Sunday, August 10, 2008

Protection Efforts on Two Major Utah Rock Art Sites

COALITION TO PRESERVE ROCK ARTJon Gum 1234 West Red Butte Washington, UT 84780435-627-1086 exploringrockart@gmail.com

August 8, 2008

This is just a short note to keep you informed of the status of potential damaging actions to two extremely important Utah Rock Art sites.These sites have been lighted in Southwest Utah as very important issues regarding our preservation efforts.Regarding Parowan Gap, the following was printed in the URARA’s August Vestiges. As you might guess, we must work hard to gain momentum. From the start, most of us were surprised that the government actions were in process, and yet they did not provide sufficient time to present any meaningful arguments to the actions. Any help or advice would be appreciated, since we will probably fail if we do not receive your support and your communications with the BLM.Parowan Gap DevelopmentsJon Gum, Coalition to Preserve Rock Art, http://www.exploringrockart.com/Can anybody perform miracles? We might need some help.Citizens were given until June 30, 2008 to answer the EA on oil and gas leasing and potential drilling around The Parowan Gap area, west of Cedar City. We want to protect the Parowan Gap from damage and prevent a Nine-Mile Canyon debacle from occurring in SW Utah.On July 2, 2008, the public notification of parcels for lease was issued. The government did not give the input from concerned citizens (several letters went in from Coalition to Preserve Rock Art members) a careful reading or perform a thorough management review of the comments received. Some person might have read them, but to my knowledge, they were not categorized and submitted to staff for a serious review. Therefore, we lost to the bureaucracy and the lack of concern regarding cultural resources. In the Parowan Gap case, they gave the interested citizens almost 30 days to respond, noted their responses, and then did what they set out to do, regardless of the input received. We are fortunate that the BLM was stopped at Parowan Gap in January 2007, since it gave us another 18 months to enjoy these cultural resources before the BLM dictated that Parowan Gap would be inflicted with the “Nine-Mile Canyon disease”.We will request a meeting with the BLM staff in Cedar City. We are also checking the Native American tribes to see if they want a coordinated effort in responding. I hope that other concerned organizations will be involved.Regarding Nine-Mile Canyon, two articles are attached that discuss a recent lawsuit filed (yesterday) attempting to stop the drilling of 25 wells on which adequate data has not been collected and potential damage to Cultural Resource sites could occur.Throughout the 2008 RMP process, the failure of BLM to understand in detail the public areas that BLM manages has been highlighted. Anybody who wants to understand the process and the rebuttals offered to concerned citizen and organization RMP responses should request a copy of the CD “Proposed Resource Management Plan and Final Environmental Impact Statement dated August 2008. Many decisions are being made without serious study and without knowledge of the areas being managed. In most cases, you (the citizens who hike, who explore, and spend time in the wilderness areas) are much more informed that the BLM personnel. That’s unfortunate, since BLM should learn from those who have experienced the “land”. Without that knowledge base, they will continue to make irrational decisions.Please review the two attachments. Several organizations are working together to impact a recent BLM decision that could effect some of our Cultural Resources and their efforts should be supported.Thanks, next time I will catch up on some other activities in SW Utah,Jon