10 savings) or $30 for one membership and get your pals involved inthe wilderness cause!

Credit Card #: _____________________ CVC#_____

Exp. date:_______ Amount: $________

Mail form with payment to:SUWA, 425 E. 100 S.

Salt Lake City, UT 84111

Please make your check payable to SUWA or include credit card information below (VISA, MC, AMEX, DISC):

Page 26 Redrock Wilderness

These now classic 24" x 36" SUWA posters featurefull-color images of southern Utah by world-renowned wilderness photographer David Muench.The White Canyon poster (on black) featuresEdward Abbey’s words, “The idea of wildernessneeds no defense, only more defenders.” TheCedar Mesa poster (on natural fiber ivory) includesa quote by the Wallace Stegner: “...the spiritual canbe saved...” Either one would make a great gift forthat wilderness lover on your shopping list!

White Canyon

Cedar Mesa

Fine Art Postersby David Muench

Please send _____ White Canyon or _____ Cedar Mesa fine art posters at $20 each(including shipping).

Mail form with payment to: SUWA, 425 E. 100 S.

Salt Lake City, UT 84111

Name: ________________________________

Address: ______________________________

City: _____________State:____Zip:________

Please make your check payable to SUWA or include credit card information (VISA, MC,DISC or AMEX):CC#_____________________CVC#______

Exp. date:_______Amount $_____________

SUWA Baseball Caps and Other Goodies Available onOur Website!SUWA offers posters, hats, Wild Utah DVDs, gift memberships, and a limited selection of t-shirts forpurchase on our website—all of which make great gifts for friends or family. To view our onlineproduct catalogue, go to www.suwa.org/goodies.

And remember, CDs of singer-songwriter Greg Brown’s performance at Utah Wilderness Day areincluded with any $50 new membership, renewal, or gift membership purchase! See our donationpage at www.suwa.org/donate.

2

Reference Map for Articles in this Issue

Cedar Mesa (p. 13)

1 Mexican Mountain (p. 12)

2

Alton Coal Mine / Lower Robinson Creek (p. 17)4

3 Nine Mile Canyon (p. 13)

3

1

4

Printed on recycled paper using soy-based ink.

Non Profit Org.U.S. Postage

PAIDS.L.C., UT

Permit No. 474

425 East 100 SouthSalt Lake City, Utah 84111

See pages 14-15 for our “Wild About Utah” photo contest winners!

SUWA grassroots leaders and organiz-ing staff at the May 2010 GrassrootsLeader Retreat—a planning sessionheld at the Canyonlands Field Institutenear Moab, Utah.

Standing (from left to right): DeedaSeed (with son Joe hiding behind herleg), Allen Stockbridge, ClaytonDaughenbaugh, Mark Meloy, SandyHeise, Bryan Keith, Vicki Allen, WayneHoskisson, Jackie Feinberg, MikePainter, Anna Treibel, Dave Wolf,George Handley, Bev Wolf. Sitting(left to right): Brad O’Grosky, LeeGelatt, Terri Martin, Stephen Trimbleand Harvey Halpern.