Andrew Gulliford Review of Voices From Bears Ears
Saturday, December xi, 2021 5:00 Updated Saturday, Jan. 29, 2022 vii:04
Preservation vs. exploitation in southeast Utah, a v-year review
The distinctive Bears Ears can be seen for more than than 100 miles in every direction. Different tribes in dissimilar languages all have the aforementioned name for the rock formations – Bears Ears. (Courtesy of Andrew Gulliford)
Using the Antiquities Human action, five years agone this month President Barack Obama declared 1.35 million acres of San Juan County, Utah, a national monument.
Native American tribes and Ethnic peoples around the world expressed gratitude. Utah country and local politicians expressed outrage at what they claimed was "a country grab."
Welcome to the 21st-century Westward, where even remote rural landscapes can become hotly contested. A yr after Obama'south proclamation, President Donald Trump shrank the new national monument past 85%. Hard-working journalists followed the money to larn why Trump, probably illegally, reduced Bears Ears National Monument. There's no language in the Antiquities Deed that says a subsequent president can reduce a previous president's national monument, but Trump ignored that. What he did not ignore were the money and pleas of lobbyists, and a company named Energy Fuels.
A small rock granary lies tucked away in one of dozens of canyons coming off Cedar Mesa. President Donald Trump shrank Bears Ears by 85% and eliminated Cedar Mesa inside the monument, but President Joe Biden restored the original monument boundaries alleged past President Barack Obama. All of Cedar Mesa is now protected. (Courtesy of Andrew Gulliford)
Energy Fuels spent thousands of dollars lobbying to shrink the monument'south size. Stories by both Juliet Eilperin in The Washington Post on Dec. viii, 2017, and Hiroko Tabuchi on Jan. 13, 2018, in The New York Times are revealing. On May 25, 2017, two weeks later Interior Secretarial assistant Ryan Zinke visited San Juan County, Energy Fuels CEO Mark Chalmers, who manages the White Mesa Mill virtually Blanding, Utah, wrote to the Interior Department maxim the monument "could affect existing and time to come mill operations," and "there are also many other known uranium and vanadium deposits located within the (original boundaries) that could provide valuable energy and mineral resources in the future." Lobbying records verify that Energy Fuels hired the business firm Faegre Baker Daniels and spent $thirty,000 with them "to work on the matter and other federal policies."
According to the Post, Energy Fuels "urged the Trump administration to limit the monument to the smallest size needed ... to make it easier to access the radioactive ore." The Times reported, "Energy Fuels, together with other mining groups, lobbied extensively for a reduction of Bears Ears, preparing maps that marked the areas information technology wanted removed from the monument and distributing them during a visit to the monument by Mr. Zinke."
As an historian and a San Juan County, Utah, taxpayer, I decided to follow the coin, too.
The presence of the past is palpable in Bears Ears at remote stone fine art sites where ancient stories are etched on stone. (Courtesy of Andrew Gulliford)
I wanted to know what happened with more than $500,000 that the then San Juan County commissioners spent with a New Orleans police business firm. When I submitted a Utah open records act request, I received copies of the law house'southward invoices and the contract with the law house just no work production, emails, reports or anything else. The contract looked interesting, especially the line that said the firm would submit to the canton third-party billings and the canton was to pay them immediately. I wondered what that meant, and downwardly the rabbit hole I sped.
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The next few years brought a flurry of denials, refusals, failed mediation, two appearances before the Utah State Records Commission in Salt Lake City and finally a lawsuit in which the San Juan County attorney sued the state of Utah over not releasing records, emails and e-mail responses. For an historian and an occasional journalist, that only whetted my ambition. What did the powers that be non want me to see?
The canton chaser claimed lawyer-client privilege and even so my instincts told me that something else was going on. Lobbying is not protected. Taxpayers take the right to know how public coin is spent. How and why were the county'southward fancy lawyers trying to block the new national monument? Round and circular the maypole I went.
In a review of the invoices I obtained, I found unexplained and un-itemized bills for undisclosed services. The invoices were from firms with addresses in Washington, D.C., and Las Vegas. These services price the residents of San Juan County $132,938.40. A Google search of the names of these companies found that they are security firms that specialize in the Eye East.
The dramatic north-south alignment of Comb Ridge rises from the desert floor with views all the way to Monument Valley. The Rummage Ridge unit of Bears Ears was retained by President Donal Trump and was never deleted from Bears Ears National Monument. Camping ground forth the base of the Comb is a favorite pastime for Coloradans. (Courtesy of Andrew Gulliford)
The county spent more than $32,000 with Industrial Security Brotherhood Partners. The company's website says they provide "security solutions for critical infrastructure to security and defense markets" and they support "security through the design, implementation and back up of thermal surveillance, CCTV and communication systems that enhance war machine'due south adequacy to defend against and respond to diverse types of threats from hostile forces and terrorists." And so why would a New Orleans law firm bill the public taxpayers of San Juan Canton, Utah, for work washed by security firms doing business organisation effectually the world? Were terrorists descending upon Monticello, Blanding, Bluff and Mexican Hat?
Then information technology clicked. Of course. Secretarial assistant of the Interior Zinke was an ex-Navy SEAL. What do ex-Navy SEALs practice? They start international security firms. I had the dots but I could not connect them without the emails and piece of work production. I won in court, but then I lost because the Utah Chaser Full general's Office argued that because my request to the State Records Committee had been thrown into court, information technology had to stay there.
To the Hopis pottery sherds stand for their ancestors footprints. Sherds can exist picked up, photographed and examined, and then should be replaced exactly where they were found. (Courtesy of Andrew Gulliford)
My pro bono lawyers had had enough, so I punted. I kicked the ball to The Salt Lake Tribune, and they scored by getting all 400 of the emails denied me. Zak Podmore wrote a swell story in the Tribune titled "'We will circle all the wagons': Newly obtained emails show San Juan Canton's push to reduce Bears Ears." Then much for transparency and good authorities.
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Joe Biden was elected president. The Bears Ears shuffle began over again. Obama's boundaries for Bears Ears National Monument were re-instated Oct. 8, 2021, just in time for Indigenous Peoples Day – the former Columbus Day. Biden's campaign website had proclaimed that "his administration volition work with tribal governments and Congress to protect sacred sites and public lands and waters with high conservation and cultural values." He kept his promise.
Biden's Proclamation 10285 says: "Few national monuments more than clearly see the Antiquities Act's criteria for protection than the Bears Ears buttes and surrounding areas." Biden referred oft to Obama's Announcement 9558 and reiterated "the compelling need to protect one of the most extraordinary cultural landscapes in the U.s.a.."
A distinctive rock outcropping on Comb Ridge was named Highland Mary past Mormon pioneers who settled San Juan County, Utah. Navajos have a dissimilar name for the outcropping based on hunting bighorn sheep atop the Comb. (Courtesy of Andrew Gulliford)
Utah'due south largely Mormon political delegation does not agree. They responded in an opinion piece in the Deseret News titled "A monumental insult." The politicians argued that Biden'southward proclamation "perpetuates a cycle of corruption under the Antiquities Act," and that it happened "one time over again without local input," which is imitation considering newly elected canton commissions in San Juan County and Grand County, and the town quango in Barefaced all voted to restore the original Bears Ears boundaries.
The Utah politicians' real whopper, notwithstanding, was the statement that Biden's annunciation "fails to include the crucial input and involvement of local tribes in protecting and highlighting their own cultural heritage." Not then. Governing bodies of the Navajo, Hopi, Zuni, Ute Mountain Ute and Northern Ute Nations have all gone on record in favor of Bears Ears. Their back up has been unwavering.
By the end of October 2021, Utah'south attorney general requested bids for a legal team and senior attorneys with "feel arguing appeals to the United States Supreme Courtroom and United States Excursion Courts of Appeals." The land of Utah will sue the federal authorities over Biden's Bears Ears restoration to avenge a perceived "awe-inspiring insult." I wonder how many dollars will be siphoned off by lobbyists masquerading nether lawyer-customer privilege.
In their editorial in the Deseret News, Utah'south political delegation referred to San Juan County every bit "the poorest county of Utah," yet the authors failed to acknowledge that in the country's history other national monuments evolved into national parks that accept brought millions of dollars annually into rural areas. Mukuntuweap National Monument became Zion National Park. Both Arches and Capitol Reef began as national monuments. Why not permit Bears Ears National Monument, with constructive Indigenous management, take its own course?
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When will the opposition and legal controversies end? Will it take Congressional activeness or more years in the courts? Over a century agone, Congress passed, and Theodore Roosevelt signed, the Antiquities Deed to protect "objects of historic and scientific interest" using the "smallest expanse compatible with the proper care and direction of the objects to be protected." That linguistic communication has already been to the nation's highest court.
Across Bears Ears National Monument are dramatic examples of defensive architecture and refuge sites on cliff ledges where Bequeathed Puebloans sought safety and shelter. (Courtesy of Andrew Gulliford)
When Roosevelt designated the Chiliad Coulee every bit a national monument with over 800,000 acres, the Supreme Courtroom in 1920 said, aye, the president has that right and potency. A careful reading of Biden'south fourteen-page Annunciation 10285 reveals paragraph subsequently paragraph that confirms the entire region is one landscape, 1 "object to be protected."
Biden's proclamation says: "The Bears Ears landscape ... is not just a series of isolated objects, but is, itself, an object of historic and scientific interest requiring protection under the Antiquities Act. Bears Ears is a sacred state of spiritual significance, a historic homeland and a identify of belonging for Ethnic people from the Southwest. Bears Ears is a living, breathing mural that – owing to the area's barren surroundings and overall remoteness, as well equally the building techniques which its inhabitants employed – retains remarkably and spiritually meaning prove of Indigenous use and dwelling since time immemorial."
Byron Cummings was one of the early founders of archaeology in the American Southwest. This map is from his pioneering study, "The Aboriginal Inhabitants of the San Juan Valley," Bulletin of the University of Utah, Nov 1910. Much of Bears Ears National Monument is included in this map. Annotation that on the map the Bears Ears are given their Spanish proper name Orejas del Oso. (Courtesy of Andrew Gulliford)
There is not yet resolution of the vexing political question of the appropriate size for Bears Ears and whether the country should be open up for drilling and mining. In one case at the edge of the Ancestral Puebloan globe a one thousand years ago, Bears Ears is at present at the center of a public lands contend, but momentum for preservation only builds. As the landscape sits patiently waiting, we continue to trip the light fantastic the Bears Ears shuffle.
Andrew Gulliford, an award-winning author and editor, is a professor of history at Fort Lewis College. In spring 2022, the University of Utah Press will publish his volume "Bears Ears: Mural of Refuge and Resistance." Achieve him at andy@agulliford.com.
The presence of the past is palpable in Bears Ears at remote rock art sites where aboriginal stories are etched on stone. (Courtesy of Andrew Gulliford)
From the top of Cedar Mesa, stone fingers of canyons stretch to the east. Nigh canyons contain Bequeathed Puebloan sites now protected within Bears Ears National Monument. (Courtesy of Andrew Gulliford)
Because of increased visitation to Bears Ears, the Bureau of Land Management has stabilized several sites and restricted access to them such as at Monarch Cave. Visitors can now photograph the centuries-erstwhile walls but non enter them. (Courtesy of Andrew Gulliford)
Tourists detect potsherds and pieces of chert and put them on display on what is called a museum rock. This practice should exist discouraged because visitors encounter the abundance of artifacts and pocket a few of them which is illegal. Anything on a museum rock should be lightly scattered. (Courtesy of Andrew Gulliford)
The architecture of cliff dwellings varies across Bears Ears National Monument from intricate stone walls built by Chacoan refugees to Mesa Verdean domicile sites and kivas, to wattle and daub structures similar this 1 built past the Kayenta Anasazi. Multiple Native peoples speaking diverse languages moved in and out of the Bears Ears expanse over millennia. (Courtesy of Andrew Gulliford)
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Source: https://www.durangoherald.com/articles/the-bears-ears-shuffle/
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